Change Management Report: Strategies for Managing Change at Key Bank

This report delves into the critical aspects of change management within the context of Key Bank's merger with First Niagara Financial. It begins by highlighting the importance of organizational change for growth and survival, particularly in the face of mergers and acquisitions. The report identifies the restructuring of Key Bank as the primary change and addresses the resistance from employees due to job security concerns. It explores the significance of change in fostering new skills, opportunities, and creativity among employees. A detailed plan is presented to overcome resistance, emphasizing the need for management to acknowledge and explain the benefits of change, monitor implementation, provide training, and encourage employee participation. The role of change agents in investigating needs, managing attitudes, and ensuring effective communication is also discussed. Furthermore, the report outlines the benefits of the merger for employees, such as increased job stability and potential for career advancement, while acknowledging the associated stress. Recommendations include actively addressing employee concerns, implementing change in stages, and maintaining open communication. The conclusion reinforces the inevitability of change and the need for proactive measures to ensure employee acceptance and successful implementation, supported by cited references.

Running head: CHANGE MANAGEMENT
Change Management
Name of the Student:
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Discussion..................................................................................................................................2
Background............................................................................................................................2
Importance of change in the Bank.........................................................................................2
Benefits of merger for the employees....................................................................................3
Recommendations......................................................................................................................4
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................4
References:.................................................................................................................................6

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Introduction
Companies of all sizes need to change with the change of times or they get left
behind. In businesses, it is very easy to convince oneself that what he or she is chasing is
predictability and stability (AI-Raggad & Alsawalhah, 2017). However, the truth is that
without any disruptive change, no company can grow and realise their complete potential.
This paper shall elaborate on discussing about the importance of change in an organisation
from a diverse perspective. It will highlight why change is necessary and would identify the
role of the employees in the process. Furthermore, relevant solutions shall be provided to
predict the issues and alternatives to the situations that could not be foreseen. The main focus
of this report will be on overcoming the fears of the employees who are resisting change in
the organisation or are facing serious fear of losing their jobs. The chosen organisation for
this purpose is the Key Bank in United States.
Discussion
Background
It is to note that Key Bank of United States was planning to involve in merger with
First Niagara Financial in the year 2016 and therefore, the required change to implement in
this process is that of restructuring of the organisation (Silver, 2017). However, the
employees working in the company are resisting this change because of the fear of facing loss
of their jobs.
Importance of change in the Bank
According to Camphell and Stanley (2015), for achieving truly great things, it is
important to do experiment. It is the law of nature and can be considered as a necessity for
long term growth and survival. One of the key factor in the process of Mergers and
Acquisitions is change. Employees in the workplace evolve from the announcement of

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change to the final stage. However, change allows the employees in learning new skills,
exploring new opportunities and at the same time, exercise their creativeness in different
ways that will finally benefit the organisation as a whole through increased commitment and
new ideas. Key Bank is planning to merge with a local private bank in U.S.A. This merge
will help in consolidating their debt and at the same time, will help in reducing the total
interest that they pay as compared to the total debt that both the banks carry individually.
Plan for overcoming the resistance to change
A perfect plan to overcome the resistance to change at banks include the identification
of change at first, then evaluate the barriers or issues surrounding it and finally undertaking
approaches to overcome the barriers to change with ease and efficiency.
To ensure proper management of change, the managers must acknowledge the
employees of the organisation about the changes and then make them understand about how
the changes implemented could benefit the organisation (Campbell & Stanley, 2015). The
management must keep constantly monitoring the various aspects needed to implement the
changes, furthermore ensure that none of the employees or staffs are faced with any major
issues.
The manager should act as a leader to guide the employees, make them adjust to the
changes so that the employees are less likely to resist during the management of change at the
bank. Suitable training and developmental programs must be arranged for the employees to
improve their skills, knowledge and expertise, furthermore ensure acceptance of change with
high level of motivation and confidence (Chen, Chen & Chen, 2018).
Lastly, a major aspect of the plan would be to encourage high level of participation of
the employees during the implementation of changes by the manager. This would be possible

