Leading and Managing Organizational Change: A Woolworths Report

This report delves into the intricacies of leading and managing organizational change, using Woolworths as a case study. It outlines the change management process, emphasizing the importance of assessing employee readiness and fostering effective communication. The report explores the impact of organizational behavior on change strategies, considering both internal and external factors such as political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental influences. It details key components of a change management project plan, including resource requirements, risk management, and timelines. Furthermore, the report identifies and analyzes potential barriers to change, such as lack of employee involvement and ineffective communication, providing actionable strategies to overcome these challenges and facilitate successful organizational transformation. The report concludes by summarizing key findings and emphasizing the significance of strategic change management for organizational success.

Lead and Manage
Organizational Change

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Change management process and strategy for embedding change.............................................1
Impact of organization behaviour on change strategies. ............................................................2
Describing some components of change management project plan...........................................3
Presenting some barriers to change and strategies to overcome it..............................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
References........................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Organization change refers to the process that an organization follows to bring
change in the process of production, change in strategies, change in technology, or change in
organization culture etc. for implementing such change. The Report will be based on
Woolworths Group. It belongs to Retail industry, one of the largest chain of supermarkets of
Australia (Lewis, 2019).
The Report will outline the process of managing change in the organization and change
management model, meaning of organization behaviour and how it affect the strategy of
managing the change. The Report will also explain various elements of the plan of change
management and different types of barriers that may occur during change management etc.
Change management process and strategy for embedding change.
Change management process refers to the various steps that are being followed for
management of the changes in the organization. There are various elements for successful
management of the change. The management of Woolworths will adopt the following steps for
managing change in the organization.
 Firstly the manager will assess the readiness of people working in organization regarding
the change through assessment of employees etc.
 Manager of Woolworths will communicate with the workers to create awareness
regarding the change.
 Now, organization will organize sponsor activities such as senior leader will participate
in the process of change management (Hunjra, Bakari, H. and Masood, 2017).
 Team which is responsible for management of change will provide training to managers.
So that, they can influence workers for accepting the change.
 Change management team of Woolworths will provide the training and development
opportunities to employees who will be affected by the change.
 Change management team will support management to manage the resistance of
employees regarding change.
 Involvement of employees is essential for managing changes therefore, employer will
receive feedback from employees for managing the change.
 Now, management will monitor to ensure the success of change management.
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Model for change management – Organization can use various models for managing
the changes in the firm. For example- Woolworths has proposed the change in process of
production by implementing advance technology. To implement such change, management of
the firm will follow Kurt Lew in model for managing the change.
Kurt Lewin's Model – This model helps the organization to understand the process of
managing change in practical way. The manager of Woolworths will use this model for
managing the change in the organization. Such as change in the process of performing work etc
(Huarng, K.H. and Mas-Tur, 2016). There are various stages such as-
Unfreezing -In this stage, manager of Woolworths will make efforts for creating
awareness of employees regarding change. So that, they will be aware of the objectives behind
change.
Change- At this stage , change management team will implement the change in the
organization. This stage is not easy because, some employees will resist to the change.
Freeze - At this stage, employees of Woolworths will accept the change that was
implemented in the company.
Impact of organization behaviour on change strategies.
Organization behaviour refers to the attitude and behaviour of workers in the
organization. Since any type of change involves uncertainty of its impact on the organization,
management of the firm have to influence the behaviour of employees towards implementation
of the change in the firm. The readiness as well as resistance of employees towards the change
management strategy that was implemented for managing change impact the implementation of
the strategy. For example, if management has adopted Kurt Lewin model, during the change
stage of the model, it may be possible that employees resist towards the change. Therefore,
organization behaviour directly impacts the success of change management strategies (Burke,
2017).
There are various external factors that can affect change management strategy of the company.
These are as follows-
Political factors – Political factors existing in political environment will also impact the
implementation of change management strategy in Woolworths. It includes the attitude of
political party towards the industry, policy of government in respect of trade, view of
government towards technological changes etc.
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Economic factors – Economic factors such as demand and supply of the products,
change in rate of tax, rate of inflation will indirectly affect the strategy of Woolworths in respect
