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Leading and implementing workplace change

University: Oxford University

  • Unit No: 3
  • Level: High school
  • Pages: 21 / Words 5269
  • Paper Type: Essay
  • Course Code: N/A
  • Downloads: 222
Question :
  • What is workplace change management, and why is it important for organizations today?
  • What are some of the challenges that organizations face when implementing change management?
  • Describe the origins of McDonald's and how it has evolved since its founding in 1940.
Answer :
Organization Selected : McDonald's
 

INTRODUCTION

Workplace change management refers to the process of engaging employees who are about to experience a change in their workplace. The main goal of this process is to assist the employees get adjusted to new workspaces as well as new ways of working. Change management has become one of the permanent features within organisations today in order to meet challenges and address them in an effective manner (Chappell and et.al., 2016). Changes at the workplace are unavoidable and promote growth of the organisation as well as enhance its overall performance. It is a kind of structured approach that usually overlaps with the strategies related to workplace and also influence the working and design of an organisation.

McDonald's corporation is a fast food company based in America, which was established in 1940 by Richard and Maurice McDonald. The headquarter of respective company is in Chicago, Illinois. They serve their services throughout the world and provide food items like burger, soft drinks, desserts, coffee, wraps, French fries, salads, breakfast and many more stuffs. McDonald's has been considered as one of the biggest restaurant chain in the whole world by revenue, which approximately being serving 69 million consumers everyday across the world. The report will focus on the history of respective organisation and will discuss how the external factors will affect the business working. It will further mention model of change and strategic change in the company. The impact of organisational culture on change management will also be elaborated in this report. Get Help with assignment services today.

MAIN BODY

Analyse the recent history of the organisation and explain how changes in external environment have impacted on the company

The cousins Richard and Maurice McDonald started their initial and small McDonald's venture on 1940, at 1398 North E street in California which was totally different from today's scenario. The ''Speedee Service System'' was initiated by brothers in 1948 where they utilised various modern principles of fast food outlets that were originally used by their forerunner White Castle two decades earlier. The Speedee of McDonald's was being refereed to the chef hat which is being placed at the top of the hamburger. The early mascot Speedee was replaced by Golden Archie in 1962. The Ronald McDonald, clown which became most popular was introduced in 1965, by such introduction their main target was to attract children towards the organisation. At 1961, McDonald initially data filed and recorded for U.S trademark with the name of McDonald's having a description of '' Drive In Restaurant Services ''. Later it was found that the description was renewed constantly with the expansion. In 1954, Ray Kroc, a vendor of Prince Castle brand Multi beverage milkshake machines, enlightened that the McDonald brothers in San Bernardino restaurant were using eight of their machines. Ray Kroc joined the company in 1954 and made extra efforts in expanding its management and operational functioning. Ray Kroc made lots of effort and was successful in modifying the brother's project so as to modernise it. With the proper guidance of Roy Kroc, at September 13, they filed for trademark with the demand of new logo of McDonald's. The new logo was an related, overlapped, two fold arched 'M' symbol. Before the introduction of double arches, the company used only single arch so as to demonstrate their architecture of the respective building. The logo of Golden Arches were represented in many forms, the recent version of was not in utilisation till 1968 when the organisation demanded a U.S trademark. The corporation credits which are presently used has been given to Ray Kroc the businessman on 1955 (History, 2019). This was considered as ninth outlet which was opened by the name of McDonald's overall , though the place were demolished and reinforced in 1984. After sometimes Kroc purchased the equity in the enterprise of McDonald's brother and later begun to expand the boundaries of an organisation world wide. Kroc was being recorded as a hard working, motivated and aggressive business partner who dragged and tried constantly to throw McDonald brothers out of the company.

As mentioned in the autobiography of Kroc, the McDonald brothers and Kroc fought for the power and control of the organisation. The restaurant situated at San Bernardino was later torn down eventually and the place was purchased by Juan Pollo in 1976. The area now indicated as the Juan Pollo chain headquarter. The chain of the respective company continued to expand in 1988 and opened around 10,000 restaurants. During 21st century, 35,000 fast food outlets in much more than 100 countries were started. Eventually the organisation became most favourite and popular family fast food restaurant, which can render cheap and delicious food at affordable price together with new flavours and fun that attract children as well as adults. The company was active in providing charities. The prosperity of McDonald's came with high criticism due to high occurrence of obesity among people due to excess consumption of fast good from the fast food outlet. In return, the respective company in 2017, reacted by adding healthy food items in the menu list. Such practice began by adding vegan hamburger in the list, they also got rid of supersized meal and reduced the use of trans fat oil in their food items. check more assignment examples for completeing your assignments.

