MG630 Change Management & OD: Barnacle Bay Hotel Case Study 2021-22

This report examines the change management and organizational development challenges faced by Barnacle Bay Country Hotel, a family-run business in Scotland. It analyzes the impact of unplanned and emergent changes, such as menu adjustments, declining cleanliness standards, longer slack time for employees, customer complaints due to understaffing, increased competition, and untrained staff. The report provides guidance to Rita, the manager, on implementing a planned approach to change using Lewin's change management model (Unfreeze, Change, Refreeze) and organizational development approaches like goal attainment and employee relations. It also identifies potential conflicts Rita might face, including employee demotivation, time constraints, and cost implications. The report concludes with recommendations for improving the hotel's productivity, profitability, and brand image, emphasizing the importance of employee training, effective communication, and the adoption of appropriate change management strategies. Desklib offers access to similar solved assignments and past papers for students.

Change Management and
Organisational Development
CASE STUDY
Barnacle Bay Country Hotel

Table of Contents
Introduction.....................................................................................................................................3
Section with theories and models....................................................................................................3
A section linking practice in action to the models and theories outlined........................................4
What impact has unplanned and emergent changes had on the Hotel...................................4
What guidance would you give Rita for understanding a planned approach to change,
with consideration to organisational development approaches....................................5
What conflict might Rita face from implementing any changes?.................................6
Conclusion......................................................................................................................................7
Recommendation..........................................................................................................................8
References.....................................................................................................................................9

Executive summary
Every organisation needs to adopt change for business growth. Scanning the business
environment will provide the opportunity for the company to identify the areas which
need change within the company. Change management is a systematic approach for
dealing with changes adopted by an organisation to improve their productivity and
profitability as well as for mitigating any identified issue. On the other hand,
organisational development focuses to improve company’s capacity through various
effective strategies, structure, and effective management of people to develop their
overall productivity. The following report is based on the case study of Barnacle Bay
Country Hotel. There are a few issues faced by this hotel such as their employees
wasting their time while chatting which does not provide any profit to the company due
to which their productivity declines. There are many suggestions and recommendations
made in this report to tackle the situation such as providing training to employees,
engaging them to work within a team and many others. The main purpose of this report
is to identify the issues faced by Barnacle hotel and suggest few changes to mitigate
these issues.
Introduction
The organisations adopt change for enhancing their productivity and profitability.
Planned change is the process of preparing the employees of the organisation to adopt
change. Here, employees are well known for their change practices and change
purpose (Mansaray, 2019). On the other hand, unplanned change consists of those
changes which is not predicted by the organisation and which take place suddenly.
Here, employees are not aware of the changes and vision of their change management.
Barnacle Bay Country House Hotel is a well-known hotel in Scotland which is a family
business. It is having 100 bedrooms, a swimming pool, and a well-developed golf
course and all the business activities of this hotel are managed by 75 employees of
whom 55 are local employees who know the culture and traditional way of satisfying
customers. There is a good employee turnover for the company and few of the
employees even worked for more than 5 years. The following report covers the impact

of unplanned and emergent changes in the mentioned hotel, recommendations about
the guidance to Rita to understand a planned approach to change and the conflicts and
issues faced by Rita from implementing the change within their organisation.
Section with theories and models
Change management theory-
Lewin's model of change- This is the model for change management which consist of
three stages need in any particular change within the company. There are three stages
in this model which is mentioned below-
Unfreeze- This is the stage where the company communicate with their employees and
makes them understand the need for change within their organisation for their benefit.
Change- This is the second stage of the change model where change is implemented
within the organisation (Blumberg et. al., 2019).
Refreeze- This is the stage of this model where employees will continue to work with
new changes adopted by the hotel (Stoneham, Edmunds and Pollard, 2021).
Organisational development approaches-
Goal attainment approach- Every organisation works to achieve a certain goal and
objective of an organisation. This approach define that setting goals is essential and
measure the performance of company whether the employees are working well or not to
achieve these goals. The set goals of a company are required to communicate to
employees appropriately.
Employee relation approach- employees are considered one of the most important
assets for an organisation which helps them to achieve their goals and objectives on
time (Rosenbaum, More and Steane, 2018). A company needs to build a good
relationship with its employees and this can be done only after analysing the factors
which help the employees to get motivated to work effectively within the organisation.
A section linking practice in action to the models and theories outlined
What impact has unplanned and emergent changes had on the Hotel
Unplanned changes have impacted the chosen hotel upon their operations and
management in the following ways-

