Change Management Images: Employee Turnover at Green Mountain Resort

Introduction: Change Management at Green Mountain Resort

The Green Mountain Resort case illustrates how multiple images of change management can operate simultaneously within a single organization. Change management theory identifies several distinct roles a change manager may assume, each reflecting a different set of assumptions about control, organizational capacity, and the nature of problems. In this case, three primary images emerge: Gunter the owner-manager operates as a nurturer, the prevailing hospitality literature reflects a navigator orientation, and the external consultant functions as a director. Together, these images interact to produce a reframing of the resort's most persistent challenge — high employee turnover — from an unsolvable problem into a strategic asset. Understanding how each image shaped the response to turnover helps clarify why second-order change, rather than incremental adjustment, ultimately provided the most viable path forward for the resort.

Looking at the six images of the change manager, Gunter's role as owner and manager of Green Mountain Resort led him to assume the role of nurturer. Gunter approaches the issue of employee turnover through two lenses simultaneously: as one of the resort's owners, and as its day-to-day manager. As an owner, he needed to keep the resort profitable even after Green Mountain vacation homes had been sold out, since the resort was part of the broader "package" that enticed buyers to purchase a vacation home in the development. As a manager, he had to address operational concerns, with employee turnover becoming his top priority in pursuit of the overarching goal of making the resort both profitable and a first-class destination in the state.

Gunter as Nurturer: Owner-Manager Perspective

As a nurturer, Gunter was characterized as an owner-manager who helps "facilitate organizational qualities that enable positive self-organizing to occur" (32). However, this orientation worked against his ownership goals, since the nurturing culture of the resort's management did relatively little to reduce employee turnover in practice. Despite this tension, Gunter's predominant management style throughout the case aligns most closely with the nurturer image rather than any other model of change management.

Hospitality Literature as Navigator: Managing Turnover Short-Term

The hospitality literature pertaining to employee turnover is best characterized as reflecting a navigating change management orientation. The general attitude within the hospitality industry is that high rates of employee turnover are essentially inevitable, and the accepted remedy is to "streamline training, simplify jobs, reduce dependence on individuals, and make HR processes more efficient" (41). This seemingly unchanged and ultimately unsatisfying solution represents only an immediate response to a chronic structural problem in the industry.

This is why prevailing practice in the hospitality industry constitutes a form of "navigation" in change management terms: the goal is short-term, and the objective is to steer employees away from leaving or, when departure cannot be prevented, to manage turnover with the least possible disruption. Navigation, in this context, amounts to a quick fix — one that does not resolve the underlying problem of high turnover, but rather minimizes the losses management would otherwise suffer if turnover went entirely unaddressed. As the hospitality industry's structural conditions remain largely constant, this navigating approach persists as the default response despite its limited effectiveness.