Managing Change in Corporations

Introduction

Company X is an anonymous retail store. This store has been through some big recent changes such shifting their culture. What the company does and mainly consists of has not changed; however defining new and more specific values as well as new procedures has been affecting the dynamic of the store. There has been some training to learning the new values to align the employees with the new culture, and training as to how use the new procedures. The new culture intends on “Taking Accountability” based on the new values. However the employees perceive this new shift as being another way of the company telling them to “SELL SELL SELL!” Another procedure put place is the Feedback process, where people are encouraged to give feedback to one another, whether that other person if the manager, or another sales associate, giving the hierarchy more of a horizontal level of leadership. And finally a daily huddle is given, but not well perceived by the sales associates, because they find it redundant.

In this case study, we will not be looking at the culture shift itself, but how to make these changes stick. Everyone has been witness and trained about the placement of the values, feedback and “taking accountability” but hasn’t been using them properly, selectively using them to benefit themselves. One of the company objectives is in fact to raise sales, and has been putting more stress on the employees to attain their sales goals, therefore becoming more competitive and not being as cooperative as they once were. So we will be examining the function of the manager and the sales associate themselves.

We are focusing the case study on the group level basis, and sometime incorporate the individual level when needed. We also employ the term “restructuring”, but it is employed as to describe the culture shift, as in restructuring the way things are done. Most employees have been present with the company for several years, anywhere between 2-15 years. They cannot be easily replaced because this retail store is run by professionals that cannot easily be replaced, a domain where the work placement rate is 100% for these professionals.

Entering and Contracting

Before starting our work as OD practitioners with Company X, it is crucial to follow the formalities required for entering and contracting in order to fully utilize our time and resources. In terms of entering, it is important to first clarify the main organizational issue and make sure we’re on the right path. It is a fact that employees are responding negatively to the changes implemented by head office, yet it is essential to see if there are other root causes which can be found by gathering preliminary data.

Secondly, we must determine the relevant client. In this case, it would