Organizational Change and Resistance at Lewis Jeans: XPX0030 Essay

This essay analyzes the need for organizational change at Lewis Jeans, a UK jeans brand facing declining market share and high costs. It recommends transitioning from a hierarchical structure to a flat organization, fostering an inclusive culture, and shifting from extrinsic to intrinsic employee motivation. The essay also suggests adopting a participative leadership style to improve communication and employee engagement. Implementing these changes will reduce labor turnover, improve product quality, attract new customers, and enhance the company's overall performance. The solution also suggests overcoming resistance by creating collaborative and integrating the efforts towards the achievement of the common goals.

Organizational Change
2019
Student’s Name
5/26/2019

Organizational Change 1
Introduction
Lewis jeans is recognized as one of the major jeans brands of the United Kingdom which was
developed by Bart Lewis. The company operates at Croydon, Leeds, and Glasgow. It is
analyzed that the company is losing share due to the entry of the new competitors that attract
the younger generations. The unit cost of the company is 25% greater than its competitors
and the quality levels of the jeans are not acceptable which has reduced the sales to 15%. The
company also experiences high labour turnover which in turn creates the emerging need to
implement change in the organization structure, culture and the leadership and
communication style adopted by the company (Winnubst, 2017).
Organization structure
The company currently operates traditional hierarchical structure under which the Bart Lewis
controls the actions of all the departments and of all the areas. In this structure, the
department managers are pressurized to complete the daily targets and accept the decision
taken by Bart Lewis. In this hierarchical structure, the information flows from top to bottom
and each level is accountable to the superior accept the owner .i.e. Bart Lewis (Winnubst,
2017).
This structure does not allow to quickly responding to the changing needs and the lack of
communication affects the performance of the company. The departments shift the focus
towards the achievement of their own goals and create rivalry among the departments. There
is a high level on the involvement of the managers over the performance of the supervisors
which creates dissatisfaction among the workers and does not engage the employees in
designing creative solutions. The involvement of various management levels increases the
cost of the product and in turn, affects the sales of the company (O'Neill et al, 2016).

Organizational Change 2
Change in structure
The company must focus on adopting a flat organization structure. The flat organization
structure consists of lower levels of management which in turn will help in saving the budget
cost. Adoption of the flat organization will help in speedy communication and will involve
employees in decision making which in turn will motivate the employees and will reduce the
resistance to adopt change in the organization strategies. The flat organization structure will
allow the companies to quickly respond to the changing needs of the customers and retain
loyal customers towards the brand (Daft, 2015).
This structure will provide higher responsibilities and will engage the employees in designing
and implementing creative solutions to the problems and improve the quality of the jeans. It
will help in increasing the profits by making the employees more committed and involved in
the process (Daft, 2015).
Organizational culture
The company currently operates the market culture where the main focus of the managers is
to achieve the target and scrutinize the work at each level. It adopts the culture where the
employees have to follow the decisions taken at the higher level positions and are not
engaged in the decision-making process. The main focus is to achieve the target. The
managers create the pressure upon the supervisors to achieve the daily target and Bart Lewis
ensures that all the actions are in line to the strategies designed by him. He focuses on
achieving the short term goals in a formalized and structured manner (Alvesson and
Sveningsson, 2015).
The performance of the employees is directly linked to the bonus and the incentives received
by them. Higher the performance will generate more bonus and this leads to high labor

