Organizational change and leadership challenges at Avon

AVON Case Study

Overview of Avon

Situation Leading Avon towards Change

Model for Change Theory in Avon

Types of Evaluation Information and Benefits to the Avon

Success of Change in Next Five Years

Avon is found to experience different issues causing changes in its brand and product lines. It reflected the positive net sales and earnings growth for past five years in single, which were observed to be declining every year afterwards. There are specific challenging areas, which are stagnated sales, slow earnings growth, limited distribution capabilities, and shift in personal care preferences along with the spending habits. The considered organization did not have a transparent strategic vision and the employees had no sense of organizational purpose and motivation in the absence of the vision for the organization due to which the image of the Avon became the failure.

Model for Change Theory in Avon

The change theory identified in the case study is the 360 degree assessment process with the performance management and succession planning to deliver the expected results. The organization used this method for establishing the talent practices that were easy to implement and a talent management structure to ensure its implementation. The disciplined execution can establish a strong foundation for success of the organization. The model of talent management was proposed to integrate the business and human resource strategy along with talent management procedures, and organizational culture to provide a systemic approach (Effron, Greenslade, & Salob., 2005). It results in the development of talented leaders along with the people available to accomplish the mission of the organization under consideration. The most important change was to bring sufficient transparency in Avon to every talent practice. The talent management with new practices is required to be redesigned and existing ones using the transparency as the initial point. Transparency was removed with the concerns of confidentiality concerning the benefits of sharing information. It can be said that the change in Avon's 360-assessment process is an obvious example (Rowland & Higgs, 2009).

Avon's 360-assessment process was a model of transparency with the initiation of turnaround. The new team leader in the Avon requested certain copies of every vice president's 360 degree assessment with the goal of appropriate understanding the common behavioral strengths and weaknesses. A simpler 360 was designed and implemented while stating the proper managerial and leadership behaviors, which were critical for success of leader at Avon (Miller, 2009). Considering the importance of the model, the disclosure to all participants and respondents state that the 360 information can be reflected to the manager of the participant, HR leader, regional talent leader, and any member of Avon's HR team as they were critical to the development of participants. It can be stated that the behavioral information can be considered for making decisions about talent moves, which includes promotions or project assignments. It can help in making the transition to easier transparency with the new 360 assessments and report differed from specific tools, which can rate the participants on proficiency in different areas. It can be said that Avon has borrowed specifically from the feed forward principles of Marshall Goldsmith (Effron, Greenslade, & Salob., 2005).

Types of Evaluation Information and Benefits to the Avon

The type of evaluation information collected in Avon is from complex to simple, egalitarian to differentiated, from opaque to transparent, from meaningless to consequential, and from emotional to factual. The leaders of Avon are required to be successful while measuring the situation through which HR and management can assist them for the consequences of higher or lower performance. The leaders are aware of the performance rating for their potential ratings and they can change the organization under consideration. They can actively differentiated levels of Avon talent while providing every level with the appropriate experience. It can be said that the highest potential leaders of the organization can understand the management and their considerations regarding commensurate investment (Effron, Greenslade, & Salob., 2005).

Managers of the considered organization do the most appropriate thing for their associates because the barriers are found to be lower as compared to the previous management team. The procedures initiated to enable talent decisions to make decisions with additional layer of qualitative information drawn from different leader experiences. The leaders are aware of the fact that they must establish the talent that Avon has for their long and short-term success (Cooper & Burke, 2011). The initiation of turnaround can provide no global process for understanding the associate engagement issues present in the organization. The designing of the engagement process can enable the management to apply the similar questions regarding the business benefit, simple path, and adding additional value (Goldsmith & Carter, 2010). The management accepted the substantial research showing a correlation and certain causation between the increasing engagement and increasing different business metrics. The two goals were established around simplicity. One goal was to understand sufficient ways of driving engagement while asking minimum questions. Second goal is to note questions in simpler ways for the management to improve the score on question while considering their options for actions (Miller, 2009).

Management of the considered organization is found to be confident that the management can take appropriate actions for improving their engagement results without increasing the score for next year but the business can benefit from the incremental improvement. The challenge for the organization is to determine and imply the communication to the managers regarding the most appropriate actions (Effron, Greenslade, & Salob., 2005).

Success of Change in Next Five Years

The mission of Avon is focusing on six aspirations on which the organization is consistently striving to achieve. The organization is a leader in global beauty while building a unique portfolio of beauty and related brands, striving to surpass competitors in quality, innovation, and elevating image of Avon to become the trusted beauty organization of the world. It is appropriate for the organization to empower their employees for achieving the economic independence while offering a superior earning opportunity. It can be said that the organization should elevate the leadership in next five years, which includes its standards, respect for diversity, and commitment to help associates in achieving their highest potential in positive working environment (Effron, Greenslade, & Salob., 2005).

Reference

Cooper, C.L., & Burke, R.J. (2011). Human Resource Management in Small Business: Achieving Peak Performance. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Effron, M., Greenslade, S., & Salob., M. (2005). Growing Great Leaders: Does it Really Matter? Human Resource Planning Journal, 18-23.

Goldsmith, M., & Carter, L. (2010). Best practices in talent management: How the world's leading corporations manage, develop, and retain top talent. San Francisco: Pfeiffer.

Miller, K. (2009). Organizational communication: approaches and processes. Cengage Learning.

Rowland, D., & Higgs, M. (2009). Sustaining Change: Leadership That Works. New York: John Wiley & Sons.