Organisational Development Project: Improving Emirates Airways Culture

This project analyzes the need for organizational development within Emirates Airways, focusing on addressing employee behavior and improving the company's culture. The project utilizes Lewin's change model, outlining its three stages: unfreeze, change, and refreeze, to facilitate the implementation of positive changes. It identifies key stakeholders, including ground staff, crew members, trainers, and management, and emphasizes the importance of their involvement in the change process. The project proposes a five-phase design, including need identification, target group identification, employee communication, implementation, and monitoring/evaluation. The project also highlights the required competencies for stakeholder involvement, such as self-motivation and knowledge of the changes. Furthermore, the project emphasizes the importance of project monitoring and evaluation through KPIs and continuous assessment. Finally, the project reflects on the application of new knowledge and skills, emphasizing the role of training and leadership in fostering a positive work culture and improving employee performance, ultimately contributing to organizational success.

Running Head: Organisational Development
Organizational Development
Question-Answer
System04104
8/1/2019

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1. Introduction
Emirates Airways is one of the leading airline companies in the Middle East. However,
the company is facing strong issues related to employee’s behaviour in the organisation. This
Project Initiation Document (PID) helps to bring a positive culture change in the organisation
through bringing change in the organisation.
It is the first responsibility of a project manager to identify the needs of bringing change.
Change in the culture required because people need training programmes that how they
should behave and act with customers. It is the matter of organisational reputation and its
image in the people. However, change cannot be implemented in a vacuum rather it needs
time to implement. Therefore, proper mental awareness and capability to develop the new
changes are required in the employees for successful implementation of change. As a
manager, it will be better to adopt freezing and unfreezing style of change so the people can
adopt the changes according to the organisational need (Grey, 2016). However, this change
will be implemented to change the rough employee behaviour of employees and cabin
crewmembers in the Emirates Airways.
Grey, D. (2016). Emirates Airline a ‘golden cage’ that reinforces ‘culture of fear’ –
whistle-blower website [online]. Retrieved from: https://www.rt.com/news/338442-emirates-
airline-whistleblower-site/
2. Project Approach
There are many approaches of change management that are famous in recent days.
However, in this organisational change Lewin’s model can be easily implemented in the
organisation. The Lewin’s change model has three stages, which are Unfreeze stage, Change,
and Refreeze stage. The first stage shows the preparation for the change in the organisation.
At this stage, the organisation tries to break that status quo where people resist the changes in
the organisation. The project manager tells the employee about the need of change and about
the benefits of bringing change in the organisation. The second stage in this model enables
the project manager to bring the change and people normally begin to adopt the changes and
spending time with the new changes. However, at this stage communication and cooperation
of people with the project is necessary. The third stage of this model shows the stability of the
organisation after adopting and implementing the change in the organisation and makes it as

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the regular part of the work. This model provides a better option and convenience to the
management to implement the change easily (Burnes, 2014).
Apart from this, two other famous models can also be considered for the change such as
Kotter’s Change model and ADKAR model. However, through this model it is not easy to
implement the change easily in the organisation. Where Kotter’s model is a step-by-step
model and time consuming, the ADKAR model is also a time consuming model which does
not consider the opinion of employee in bringing change in the organisation.
Burnes, B. (2014). Kurt Lewin and the planned approach to change: a re‐
appraisal. Journal of Management studies, 41(6), 977-1002.
3. Stakeholders
The key stakeholders in change management are the ground staff and employees of the
organisation, crewmembers, the trainers, and the manager in the organisation. The HR
department participates and is responsible for providing proper training to the employees,
which helps them to improve their organisational cultural and work behaviour. The role of
employees is to adopt the ethical and moral aspects of their work and behave in ethical way
in the organisation with other employees and with the customers (Mantur, 2016). The rude
behaviour of cabin crewmembers is really a serious concern for the organisation that destroys
the image of the Emirates Airways. Therefore, the role of top management is also crucial in
change management that encourages the employees to adopt the change and bring significant
change in their behaviour and acts. The organisation can also involve the new employees and
new cabin crewmembers in the change, which is crucial for the organisation to transform the
overall culture of the organisation.
Mantur, N. (2016). The Emirates: Airline Company or a global lifestyle brand? [online].
Retrieved from: http://sapientia.ualg.pt/bitstream/10400.1/8050/1/Tese%20N%20Mantur.pdf
4. Project Design
The organisation can identify five phases in bringing change in the organisation.
1. Need Identification and Goal Setting: The first step in the training to identify why
training is needed. In this phase, the organisation can also identify the key objective
behind implementing the change.