Organizational Change 3
turnover because the employees became dissatisfies when they don’t receive incentives and
bonus (Driskill, 2018).
Change in organizational culture
The company must focus on adopting an inclusive and supportive culture. It must consider
the needs of the employees to provide them maximum satisfaction and must not link bonus
with the performance. The company must provide support to the employees and must guide
their actions. It must adopt the changing culture and must train the employees to learn new
skills to be responsive to the changing needs of the customers and sustain the competitive
advantage in the competitive world. The company must consider employees at the greatest
asset to improve the performance and must be provided with the leverage to take the
important decisions that help in the growth of the business. It must focus on fulfilling the
social and psychological needs of the employees to make them more goal oriented and
develop a positive working environment. It will inculcate harmony and will reduce the
conflicts at the workplace which it turns motivates for higher performance (Korner et al,
2015).
Staff Motivation
The motivation of the employee plays a major role in enhancing the performance of the
company. It helps in making the employee more committed towards the goals and increases
the productivity of the company. In accordance with the Maslow’s need hierarchy theory
every employee has different needs and different motivators. The company must understand
the needs of the employees and must design the motivation accordingly (Lazaroiu, 2015).
It is analyzed that the company currently focuses on extrinsic motivation and motivates the
employees through rewards. It provides motivation in the form of bonus. The bonus is also

Organizational Change 4
linked to the performance of the employee. This, in turn, creates dissatisfaction and leads to a
high rate of labour turnover. The company must focus on the needs of the employees and
must design the motivation in accordance with the needs (Kuvaas et al, 2018).
Designing of motivation factors
The company must focus on extrinsic and intrinsic motivators. The employees must be
recognized for their performance and must be provided with higher roles and responsibility to
encourage them to apply new skills and perform a higher role in the organization. They must
be involved in the decision making to make them feel valued and further motivates them to
be committed towards the goals of the organization. The must provide flexibility in the
working hours and create an honest, respectful environment. The company must obtain
continuous feedback and must be recognized for their performance. This will help the
company to reduce the labour turnover and further reduces the recruitment cost of the
company. It will increase productivity by keeping the employees highly motivated. The
company must share the transparent information with the employees and must create
interactive sessions to create a positive environment and develop good relations with the
other departments and higher position managers (Mikkelsen et al, 2017).
Leadership and communication
The leadership and communication style also affect the functioning of the company. It is
analyzed that the company adopts the autocratic style of leadership under which Bart Lewis
gives the order and lays the expectation from the employees. It employs stronger control over
the actions of all the management levels. The company uses telephones and emails to
communicate with the managers to control all the areas of the business. Adoption of such
communication channels slows the process of action and the company is not able to make

Organizational Change 5
quick decisions in response to the changing needs of the customers. It also creates
misunderstandings which affect the performance of the company (Boies et al, 2015).
Changing leadership and communication style
The company must implement a participative style of leadership under which the leader
guides the employees and provide the opportunity to the employees to provide constructive
solutions to the company. This allows two-way communications and helps in understanding
the needs of the employees. It allows the employees to participate in the decision-making
process and motivates them to remain in the organization (Amanchukwu et al, 2015).
It must focus on implementing formal and informal communication channels to encourage
the direct flow of communication and a better understanding of the problems. It helps in
developing a positive relationship among all the levels of management and will make them
feel more engaged in the organization (Amanchukwu et al, 2015).
To implement change in the organization the company must make the appropriate plan and
must develop the communication strategy to communicate it to the employees. It must share
transparent information with the employees and must provide the training to implement
change in the organization and overcome the resistance of the employees to adopt the change
in the organization. The company must provide the support structures to guide the employees
in adopting the change in the organization (Mikkelson et al, 2015).
The resistance towards the change can be overcome by creating collaborative and integrating
the efforts towards the achievement of the common goals. It must design roles and
responsibilities to maximize the potential of the employees and must set the challenging and
achievable targets to encourage the employees and providing higher positions. It must
employ creativity and innovation and must persuade the employees to implement change in

Organizational Change 6
the organization. It must quickly resolve the conflicts and must be supportive of the
employees (Mikkelson et al, 2015).
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it is imperative to note that the company must adopt a flat
organizational structure and must be supportive to the employees. It must guide the actions at
all managerial levels and must encourage the employees through adapting extrinsic and
intrinsic motivation. It must implement the participative style of leadership to encourage two-
way communication and developing creative solutions for the company. The organizational
change will help in reducing labour turnover and a reduction in the cost of the company.
Adopting change will allow learning new skills to improve quality and attract new customers.

Organizational Change 7
References
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Organizational Change 8
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