 Rita decided to change the menu of the hotel which is unplanned because she
added a few of those items which are too expensive for affording their targeted
customers. Here, Rita did not analyse the affordability of their customers and did
not analyse the preference of the customers of their hotel before adding vast
variety of wines in her hotel menu.
 Standards of cleanliness are not good enough as compared to the Health and
Safety concerns of COVID. The hotel face the issue of hygiene where their guest
complain about some issues related to the cleanliness of their rooms.
Emergent changes are those continuous change processes with an open and
unpredictable end. This change will bring a powerful cultural shift to the whole
organisation. There is no proper plan for such changes within the organisation due to
which it impacts badly upon productivity and profitability of the company. It is not
compulsory that every emergent change impacts negative upon the company’s
productivity, few of such changes may help the company to boost up the sales of their
services. A few of the impacts which are seen in the hotel due to emergent changes are
mentioned below-
 Longer slack time- It was noticed by the Rita that most staff members waste
their time chatting with each other or with their regular customers about their
personal life which is unproductive for the hotel.
 Customer’s complaint for understaffing of employees- At the time of biggest
sales for hotel services during summer months, Christmas time, hosting
weddings and many others the staff is run off their feet. The customers are
required to stand at large queue at the reception area due to less number of
employees. Hence, understaffing of employees during busy days are main
customers of customers of this hotel.
 Increase in competition- New hotels are going to develop new Barnacle Bay
Country House Hotel which can impacts negative upon it by increasing
competition within the market.
 Untrained employees- The employees of the chosen hotel are seen to be
untrained because sometimes they offer the wrong order to the wrong customers
and customers complain about their hotel that they have received that food item

which they have not ordered. This can be the result of untrained employees
within the hotel. Hence, it is essential to focus on these issues and make a few
changes to the hotel before they ruin the brand image of the hotel in the market.
What guidance would you give Rita for understanding a planned approach to change,
with consideration to organisational development approaches
Rita is required to scan the existing environment of hotel and adopt changes stage by
stage within the hotel. She can use Lewin’s change management model for analysing
change requirement and adopt change appropriately which is mentioned below-
Lewin's model of change-
Unfreeze- In the context of Barnacle Bay Country House Hotel, Rita is required to
communicate with their staff members and make them aware of the negative impacts of
their practices and low performance on the productivity of their hotel. She must also ask
their employees to suggest a few changes to adopt within a few days to come back on
track with high performance. She is required to communicate the wastage of time of
their employees while chatting declines the brand image of the hotel and lower their
productivity.
Change- In the context of a chosen hotel, Rita must hire an effective training manager
and ask him/her to train their staff members appropriately so that they will reduce the
mistakes of offering the wrong order at the wrong table. The hotel must hire new
employees so that their customers will not complaint about lack of employees. Adopting
digitalization payment procedure can also help the hotel to avoid large queue of
customers at reception area. Hiring new supervisor can check the performance of
employees well and make sure that right order will be received at right table.
Refreeze- This is the stage where Rita is required to communicate the change adopted
by her within the hotel to her employees. Secondly, in context of adopting digitalization
tools and machines to avoid large queues at reception area and to reduce mistakes of
wrong delivery of food at wrong table the existing employees must be trained to use
those technology which is adopted by hotel.
Organisational development approaches suggested to Rita-
Goal attainment approach- In the context of Rita's hotel, she is required to set
goals for maximising discipline at workplace while avoiding chatting of employees

