Organizational Change Management: A Case Study of Heinz Australia

This report provides an in-depth analysis of the organizational change management implemented at Heinz Australia under the leadership of Peter Widdows. The company faced challenges in staff retention and production before Widdows's appointment. The report examines the cultural changes using the cultural web framework, focusing on elements like organizational structure, control systems, power structure, symbols, rituals, and stories. It highlights the key forces driving change, including simplified organizational culture, reduced individualism, and employee engagement strategies. The report also identifies the strengths of the new culture, such as increased employee trust and a healthy working environment. Finally, it recommends aspects to be monitored and sustained to ensure continuous organizational growth. The analysis includes the steps taken by the managing director, the factors contributing to progress, strengths and weaknesses of the implemented strategies, and recommendations for sustainable growth.

Running head: ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE MANAGEMENT
Organizational Change Management
Name of Student
Name of University
Author Note

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Executive Summary
Heinz Australia is one of the giant food production company that has been operating in the
country over view decades. However, the company has faced several issues regarding staff
retention and production. The company has not only stumbled in increasing the production but it
was going backwards in the production. In addition to this, it was facing problems due to high
number of employee turnover. To counter these problems the organization has appointed a new
managing director. The report focuses on the step that are taken by the managing director in
order to solve the issue. The factors that has been helpful in the progress of the organization and
the strength and weakness of these steps has been analyzed. A recommendation has been
provided in order to sustain the continuous growth.

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Table of Contents
Cultural Change at Heinz Australia.................................................................................................3
Key Forces of Organizational Change.............................................................................................5
Key strengths of the new culture.....................................................................................................6
Recommended Aspects to be Monitored and sustained to Ensure the Organizational Change......8
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
Reference.......................................................................................................................................12

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Cultural Change at Heinz Australia
Heinz is an American food processing company that enjoys global recognition. In the year 1935,
the organization started to operate in Australia. However, over the years the company was going
through significant problems. The organization was facing issues regarding the staff retention
and the overall revenue generation of the company declined significantly. In 2003, the company
has appointed a new managing director in order to tackle the situation. The new managing
director, Peter Widdows identified that the company needs to go through major change in order
to boost the production as well as to build a favorable organizational culture. Hence, Widdows
took few drastic steps that have boosted the organization significantly. These cultural changes
can be analyzed by using cultural web designed by Johnson and Scholes (Ahammad et al., 2016,
pp. 66-75). The cultural web is a paradigm that illustrates the mission and value of an
organization. In addition to that, the framework also analyze the organizational structure and
control system along with other factors. Hence, the paradigm is highly effective in understanding
the change process of an organization. The elements of cultural web paradigm are Control
System, Organizational Structure, Power Structure, Symbol, Rituals and Stories.
These elements can be analyzed in the context of the organizational change that took place in the
Heinz Australia. While discussing the Organizational Structure, it can be said that Widdows has
noticed that the organization was following a very complex organizational structure. Hence, an
environment of conflict and confusion often arose within the organization. This has hampered
the overall production of the organization. Moreover, as a result of the complex organizational
structure, the higher management was not supportive enough to the junior employees and their

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ideas (Alvesson and Sveningsson, 2015, pp. 34). Widdows hence, changed the practice of
organizational hierarchy and used the method of including all employees in the change process.
In addition to that, Widdows has reduced the number of employees drastically. It has helped the
organization in understanding and retaining the skilled and talented employees. This decision has
increased the efficiency and production of the organization.
Another important aspect of the framework is the Control System. Every organization follows a
particular method of monitoring the operations and the procedures. In the organization where
complex organizational structure is being maintained, it is often monitored that the senior
managers tend to hold the power culture (Elnaga and Imran 2013, pp.137-147). The similar
incident has been monitored in the Heinz Company. Widdows monitored that the senior
managers are controlling the overall production of the organization and are not willing to share
views and ideas. This was affecting the morale of the staff members and the rates of employee
turnover was high. To solve this issue Widdows adopted the method of boosting staff morale and
encouraging them to share their views and ideas regarding better production as well as
innovation (Rajasekar, 2014, pp. 28). In this regard, the role of Power Structure is also to be
analyzed. The element analyze the procedure of decision-making and power controlling within
an organization. Widdows has employed effective measures in order to encourage healthy
organizational structure as well maintaining a balance between the divisions of power within the
organizational hierarchy.
Another important element of the cultural web is the Symbols. The symbols generally refer to the
logo and design of the company. In this regard, it can be said that the logo of Heinz fetches
significant recognition. Symbol not only refers to the logo of the organization but also the
includes the symbols of power (Cartwright and Cooper, 2014, pp. 29-42). In this regard, it can be