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through informal meetings and conferences held for influencing the behaviours of staffs and
keep them encouraged to work as a team and in coordination.
The role of change agents include investigating the need for change prior to the
implementation and ensure dealing with the behaviours and attitudes of individuals
positively. Paying attention to details and ensuring support to the initiatives should also
encourage higher participation. The change agents are also associated with the alteration of
various actions, furthermore encourage positive emotions and behaviours to make sure that
the people feel positive while implementing the changes effectively. Lastly, the change
agents find way to make people informed about the change to be implemented and at the
same time, design systems, tools and processes to ensure successful implementation of
change. The change agents also manage transfer of information and knowledge to promote
better communication of change perspectives and increase the efficiency of change too.
Benefits of merger for the employees
It is understood that company merger could bring in higher stress level among the
employees on either sides of the merging companies. It is a great disadvantage for the
employees who might fear of losing their jobs (Lee, Mauer & Xu, 2018). However, it is also
to mention that merging might also double or even triple the positions and this means either
change in employees or change in their job titles. Notwithstanding this fact, it is to note that
merging with another bank will help Key Bank in becoming more stable as a company and
also, employees are sure to feel more secured in the job. With the same, this financially stable
business will ensure the possibility of higher pay rate for the employees. Even Smeets, Ierulli
and Gibbs (2016) in this context have claimed that, “mergers and acquisitions can benefit
workers”. It is due to the fact that the transaction comprise of a mechanism for the
stimulation of the additional investment in the human capital and the promotion of skill
upgrading of the employees.

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With the same, it is also to mention that the valuable and skilled employees are likely
to experience early opportunities of moving up their career ladder. Things that might take
several years in the bank might not take as long as the merger will effectively expand the
company (Chen, Chen & Chen, 2018). Similarly, it will eliminate the requirement of some
departments and jobs within the bank and at the same time, will create different position that
will fall under the level of employee skill. So, the main advantage here is that employees
would find themselves eligible for a particular position that will definitely suit their skills and
that they have not expected to get so soon. So, there is no need to fear of losing job until and
unless employees are skilled and valuable to the organisation. No company wants to lose an
employee who is an asset for the organisation and have all the skills and knowledge to
contribute to the growth and success of the same.
Recommendations
a) Overcoming the opposition- The bank should actively look into what the concerns of
the employees are and then, possibly alleviate the very problem in timely way
(Obholzer, 2018). Allowing the employees ample of time to give their input will
ensure them that they are been considers as an important part of the company that do
cares about them. There must be a continuous conversation among the general
employees and the C-Suite on the happenings. The emails and intranets or face to face
meetings are great for this purpose and this will also allow the employees to ask their
concerns and queries and stay informed. Receiving and responding to feedbacks
provided by the employees are important. This will ensure that the employees are kept
engaged in the process.
b) Implementing change in different stages- Change does not happen suddenly. Key
Bank needs to first prepare for the change and then take the action on the very change

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and make plans for managing them. With the same, they should support the change
and assure that all is going as the way they are planned.
Conclusion
Hence, from the above analysis it is to conclude that change is inevitable and
companies often merge for harnessing the power of themselves by creating a single entity.
Although, it brings a lot of stress among the employees of both the parties, still, there are high
chances of being benefitted positively from the merger. In this process, company too needs to
take ample of initiatives in order to ensure that employees are wilfully welcoming the change
and must make them part of the entire process. For this purpose, the bank can take the means
of emails, intranets or face to face meetings in ensure continuous conversation among the
general employees and the management.

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References:
Al-Raggad, M. A., & Alsawalhah, A. A. (2017). The Impact of the Strategies of Resistance to
Change Management on the Improvement of Workers Performance (Case Study of
the Jordanian Telecommunications Companies). Global Journal of Management And
Business Research.
Campbell, D. T., & Stanley, J. C. (2015). Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for
research. Ravenio Books.
Chen, I. J., Chen, Y. S., & Chen, S. S. (2018). The strategic choice of payment method in
corporate acquisitions: The role of collective bargaining against unionized
workers. Journal of Banking & Finance, 88, 408-422.
Lee, K. H., Mauer, D. C., & Xu, E. Q. (2018). Human capital relatedness and mergers and
acquisitions. Journal of financial Economics, 129(1), 111-135.
Obholzer, A. (2018). The leader, the unconscious, and the management of the organisation.
In The Systems Psychodynamics of Organizations (pp. 197-216). Routledge.
Silver, J. (2017). Commentary: The Community Reinvestment Act Must Be All About Public
Participation, but It Still Doesn't Feel That Way. Cityscape, 19(2), 177-186.
Smeets, V., Ierulli, K., & Gibbs, M. (2016). An empirical analysis of post‐merger
organizational integration. The Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 118(3), 463-493.