External environment impacts on company

The strategies which have been addressed in McDonald's corporation reflects the external issues which are being faced by the organisation. The identification of such factors are necessary to overcome the threats from which the company is suffering (Dievernich and et.al., 2016). Such variables can be identified in PESTLE analysis of the global chains which are associated with fast food restaurants enterprise. The respective analysis support most of the strategic management by aiding in understanding the external variables that not only represents the threats but also give ideas about the opportunities which are based on the macro environment of the company. The PESTEL model comprises of Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Ecological factors. So as to enhance the benefits of the chance, the given company sets the boundary as well as core of the strategies associated with the growth and success of the company.

Such strategies are designed in such a way that can potentially have the capacity to address the factors which are associated with the environment of business. Such analysis also help in understanding the threats which the company may have due to the existing rivals related to the same industry or domain (Kogan and et.al., 2017). As it has been observed that McDonald's is the largest food chain of fast food in the world, it has to utilise its overall strengths so as to accommodate the changes in the business. The adaptations which are being made to overcome the issues as well as fears are crucial for thriving for long period of time and to grow the enterprise in such a style that it can outcompete other organisations. Through such model, the decisions regarding the management can be more focussed on recent trends that actually influences the growth and expansion of the industry. The trends which are being analysed are among those elements which defines the development in the wide market of beverage and food services. The PESTEL analysis of McDonald's have been elaborated below.

Political factor - This aspect basically focus on the impacts of the policies as well as actions taken by the government on macro environment of the economy and working of the company (Rodd, 2015). The interventions which are being developed by the government can assist in identifying the directions of the company's development. The enhancing trade agreement which are made internationally influence the functioning of the enterprise and may be considered as an opportunity. The regulations regarding the health and hygiene should be complied in such industry like any other enterprise. If the food which are being prepared in fast food outlets does not go with the code implied by the government then the restaurant will eventually shut down. The government have increased the rate of pressure on such company to lower the amount of sugar and salt which are greatly used in their food products. As the high usage of such ingredients are associated in occurring Diabetes type 2, high cholesterol and blood pressure which further cause heart diseases (Allison and et.al., 2016). Thereby, they have to function depending upon the guidelines stated by the government regarding the consumable diet and health conditions.

Economic factor - This type of component centres on the effects of the issues and conditions associated with economic factors of McDonald's. The alterations related to economic factors may indirectly as well as directly affects the performance of the existing business. The economy of world, regional as well as local economies which affects the industry surrounding as well as environment. Steady but constant development has been considered as an opportunity for McDonald's which is associated with stability of the fast food business. The market of United States has been the largest contributor to the revenue of the business, but it has been always analysed that the company is benefited from the constant maturation of such market.

Social Factors - Such kind of factor is associated with the social aspect that either aids of limits the growth of McDonald's organisation. The trends of social aspects affects the action and behaviour which further influence the macro environment of the company referring to their revenue. The habit or tendency of individuals to buy more fast food than to cook at home have been considered as an opportunity to the McDonald's which provide ample of chances to expand their business. Though, the recent trend of healthy lifestyle has been a threat where people show more concern on the fact of being healthy and active and avoiding ingestion of junk food (Lagan and Moran, 2015). Such identification give the company an opportunity to add more healthy food products in the list of menu so as to attract such adults also.

Technological factors - When the technological aspect comes into consideration, the impacts of modernising and development comes into action. The McDonald has an opportunity to maximise their research and developments sector so as to maintain and regulate the efficiency of the company. Such organisation can rely more on automation to exceed its daily production which are basically based on external variables. The organisation can improve its business by  developing modernise mobile services so that the facilities and the reach of the McDonald can be provided to more people through new software and applications.

Ecological factors - The factor which is associated with the natural environment comes under the ecological variables. The modification in the climatic situation in some part of the world effects the availability of the food which eventually associated with the fall or gain of the sales in the respective places (Derman-Sparks, LeeKeenan and Nimmo, 2015). Thus, the company need to amplify their supply chain management and further expand their storage area and place so as to store the raw material without getting spoiled. High emphasis on such business strategies which are sustainable has been considered as an opportunity for the organisation. Are you looking for personal statement writing services. Don't worry we are here to help you.

