Management Plan: Proposed Change in Current HR Department (Coursework Sample)

Change Management Plan
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2 Introduction
The business environment is faced with various challenges which are attributed to changes in the means of operations, causing increased competition. This forces organization to go back to their drawing table and review their business operation strategies to fit well with the business environment demands perfectly. This means that the organization will have to initiate a change in their operation, which will strengthen the business and create a competitive edge over all its competitors in the marketplace (Greenberg, 1986).
To be effective in initializing change process in any organization, it is critical to adopt a change management plan which helps to manage the change process effectively, ensures budget control schedule communication and the strategies to be applied to make the change efficient and effective (Delaney, Lewin, & Ichniowski, 1989). The Focus of this paper will be based on analyzing the change process and management in Coca-Cola Company.
3 Organization
Coca-Cola Company is an American multinational beverage company which is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. The company manufactures, retails and markets Nonalcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups. It was founded on May 8, 1886, by John Pemberton (Armus, 2005). Currently, the company operates in more than 200 countries across the globe making it the biggest beverage company in terms of assets, market share, revenue, and profits. The company has a record number of employees estimated to be 146,200 in number. The performance of the company has been above par in the past years making it acquire a broad base of assets and a total equity of US$23.062 billion. This also involves more than 50 brands and more than 3,500 beverages which range from sodas to energy drinks to soy-based beverages (Armus, 2005, pp. 6-9).
The company values all its employees since they believe they are their core and vital assets. The company offers specialized training programs to all staff to equip them with knowledge and skills to enable them to counter any challenges they may encounter in their workplace. The company also incorporates the new employees and the old employees so that they may learn and gain more experience concerning the business environment, and this reduces high costs of training the new staff (Armus, 2005, p. 10-11). The company allows every employee to have two cups of tea on a daily basis hence hospitable act by the firm.
1 Proposed Change in the Current HR Department
Amidst all these efforts, the company is faced with various challenges within the human resource department which affect the entire performance of the enterprise. Therefore, to enhance effectiveness in the delivery of services within the human resource department, one paramount HR policy needs to be changed. This includes enhancing and implementing an office automation system.
1 Reasons for Adopting the Proposed Change
The reason why I chose this kind of system is due to its importance to the entire organization. With changes in the business environment, it is critical for the company to automate its office systems which range from the payroll systems, communication channels, recruitment, and selection system and the job evaluation and analysis systems from manual to electronic ones.
Therefore, adopting a more automated system will help in ensuring work load is reduced, easy communication is attained from the head office to all subsidiary offices, hence, making effective decisions which positively influence the performance and the growth of the organization. Having the automated office system will aid in ensuring the company recruits and selects the best employees from the market place in an easy, less cost and efficient way. Through this automation, it will be easy to track and analyze data for recruiters, easy to sort, as well as to choose the best out of the vast pool of applicants seeking job positions in the company. Lastly, evaluating job performance is termed to be difficult with the current manual system, but with the automated system, it would be easy to assess every individual's performance. Hence, identify the weaknesses, and also reward those who excelled above par as a tool of motivation (Chang, 1997 pp. 7-8).
2 Readiness for the Change
To implement the change, it is paramount to analyze and examine the readiness of the organization for the change. To assess the readiness for change, two essential diagnostic tools will be used which include; the SWOT analysis, which examines the internal and external forces affecting the organization, and the PESTEL analysis ( an acronym for Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, and legal factors). (Pasmore, & Woodman, 2007).
The SWOT analysis ( an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) examines the business in four perspectives which are; the strengths and the weakness it bears and the opportunities and the threats it is likely to face. Through the analysis of these four key features, it is easy to evaluate and test the flexibility of the corporation regarding the change process and the aspects which can allow more growth and which can also limit the change process to occur. The PESTEL analysis is also key since it is used to identify the macro-environmental forces which are facing the organization. These factors include the political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal factors.
2 Readiness for Change Evaluation
To evaluate the readiness for the proposed change in Coca-Cola Corporation, I will use the PESTEL diagnostic tool. Politically, the Coca Cola Company is in a good position. The company operates in more than 200 countries, and within all these countries, there is political stability, hence, making it easy to implement the change without any challenges (Chang, 1997 p. 15).
Several economic factors which are affecting the sales of the company may negatively influence the implementation of the change process. Socially, there is the pursuit of a healthy lifestyle and increased the level of consumer health concerns, and therefore, this gives the company a chance to implement the change process. The technological aspect also grants the company an opportunity to improve its services through the implementation of the change process. Environmental sustainability is essential. The company is faced with a threat of lack of raw material like water which is becoming a scarce resource. Therefore, the company is required to put on necessary strategies which could help enhance the sustainability of the environment. Legal provisions direct the company to obey restrictions on recruitment, employee payment, evaluations and employee management. Therefore, with these legal requirements, the company gives the HR department a chance to implement their change process.
Therefore, I can confidently conclude that the company is ready for the change and should be implemented for the better of the organization.
4 Kotter Change Plan
There is need to implement the change as seen in the above discussion, but one of the critical challenges facing the implementation is the resistance for the change by the employees or other stakeholders within the organization (Floyd, 2002). Therefore, there is need to come up with an effective strategy which will help to counter the resistance and enhance perfect implementation of the change process. One of the processes the corporation's Human resource department should adopt to enhance the effectiveness of the change process is through the use of the Kotter’s eight (8) steps for change management
3 Creating/ Establishing a sense of Urgency
This step urges the human resource manager to communicate the change process to the employees effectively and timely (Kotter, 2010). This is essential since it creates awareness, and it gives the employee the idea of what they expect from the change process through understanding the main concepts and ideas before the change is implemented. Also, the human resource manager is entitled to identify and highlight various potential repercussion and threats which might arise due to the implementation of the change process, understand the change opportunities as well as seeking the involvement and the support of the company employees, and other stakeholders. To communicate the change process, the manager can call for meetings within the organization or outside the organization and then address them. This process is paramount in that it helps in reducing the cases of resistance to change.
4 Formulation of Powerful Guiding Coalition
The process of handling the entire change process change may be tiresome and more involving hence a high probability of making mistakes. Therefore, it is paramount for the manager to form a team of individuals, from all the organization’s departments, totaling to 11 members, who will assist in coming up with the guidelines and concrete pillars for the change to be implemented.
5 Creation of Vision and Strategy for Change
Vision stipulates the roadmap for achieving the set goals and objectives for the company within a specified period. The strategy explains in depth how the vision of the company will be implemented into reality (Kotter, 2010). Therefore, creating the Vision will help the company have a clear path of what they expect from the change, how it will be implemented and the impacts the change will have to the employees and the enterprise at large. The vision and strategy will create confidence to the employees since they fully understand the result of the change even before it is implemented.
6 Communicating Vision
It is essential and crucial to communicate the vision to the employees. This is because when the ideas lack the support and th...