Human Resources Change Management Change Management Involves

Human Resources

Change Management

Change management involves thoughtful planning and sensitive implementation, and above all, discussion with, and involvement of, the people affected by the changes. If a company forces change on people in general problems will arise. Change must be sensible, achievable and quantifiable. Change should not be done for the sake of change. It should be used as an approach to accomplish some overall goal. Usually organizational change is provoked by some major outside driving force. Characteristically, organizations must start organization-wide change in order to evolve to a different level in their life cycle (Change Management, 2011).

Typically there are strong resistances to change. People are usually afraid of the unknown. A lot of people think things are already just fine and don't understand the need for change. Many are intrinsically cynical about change. Many doubt there are effective means to complete major organizational change. Often there are contradictory goals in the organization, like increasing resources in order to complete the change yet at the same time as cutting costs to continue to be viable. Organization-wide change often goes against the very values held dear by people in the organization, that is, the change may go against how members believe things should be done (Cosack, Guthridge & Lawson, 2010).

Victorious change must involve top management, including the board and chief executive. Normally there's a champion who originally instigates the change by being a creative thinker, powerful and consistent. A change agent role is frequently accountable to translate the vision to a practical plan and carry out the plan. Change is regularly best carried out as a team-wide effort. Communications about the change should be frequent and with all organization members. To maintain change, the structures of the organization itself should be customized, including strategic plans, policies and measures (Jones, Aguirre & Calderone, 2004).

The best approaches to address resistances are through augmented and continued communications and education. A plan should be developed and communicated. Plans do change. That's fine, but it should be communicated that the plan has changed and why. Forums should be held for organization members to articulate their ideas for the plan. They should be able to communicate their concerns and aggravations as well (Change Management, 2011).

Discussion

A couple of years ago, Humana implemented a change the culture initiative. Upper management decided that the culture of the entire company was not in a good place. The morale across the company was bad and management felt that in order to grow and be successful in the market the culture of the entire company needed to be redirected. This particular change management project had very mixed results.

The company started off well in that the communicated the change to the entire company and outlined the steps that were going to be taken in order to facilitate the change to occur. What they did not do though was tell the employees the why of what was going on. They did a very bad job when it came to explaining to the employees the reason for the change in the first place. The real reason for the change was communicated to all managers but not to the line staff who were the ones who were being asked to make the biggest change.

Another mistake that Humana made in trying to carry out this change initiative was that they tried to change the culture of the company from the bottom up and not from the top down. As with most companies those who are at the top do not really understand what goes on in the daily activities of those on the front line anymore than those on the front line understand what goes on in management everyday. It is this gap that must be closed in order to change management to be successful.

When it comes to changing the culture in an organization it is very important for changes to first be made at the top of the organization so that examples can be set for those below. In Humana's case it appeared as if the changes that were taking place were not being done by those at the top and more or less forced upon the line staff. This created great resistance from those who were being asked to change.

Conclusion