of management of the change.
Social factors – Social factors such as change in the taste of customers, attitude and
belief towards the company will affect change management strategy of the firm.
Technological factors – Technological factors such as change in technology of
developing products will also affect the strategy of managing change in the company.
Legal factors – Laws and regulations of Government of country in which firm is
operating will also impact change management strategy. Such as law related with safety of
workers etc.
Environment factors – Company has to consider the impact of laws and regulations of
Government of the country in respect of the environment. Such as proposed change will not
create negative impact on the environment etc.
Describing some components of change management project plan
There are some components of change management project plan which are as mention
below:
Resource Requirements: When the change management plan is implemented, then
resource planning or requirement is an important factor. This includes the determination of
resources such as people, equipment, material and the quantity that is essential to carry out the
project activities (Hayes, 2018). For that, the resource should be in top quality and it is quite
essential for the firm to meet the requirement of resources such that technological resources,
Human resources, financial resources etc.
Risk Management: When the change management project plan is implemented, then
there may be chances of risk, therefore, the proper way to manage risk is through the creation of
a risk register that will help to listing most important risk that affect even after completion of a
project. The risk register describe the type of risk, its probability, impact upon the project,
priority and the action which can be taken by the manager to minimize this.
Timelines: Managing a time, is another important component since project have a
defined beginning and end. In the same way, there are some external stakeholders are also
involved in the determination of a deadline dates (Hornstein, 2015). Therefore, developing the
project schedule and involving expensive management software will help a business to
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communicate the change management project milestone and deadlines to the applicable
stakeholder is also good enough.
Presenting some barriers to change and strategies to overcome it
There are some barriers of change management that affect the Woolworth change
management system. These are as mention below:
 Lack of employee involvement: It has been analysed that employees always fear of
change and unless they are involve in the change process. But on the other side, the
mistake done by an organization is to involve the employees in change process
(Barriers of change management, 2019).
 Solution: start involving the employees in decision making process, so that they feel that
they are also an important part of an organization. Start communicating with the
employees will also help to adopt the change in better way an this will also help to
sustaining the change and embedding as part of new norm.
 Lack of effective communication strategy: Lack of effective communication strategy
also affect the change management process such that some top leaders always assume
that when they announce the change, people will get started to adopt the new
development, but this is not a way. This shows that the firm has lack of communication
strategy.
 Solution: in order to solve this barrier, Woolworth must introduce the strategies of
communication so that it will help the employees to know about the change and how it
will affect them and how they will adapt the change as well (Burke, 2017). Leaders
should not make announcement rather then it, they should communicate through
meetings.
 Working culture: Bad culture shifting planning also affect the team because bad culture
do affect the working environment of the company and this also affect the job
responsibility and work area responsibility as well. Due to this, it also affect the person
internal such that employees feel low and they did not have enough confident to cope up
with any situation.
 Solution: this is overcome by using task and Role culture in the working area of a
business. Such that adopting this type of work culture will help a team to raise their
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performance level and also make decision for the success of a company (Ritzén and
Sandström, 2017).
CONCLUSION
By summing up above report it has been concluded that to lead and manage the
organization change, it is quite necessary to have an effective strategy and that is why,
Woolworth uses Kurt Lewin change management model. Report concluded that there are some
external factors that also affect the working environment of the company and this can be
analysed by using PESTLE analysis. Further, it also concluded some important components of
change management project plan and then concluded some stratifies in order to overcome the
barriers of change.
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References
Books and Journals
Burke, W. W., 2017. Organization change: Theory and practice. Sage Publications.
Burke, W.W., 2017. Organization change: Theory and practice. Sage Publications.
Hayes, J., 2018. The theory and practice of change management. Palgrave.
Hornstein, H. A., 2015. The integration of project management and organizational change
management is now a necessity. International Journal of Project Management, 33(2),
pp.291-298.
Huarng, K.H. and Mas-Tur, A., 2016. Turning Kurt Lewin on his head: Nothing is so theoretical
as a good practice. Journal of Business Research 69(11) pp.4725-4731.
Hunjra, A.I., Bakari, H. and Masood, M.T., 2017. Managing Organizational Change in Pakistan:
Insights from the Work of Kurt Lewin.
Lewis, L., 2019. Organizational change: Creating change through strategic communication.
Wiley-Blackwell.
Ritzén, S. and Sandström, G. Ö., 2017. Barriers to the Circular Economy–integration of
perspectives and domains. Procedia CIRP. 64. pp.7-12.
Online
Barriers of change management. 2019. [Online]. Available through:
<https://change.walkme.com/5-barriers-to-change-management-and-how-to-easily-
overcome-them/>.
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