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2. Identify target group/department: The second step is to identify those groups or
departments where change is necessary. The organisation should identify which
people have urgent need of training.
3. Inform the employee about the change: The next step is to inform the employees
about change that why it is necessary for organisation and for employees.
4. Implement the change: The next step is to implement the change in the organisation
and arrange the training for the employees. Set a schedule for every group of
employees that when they will have to participate in the training.
5. Monitoring and evaluation of training: After implementation, it is required to
monitor and evaluate the training on regular basis and identify the improvement area
where people need to work more. This is the final phase and it determines the success
of overall change project.
4.1 Competencies required for stakeholder involvement
The stakeholder should know about the importance of change in the organisation. They
need to know that why training is necessary and how it helps the employees to improve their
behaviour with organisation and improve the organisational performance. The full and honest
participation of employees at every level of change project is necessary (Wafik, Abou-Shouk,
& Hewedi, 2017). However, if the top leader encourages the employees to adopt the new
changes then it is easy for employees to adopt the changes. However, self-motivation, ease of
participation, and knowledge about the change helps the project manager to successfully
implement and accomplish the project in the organisation.
Wafik, G. M., Abou-Shouk, M. A., & Hewedi, M. M. (2017). Airline Passenger Travel
Cycle, Satisfaction and Loyalty: A Comparison of EgyptAir and Emirates
Airlines. International Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Systems, 10(1), 1.
5. Project Monitoring and Evaluation
The project-monitoring phase helps to track the project performance and progression.
This is the final phase and one of the important phases of implementing change in the
organisation. To monitor the progress of the project it is required to use the key performance
indicators (KPIs) and then evaluate the project progress.
The main focus of monitoring is to identify the need of change and identify when a
change is needed when project is in progress. It is the responsibility of the project manager to

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identify how the required change could be implementing during the project when it is
required. Apart from this, the time to time a conversation with the employees also helps in
monitoring the project progress. The evaluation and monitoring of the behaviour of
employees can also be possible through observing their behaviour with the customers. It is
the responsibility of project manager to monitor and evaluate the project at each stage.
At the early stage of the project, it is necessary to assess and evaluate the time needed to
complete the task. However, once the required time calculated by the project manager, in the
next stage of the project, manager should modified the project schedule according to the
requirement. It requires continuous monitoring and evaluation of time consumed in the
project. At the middle stage of the project, the project manager should also measure the
budget variance and estimate that what is the actual cost of the project and what was the
estimated cost. If the actual cost varies from the estimated cost, the manager should take
immediate steps to reduce the cost gap between actual and estimated cost. Apart from this, in
the last stage of the product, project manager must review the whole procedure of the projects
and should re-monitor and check the project that it will be done in appropriate manner or not.
However, removing the chances of failure and reducing the numbers of errors should be the
first priority of motoring plan in the organisation.
6. Applying New Knowledge and skills into the Working Practices
After study and doing some exercise on the employee’s behaviour and performance
management, I have found that a positive working culture and good behaviour of employees
are the key requirements of any organisation. I think training help the employees to gain
knowledge and practical experience to the employees and help the employees to perform
better and gain positive experience in the organisation. I think learning about management of
project and role of employees will help me to make a better project planning in my
organisation where I will work as a leader or project manager.
I have also learned from the above analysis and through projects I have done in the class
that experience of old employees also does matter for the organisation because it can help the
new people in the organisation and guide them in right direction to accomplish the project. It
will help the organisation to maintain a positive work culture in the organisation. However,
the old employees can also share their opinion to the new employees and ask them to
implement the positive changes in their career (Aziz, Najafi, Al-Shuaibi, & Shamsudin,

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2016). When I learn about the change management then I found that change is necessary for
any organisation for the continuous improvement in the business performance and improves
the productivity of employees. Change also helps the employees to adopt the contemporary
change in technology and business processes so it can help to face the strong competition in
future.
After analysing all these concept related to project management and change management,
I think transfer of new knowledge and skills could be implemented in the organisation
through encouraging people towards their performance. As a leader, I would like to motivate
and encourage the people to take the new knowledge through training and other skill
development activities and implement it into daily working practices. I would also like to
observe the changes in their performance and guide them in right direction to ensure long-
term success and achievement of organisational objective and goals.
Aziz, N. A., Najafi, B., Al-Shuaibi, A. S. I., & Shamsudin, F. M. (2016). Behavioural
Consequences of Customer Perception on Emotional Labour among Airline Service
Employees. International Review of Management and Marketing, 6(7S), 162-168.