Legal factors - The factor of PESTEL analysis consist of laws and regulation which are abide on an organisation. The recent regulation related to change in the lifestyle has being a potential threat to the McDonald. The supply of minimum wages to the recent employee is being a threat to the company, they should make such amendments and policies which must increase the wages of the employee so as to make their workers satisfied and increase the retaining ability of the associates. In whole, the external components in such aspect creates major and crucial threats in the development of the strategies of McDonald's.

Develop a change model, incorporating issues regarding strategic change in the organisation including hoe the change was managed and leadership style.

Basically, a change model helps in to analyse the potential areas where the change is required in an organisation and then to implement strategies in order to reduce or eliminate the existing resistance prior to the process of change. It plays a most crucial part in an organisation and is consider as a planning tool for implementing required change which is necessary to achieve target goals and objectives (Hodges, 2016). There are some of the major reasons for using a change management model such as forecasting operations and processes in an organisation, analysing results, eliminating resistance, clarification of roles as well as responsibilities of candidates within a particular organisation. In order to mange change in a particular organisation there are some of the fixed models and theories that could be implemented so that a required change could be easily handled. It is basically a process of transforming teams, candidates, projects in a company from one phase to another phase. One of the change model theory which is need to be implemented in McDonald is Kurt Lewin's change management model which is discussed here.

Kurt Lewin's model: It is consider as one of the most effective model in order to bring changes in the organisation. It helps in to understand structural and organisational change. This particular model was first developed by Kurt Lewin in the year 1950. It is an effective model for understanding the change in an organisation. It basically consist of three stages which are discussed as follows.

Unfreeze: It is the very first stage of this model for managing change in an organisation. It is generally consist of preparation for change. For a fact that change is constant and needed, the organisation must be prepare for implementing a change which is required for managing the overall operation and business. This particular stage is very crucial as most of the candidates within an organisation tends it hard for resisting the change (Maccoby, 2015). This phase help in to be prepare or the change which is going to be take place. It explains about how and why the existing operations and function of organisation is need to be change and what will be the benefit of implementing change. Supervisors and managers of the organisation review all the operations of the business and examine that what changes are needed to be done so that targets goals and objectives could be achieved effectively and all the staff members of the organisation could perform better.

Change: This is the second stage of the Kurt Lewin's model. It is a time consuming process as individuals generally takes time to adapt the changes which has been implemented in the organisation. They spend a lot of time in embracing development, changes as well as new happenings. At this particular stage, a good leadership and a reassurance is needed in order to lead the organisation in right direction and assist various staff member of the organisation to accept the changes and to work according to the changes done. A good leadership will help the staff to perform better ad make the process quite easy for all the staff members of the organisation. Time and communication are the most effective resources of this stage in order to draw a positive outcome.

Refreeze: This is the third stage of the change management model where the organisation try to be stable. This process begins after all the necessary changes has been implemented and all the staff members has accepted and embrace the change (Kobayashi, 2018). This is the reason for why this stage is called a refreeze stage. At this time the staff members as well as different operations and processes of organisation begin to refreeze and go along with the change. It will help the individuals to understand that changes are required in an organisation or smoothing the functions and operations of business and it is continued even after the target goals and objectives as been achieved.

This change management model could be implemented in MacDonald for making their business effective an to implement necessary changes within their organisation. However, in order to achieve target goals and objectives respective organisation should build and implement some strategic changes within the premises so that they can attain a respectful position in market area and can gain a competitive advantage.

Strategic change

Transformational change are need to be done in respective organisation in order to deliver better quality of food products. There is a need for change in MacDonald which is to focus on some promotional, advertising and marketing operations within the organisational to bring new activities and technology. Modifications in such procedures will help the organisation to enhance their productivity. However, there may be some difficulties which are faced by MacDonald such as dealing with internal an external factors of their business activities which are tend to change continuously Promotional activity changes in the operations will help in to boost the image of MacDonald in the eyes of their service users. There is a negative reaction from employees as culture is not supporting the required change.

Leadership style

 A good leader thus will help the employees and overall organisation to accept the change and to implement it.  A good leader poses appropriate and correct leadership style according to the situation arising. Basically a leadership style is a method through which a leader provides assistance and give direction regarding implementing plans and motivating staff members to work effectively according to the changes and policies and norms of the organisation (Christensen and Schneider, 2015). There are eight kinds of leadership styles which are most effective and common in organisation. They are discussed here.