unnecessary with each other and with customers at hotel. Another main goal that can
be set for the development of hotel is to maximise customer satisfaction through
avoiding mistakes. This goal can be achieved by using digitalization method of ordering
and delivering food dishes.
Employee relation approach- In the context of a chosen hotel, Rita is required
to communicate with existing employees and make them understand that when they
waste time while chatting can impact negative upon their organisational productivity.
Secondly, delivering wrong order at wrong table will also ruin their brand image and can
decline their customer arrival due to their dissatisfaction. All these issues arrive due to
irresponsibility of employees.
What conflict might Rita face from implementing any changes?
There are many conflicts which can be faced by a person who introduces a new change
within their company. In the case of Rita, she can face a few the challenges while
implementing the above-mentioned changes and these challenges are mentioned
below-
Demotivation of employees- It might be possible that when Rita will hire new
employees for her hotel and gave them higher power and authority then the existing
employees may demotivated from this step.
Providing time will consume a long time duration- In the context of a chosen
hotel, Rita had decided to train their employees by a trainer for reducing the mistakes of
offering the wrong product to the wrong customer. Hence, the training session will take
a longer time and it might be impacted negatively upon the hotel for closing hotel till
their employees get trained. Hence, for the chosen hotel it is suggested to the Rita that
she must order to train half employees first and another half will continue to work in the
hotel and when they get trained then they will be working within the hotel to manage
their operations and other remaining will sent for training
The huge cost will be incurred- The trainer which is selected for providing
training to employees will take a huge amount of fees for his services (Busse and
Doganer, 2018). It might be possible that the chosen hotel will adopt high technological
tools and software for the training process of employees which can increase the

expense of the company. Hence, Rita needs to make an appropriate budget for the
training process and ask the trainer to complete the training within the prepared budget.
Conclusion
From the above information, it is concluded that change management is one of
the most important factors for a company to grow. Manager is required to adopt those
change management strategies and practices which can directly help them to enhance
their productivity and profitability. Lewin's change model is consisting of 3 stages which
are unfreezing, change and refreezing. Few of the organisational development
approaches will help the company to manage change effectively. Focusing on issues
after adopting change is also essential for a company because in case the conflicts and
challenges get ignored then this will create an obstacle to achieving the objective of
change.
Recommendation
 It is also recommended to the hotel that they will hire high technological tools and
software for their dining area so that customers will order from their sitting area
through touch screen technology and the order with a special code will offer at
the right table by the staff members to avoid serving wrong order to wrong
customer.
 The another issue is related to slack time of employees, for this the Rita is
recommended to hire a supervisor who always keep monitoring the performance
of employees and stop them to waste their time while chatting unnecessary with
each other as well as with clients.
 They are required to focus more upon standards of cleanliness for their hotel and
make sure that the rooms and bathrooms will be clean properly and the
supervisor must be assigned to check that rooms are properly cleaned or not. A
regular inspection of hotel by Rita is essential.
 Clients also complaint for waiting too long for services and the hotel employee
did not serve perfectly. Hence, here Rita is recommended to train her existing

employees and hire new employees who are engaged to their work which further
helps to create a good working culture at hotel.

References
Blumberg, M. and et. al., 2019. Effective organisational change to achieve successful
ITIL implementation: Lessons learned from a multiple case study of large
Australian firms. Journal of Enterprise Information Management.
Busse, R. and Doganer, U., 2018. The role of compliance for organisational change:
Qualitative evidence from German SMEs. Journal of Organizational Change
Management.
Dung, L.T. and Hai, P.V., 2020. The effects of transformational leadership and job
satisfaction on a commitment to organisational change: a three-component
model extension approach. The South-East Asian Journal of Management,
14(1), p.6.
Higgins, C. and et. al., 2019. Journey or toolbox? Integrated reporting and processes of
organisational change. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal.
Leego, S. and Bider, I., 2021, September. Using Fractal Enterprise Model in
Technology-Driven Organisational Change Projects: A Case of a Water Utility
Company. In 2021 IEEE 23rd Conference on Business Informatics (CBI) (Vol. 2,
pp. 107-116). IEEE.
Mansaray, H.E., 2019. The role of leadership style in organisational change
management: a literature review. Journal of Human Resource
Management, 7(1), pp.18-31.
Rosenbaum, D., More, E. and Steane, P., 2018. Planned organisational change
management: Forward to the past? An exploratory literature review. Journal of
Organizational Change Management.
Stoneham, M., Edmunds, M. and Pollard, C., 2021. Local governments' decade of
organisational change to promote child health and wellbeing: a Western
Australian qualitative study. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public
Health, 45(4), pp.355-363.
Vargas, V.R. and et. al., 2019. Sustainable development stakeholder networks for
organisational change in higher education institutions: A case study from the
UK. Journal of Cleaner Production, 208, pp.470-478.