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said that Widdows has skillfully avoided the process of creating a strong power symbol for the
organization so that the employees do not feel intimidated in while communicating with the
senior employees.
The organization has implemented and followed rituals and routines religiously. Widdows has
put emphasis on organizing meetings and building reports on a regular basis. However, he has
made the rules and regulations flexible. The organization hence allows flexible organizational
culture and working environment. This in turn has helped to create an environment of mutual
trust and understanding amongst the employees (Schaffer, Sandau and Diedrick ,2013, pp.1197-
1209). The primary motto of Widdows was to establish the organization as “A great place to
work”. In this regard, Widdows has employed a successful technique of involving the employees
into the process of decision-making. Moreover, stories and myths of about an organization
influences the working environment to a great extent. The managing director of Heinz thus
employed the method of building the organization a very favorable place. Along with the reward
system for the employees, it has also come up with various programs and policies to secure the
wellbeing of the employees. Widdows’s primary motto was to assure the employees that they are
being equally respected and acknowledged similar to the senior managers (Ahammad et al.,
2016, pp.66-75). To implement it, Widdows followed the method of “walk the talk”. He ensured
that the all employees are equally respected. This has helped the organization to be identified as
a better place to work.
Key Forces of Organizational Change
As analyzed by the cultural web paradigm, the organization has mostly been helped by the
organizational changes that were implemented by Widdows. It has been monitored that the
organization has gone through positive changes as a result of the change procedure. In this

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regard, the key forces that have played influential role in bringing the organizational change. The
factors that have been helpful in the process of organizational change are simplified
organizational culture, reducing individualism and power control (Albrecht et al., 2015, pp.7-
35). As a part of the organizational change, Widdows has employed the process of including the
employees in the organizational decisions. The decision of acknowledging the views and ideas
have helped the organization to build an environment of mutual trust and understanding. For
Heinz the external and internal forces that are playing influential role in changing the
organizational culture are the diversity of the workforce, ethical behavior, change in the
expectation of the employees and change in the working environment. Widdows has bring
positive changes in the organizational culture and ethical behavior of the employees (Anderson,
2016, pp. 37). Changing the employee reward policies has helped the organization largely. The
organization has adopted the method of including the ideas of the employees and has come up
with better policies regarding employee healthcare and security. It has included policies such as
providing healthcare benefits to the employees as well as to their family members. Along with
that, it has introduced reimbursement of medical bills, payment of gym membership charges and
so on. This has helped to encourage the employees and made them more productive.
However, the decision of reducing the employees has affected the organizational environment in
the initial stages. It has created an environment of turmoil and unrest amongst the employees.
They were cynical due to the drastic reduction of the number of employees. Although, the initial
unrest has been overcome by the process of employee engagement. In addition to this, the
organization needs to focus on the rituals and routines of the organizational meeting (Anitha,
2014, pp. 41). Management meetings as well as team are important in order to keep up with the
continuous progress. The Heinz Australia has employed the method of practicing the changes in

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a religious manner. This has helped the organization in keeping up with the continuous
development.
Key strengths of the new culture
Identifying a negative culture within the organization, Widdows took the initiative
implementing the change actively. The very first change he brought in the organization was
reduced the number of salaried employees by 25% along with new board members in the middle
level (Boons, F., Montalvo, Quist and Wagner, 2013, pp.1-8.). The major benefit of the change
was considerable as Widdows mainly focused on the small structure so that supervising them
would be effective. While implementing the new culture, Widdows focused on the idea of
changing the attitude and behaviors of the company. The employees of the organization were
encouraged to work together with the motto ‘a great place to work’. Instead of forceful
implementation of change, the employees were welcomed take part in the process of change
enthusiastically. The employees were asked share their feedback and point view regarding the
change. Widdow demonstrated the senior managers the proper behavior they should have while
communicating with their subordinates. Instead of rebuking and insulting, Widdows advised the
managers to listen to the employees patiently and to show respect while speaking to them
(Freeze 2015, p.109). Widdows addressed the initial impact of the change implementation was
too negative as an outrage was spread among the employees due to the headcount reduction by
25%. Thus the employees were motivated and encourage as Widdows welcomed the employees
to share their views in the decision making process. Not only that Widdows made it assured that
the point of view and contribution shared by the employees are taken under consideration and
given value on serious note which generated employee trust and involvement to a greater extent
in the process of making the organization a great place to work (Al-Haddad and Kotnour, 2015,