  • Democratic leadership: This style is generally very effective in organisations where a leader makes required decisions for the company based on contribution of each team member. It allows a low level of staff members and help the leader to come to the conclusion fast according to the feedbacks and considerations f the employees.
  • Autocratic leadership: It is just opposite to the democratic leadership. In this kind of leadership style, the leader basically takes decisions regardless of any of the staff members who are involved in the process. Staff members are not considered in the decision making process, moreover they are supposed to adhered on to the decision.
  • Laissez-Faire Leadership: There is a full authority to the employees and leaders generally ask them to take necessary decisions. The style is basically known as let them do. It can empower and motivate employees at a larger scale (Dallas, 2015). It is sometimes effective for the organisation but not really successful every time as it could be problematic sometimes to left all the major decisions in the hands of employees without any indulgent of the leaders.
  • Strategic leadership: It is most commonly an effective leadership style which involves focus on intersection between organisational goals and objectives and its growth opportunities. The company supports number of employees in one go through this particular leadership style.
  • Transformational leadership: It is a leadership style where a constant improvement could be seen in employees performance. The employees are assigned with some tasks and activities with set deadlines however, leaders keep drag them and push them to finish goals and objective before time. Leaders tend to give more and more challenging goals to the employees as they grow in a company. It basically motivates and encourage the employees in order to work with heir full potential.
  • Transactional leadership: This is the most common leadership style where the leaders praise and reward their followers according to their work It help in to establish responsibilities and roles for each employee (Douglass, 2017). Leaders also build some effective strategies in this style for the betterment of their own team work. IT puts more focus on growth an development of the organisation and offers some of the similarities with democratic and strategic leadership styles.
  • Coach style leadership: The leaders basically analyse the strength of each and every employee within the organisation and praise them to do their best and put their efforts in order to achieve target goals and objectives.
  • Bureaucratic leadership: In this particular leadership style, the leaders mostly tends to eliminate the opinions of the employees if it is conflicting within the company policy or some practices. There is a lack of freedom for the employees as they are not supposed to share their considerations freely and openly.

 Thus, these leadership style play a crucial role in order to achieve target goals and objectives of the organisation. In context to MacDonald, where a change management is required to be handled for promoting the new acuities an technologies, an autocratic leadership style would be beneficial because in this particular style, the decision is in the hands of leaders. The leader of the organisation will assist all the team embers and staff members to accept the changes and to adjust within the changes as it is for the benefit of both organisation and for employees. It will enhance the productivity of the organisation and helps in to achieve target goals and objectives.

Evaluate the impact of organisational culture on the change management programme

An organisational culture relates with the expectations, desires, philosophies, experiences as well as beliefs that monitors the behaviour of an individual. Such factors are expressed while interacting with other staff members and outer world or while focussing on future wants and expectations (Chambers and Ryder, 2017). The culture revolves around the common values, attitudes, guidelines and rules that have been formed over a period of time and which at the same time must be valid and authenticate. The culture of an organisation also comprises of the norms, symbols, missions, objectives, languages, habits as well as visions of the company. In more common terms the culture of organisation can be defined as the way the work is being completed around the work place. The leaders in business has been considered as an important part for developing and communicating over their cultural official place. The leaders and the managers of the enterprise must regulate their duties and roles according to the organisation culture, they must amend the way their work is being accomplished as per the evolution of the culture. Different organisation culture have been determined and may be applied in McDonald, some are mentioned below.

Adhocracy culture - Such culture render innovative and dynamic environment while working. The associates are constantly motivated to take risk, such encouragement is being provided by the leaders. The company is actually glued up by experimentations, where emphasis has being laid on freedom of individual (Hayes, 2018). The managers who are influenced by such culture always focus on innovating new ideas and things so as to increase productivity in an organisation.   

Clan culture - The prime root of such culture is collaboration. The team members share some general features which actually make them a big part of the office family who are involved and remain active. The rules and guidelines which are being formed by the company's high authority bosses makes the organisation as well as employees bound in functioning accordingly, thus the leader take the shape of the mentors. In clan culture, the key value is based on collective team work and daily interaction so as to make the process and working of the company smooth and the objectives can be achieved in give time frame work.

Market culture - Such kind of culture revolves around the aspect of existing and future competition for accomplishing solid and high end results. The aims which are being pre defined are directive and requires the employee as well as the leaders to become more tough and high demanding when it comes to achieve the target of the month. The entire organisation is being collective and work on a single goal at a time and primary focus on beating the recent rivals (TenHave and et.al.,2015). The components like profitability and shares of the market for particular company actually drives the market culture.

From the above cultures, clan culture may be used by the McDonald which majorly focus on working collectively and collaboratively. They lay emphasis on team work and rely on the fact that more aims and objectives have been achieved by the organisation if whole team members are working and taking decision unanimously. The respective enterprise should focus on increasing the salaries and bonus of the workers so that they can work efficiently and find new and innovative ways to improve the policies and functioning of the business. The focus should be laid on the achieving highest goals in least amount of time.

Impact of organisational culture

Organisational culture plays a crucial role in any organisation as it governs different behaviours of individuals in an organisation. It will put impact on how the supervisors as well as leaders manages or implement required changes. It will also impact on how the staff members are taking changes and perceive them. Organisational culture is consider as an most effective way in leading or implementing a particular change. If the culture of the organisation is quite conservative, risk-taking and compliment then the leaders are need to give away the details of changes and prepare the employees to hand hold (Drago-Severson and Blum-DeStefano, 2018). Culture is basically a combination of values and beliefs which shape the norms of behaviour and help the leaders to assist their followers in order to reach organisational goals and objectives. It s one of the most crucial actor that impact the ability of an organisation to change. A few of them consist of culture, leadership and external factors like needs of customers and their desires.  Operations of business, financial aspects and culture are the key factors to influence change management projects. There are some of the factors that effect change management process within an organisation. Such factors are competitor pressure, executive leadership, technology and tools,culture and many others. Organisational culture is most critical to overall success and development process. However, culture of the organisation grows over  period of time and still goes same until and unless a change manger apply or implement some changes in that. If  any changes has been implemented in an organisation it will also impact on roles and responsibilities of different staff members and somehow effect their performance (Dawson, 2019). Different organisations have different change strategy which helps them in achieving success along with desirable goals and objective.

Change is mostly hard and difficult to adapt for individuals as it is time consuming as well as risk taking. However, if an organisational culture is promoting open and collective decision making process individuals will tend to know about the change which is going to be implemented. Different beliefs, views and perfections of the staff members will help the leaders to draw a meaningful conclusion and an effective decision making process. Employees will get to know the reasons and facts of the change which has been applied in the organisation. Uncertainties within the organisational culture is sometimes a major issue for the resistance of change management programme within the operations and functions of the organisation. In order to evaluate the effectiveness and success of change, individuals beliefs and values plays a most crucial role. Clear and effective communication within a certain organisation will help in to implement an effective change management program. Methods and ways to implement and introduce a particular change within the business is greatly dependent on the kind of organisational culture. However, there is no such standard ways to categorizing these cultures.

Overall impact of organisational culture in change management program will be depend on the staff members as well as leadership with a role of assisting the employees to adapt changes in the organisation. A culture of an organisation can largely effect the attitude of a manger towards a leadership style (Skovgaard, Marling and Justesen, 2015). The overall management of a business is driven by its culture thus, supervisors or managers must focus on analysing and reviewing all the operations of a business very clearly and then examine the need to change. A company's culture can also alter the attitude of a leader which is greatly be effected by employees perceptions and values.

In context to MacDonald, the organisational culture will greatly impact on change management process as there will be different opinions and perceptions of the employees working there. It is very important that each and every employee is adapting the change which has been implemented in an organisation as it will directly impact on the productivity of the organisation.  The main key or role of the employees is to adapt the change regarding what is working for the existing culture (Dorac-Kakabadse, 2017). In order to make changes effective, the organisation must need to change the internal culture of the organisational first which is causing hurdles in implementing the change management project in the organisation. It can include defining the behaviour and values of the employees, build some effective strategies and policies so that the team embers could be stick to them, measure the inputs of each and every employee, don't rush up the processes, evaluate the organisational performance. In addition, it is essential for all the team members to adjust in the organisational cultures in order to give their best and perform effectively.

CONCLUSION  

From the above study, it can be concluded that change is important in an organisation in order to reducing the negative effects of existing resistance within the organisation. Changes are constant and thus it help in overall growth and success of the organisation. It is basically a process where the companies changes its structures, technologies, policies, strategies as well as operational methods. It is an important component in an organisation as it help the employees to learn new skills, facilitate the operations and functions of organisation, explore new opportunities, build effective strategies and eventually benefit the whole organisation through new ideas and an increased commitment. Various change models are there which help in to to analyse the potential areas where the change is required in an organisation and then to implement strategies in order to reduce or eliminate the existing resistance prior to the process of change. Kurt Lewin's model has been discussed which help the organisation to prepare, adapt and stabilize the change. PESTEL analysis of the organisation has been done which help to analyse all the external factors that are impacting on the organisation. At last, effect of organisational culture on change management process has been discussed which shows that it effect the change management process as  it dependent on employees beliefs and values.

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