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pp.234-262). The new culture, which Widdows implemented gave serious attention on a healthy
working environment so that employees can be confident and can have a belief on their own
potential. Thus, the whole idea of the change mainly focused on the employee engagement so
that they will be unable to work with the best efforts.
The major strength of the new culture in the change implement was that the Widdows
and the senior managers of the company focused on work life balance policies so that the
employees will be able to maintaining the balance between their personal life and their
professional life. Hence, these policies were the major driving force behind the successful
implementation of the new culture as emphasis were given on the initiative so that employees
feel valued at work. In the new culture, Widdows made it assure that the employees are given a
lot of benefits so that they will be encouraged to engage more with the organization (Benn,
Edwards and Williams, 2014, pp. 38). In the new culture, the senior managers along with
Widdows assured that the initiatives of change process are continued with further improvements
(McCalman and Potter ,2015, pp. 28). The other major strength of the company was to focus on
the increasing employee trust and a healthy working environment where employees have a
mutual understanding as well as respect towards each other.
Recommended Aspects to be Monitored and sustained to Ensure the
Organizational Change
The management of team must ensure that the culture, which has been implemented
within the organization, should remain positive or improved further but should not become as it
was previously. The major factor, which the organization must focus on, in this regard is:

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 The employees are valued at work. Thus, from the very level of hierarchy, it needs to be
assured that employees in all the levels including the senior managers and middle level
managers and their subordinates are respectful to each other while behaving with each
other.
 It must be assured that the employees within the organization are given the opportunity of
giving inputs, sharing feedbacks and point of views and most importantly, most
importantly they are given the opportunity of contribution in the decision making process
(Awadh and Alyahya, 2013, p.168). Adopting the method of incorporating the employees
in the process of organizational change helps in building the sense of inclusion amongst
the employees. This in turn help the employees to feel encouraged regarding the
organizational change.
 The other major factor, which the company must keep in mind, is that the employees are
motivated. Thus, special attention should be given on small celebration in order to assure
that the employees are not affected by the monotony of the work life.
 Instead of forceful implementation of any change or new policies, it must be assured that
the management takes the in initiative of making understand of that change as to how the
change can generate a range of benefits to the employees.
On the other hand:
 The senior management team should include the feedback collection from the employees
in the process of monitoring in order to understand the influencing factor on the
employees and to address any possible issue before it becomes serious.
 In order to increase employee efficiency and to sustain with the new culture, the
organization must organize some skill development and personality development

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programs through which the employees will be able to enhance their skills and can put it
into effort while assuring a healthy working culture within the company (Elnaga and
Imran, 2013, pp.137-147).
 The other part, which the company must keep in mind in respect to maintaining a healthy
working environment of the company, is the communication. It must be assured that the
employees communicate with each other so that they can solve problems and challenges
easily while maintaining a healthy environment.
 Special attention must be given on the aspect that employees do not develop any grudge
against each other and indulge in competition. In order to maintain a healthy working
culture within the organization, the management of the company must assure that
employees get the opportunity of communication with the higher authority in case of
sharing feedback or in case they face any challenges or issues (Schaffer, Sandau and
Diedrick, 2013, pp.1197-1209).
 The higher authority also must take follow ups so by arranging monthly wise interaction
sessions. In the whole process of maintain a healthy working culture, the management
need to assure that the policy of reward and recognition is improved with time and
demands of the employees. It must be assured that the further developments are aligned
with the culture of the organization.
Hence, after analyzing the factors and conditions, it can be said that these are the recommended
actions that can be taken and sustained so that the organization does not slide back to its old path
of thinking and functioning.

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Conclusion
To conclude it can be said that the organization has successfully incorporated several strategies
in order to bring effective organizational changes. Employment of strategies regarding employee
engagement has helped the company to retain the trust of the workforce. Moreover, the strategies
of organizational communication has proved immensely helpful in bringing the necessary
changes. Although, the reduction of number of employees created an initial unrest amongst the
employees, the strategic implementation of employee welfare schemes has been successful to
pacify the employees. Hence, it can be said that the strategies taken by the management of Heinz
Australia have been successful in increasing the production of the company as well as increasing
the efficiency of the workforce. Another important aspect of the organizational change that has
been influential in bringing success to Heinz Australia is the simplification of the organizational
structure. To retain this success the company must keep up with the strategies and focus more on
further innovations.