INTRODUCTION
Change implementation is an important part of focusing on growth and partitioning according to external environment in order to survive for a longer time in the industry. Implementation of change is associated with organizational behaviour because it affects actions of employees and groups at the company. This report is based on the issue of change of work location at Dyson as the company is relocating its headquarters to Singapore from London. Dyson us a British technology company which manufacturers household electrical appliances such as Vacuum cleaners and hair dryers. This report looks at triggers of change and the company response to change along with PEST analysis on causes of change. Stakeholder responses, organizational culture, conflicts and employee motivation in context of change are discusses in this report. Recommendation and feasible strategies for change management are also included in this report.
DISCUSSIONS AND ANALYSIS
Causes that trigger change
- Growth Opportunities: Dyson has many opportunities for increasing company growth from a revenue perspective if the headquarters of the company is located in Asian country instead of United Kingdom. The markets in the far east provide Dyson vast growth opportunities and moving headquarters to Singapore can help Dyson easily manage growth in Asian markets such as Malaysia, China, Philippines and India. In the year 2018, the company benefited from terotechnological enthusiasm in Asia as sales reached 3-5 bullion with a boost of 40% due to Asian consumers (Dyson hoovers up £801m profit in Asian spending boom, 2018). The presence of growth opportunities in Asia acted as a trigger for headquarter relocation in Singapore.
- Skillshortages: United Kingdom has skill shortages in engineering and scientific spaces along with higher ware requirement compared to Asian countries. On the other hand, Dyson technology centre in Singapore currently has 1000 staff members including expert engineers who are able to produce top quality products and support innovation at the company (How Asia changed Dyson (and how Dyson is changing your daily life), 2019). UK will continue facing labour shortages because of Brexit restricting free movement of employees from EU countries. Dyson can get highly skilled engineers and scientific minds by relocating to Singapore from all over Asia which triggered change at the company.
- Brexit: Free trade agreement between European union and Singapore makes it easier for Singaporean businesses to trade with countries in the European Union instead of British organizations. Companies included in the free trade agreement will be able to complete business without any tariff (Why is Dyson moving to Singapore? It's not just Brexit, 2019). This acted as a triggers for change of relocating Dyson headquarters because it helps Dyson utilize manufacturing capabilities in far east specifically Malaysia to trade tariff free with EU countries.
Organizational and individual responses to change
Organization response to change
The main response of Dyson to relocation change was to restructure global workforce. This restructuring lead to job cuts mainly in the United Kingdom. Dyson has currently moved more than 100 jobs overseas in order to facilitate smooth relocation to Singapore. Many back office jobs are Moved to countries such as India and Czech Republic. Dyson is also responding with developing local talent in Singapore by opening more than 250 vacancies in the country in the next five years (Dyson plans to hire 250 more engineers and scientists in Singapore over next 5 years, 2021). Dyson will be able to double the electrical and engineering staff in Singapore because of this such vacancies.
Employee response to change
The job cuts created because the decision of moving the UK headquarters to Singapore has created some conflicts from employees as they respond to the relocation change of the multinational company. Introduction of an organization wide change such as moving headquarters across the world not only affects individual employees but also influences the future direction taken by the company (Harmon, 2019). This leads to conflicts between the employees and the employer as some employee may not feel secure with changes coming in the future. The conflict response of employees at Dyson is expected because they are uncertain about their future at the company and the role of the company in offering securing livelihood after moving to the new Singapore headquarters.
PEST analysis on the causes of change
- Political Factor: Brexit is the main political factor which acts as a cause for change at Dyson. Brexit has increased labour restrictions and free trade between the EU and Britain as United Kingdom moves out of the EU. Brexit has created uncertainties regarding future trading relationship of UK which promoted the move of Dyson to relocate its headquartered to Singapore which is offers certain future situations and closeness to Asian markets.
- Economical Factor: Dyson has denied taxation benefits acting as a cause for changing headquarters for Singapore. The corporate tax rate in Singapore is 17% compared to 19% in the United Kingdom. In addition to this, Singapore does not have inheritance tax or capital gains while United Kingdom inheritance tax is charged at 40% on anything above £450,000 (Dyson to move company HQ to Singapore, 2019).
- Social Factor: Asian markets provide huge expansion opportunities to Dyson as consumers in developing Asian markets such as India and Philippines are mocking towards purchasing quality electrical appliances. Singapore is at one of the strategically important location from international business perspective. Dyson will be able to reach lucrative Asian markets through Singapore while ignoring strict taxation policies of markets such as China.
- Technological Factor: Dyson will gain access to cutting edge technology by moving its headquarters to Singapore. Singapore is one of the most technologically advanced regions in issue which also provide better environment for international business (Cheah, Bellavitis and Muscio, 2021).
Influence of organizational culture on stakeholders dealing with change
Handy's model of organizational culture can be used to understand the culture of Dyson in the present and the ways it has influenced stakeholders at the company to respond to change of relocating its headquarters to Singapore. The primary stakeholders at Dyson in case of introducing change of relocating headquarters are shareholders of Dyson, employees of Dyson and leadership of Dyson. Different types of organizational culture affect stakeholders of Dyson in different ways which also influences implementation of change at the company. The application of Handy's model of organizational culture in case of Dyson is provided below:
- Power Culture: This category of organizational culture revolves around centralization of power where decision making is completed by only few in power (Collins, 2021). The adoption of power culture at Dyson will provide shareholders and leaders the benefit enforcing authority regarding decisions of relocating headquarters. This type of culture will be disadvantageous for Dyson employees as they will not be able to voice their opinion regarding change.
- Task Culture: Specialized teams are created to achieve time based targets in task culture. Introduction of task culture at Dyson provides employees and leaders the advantage of setting goals at team level and making decisions to achieve change goals in a timely manner. This culture will influence change positively as every goal will be attained as per pre-determined schedule.
- Person Culture: Employees are highly valued and concerned about their individual achievements than organizational goals. This culture will be beneficial for Dyson employees as their interests will are highly valued. Person culture will be disadvantageous for leaders and shareholders at Dyson as profitability and goal attainment will be kept secondary to employee needs.
- Role Culture: Employees are given decision to enter specialized department and accept role of that specialized department under role culture (Caliskan and Zhu, 2019). Implementation of role culture at Dyson will be beneficial for employees as they will gain decision making power to certain extent. In case of leaders and shareholders at Dyson role culture will complicate change implementation as two global workforces are part of change at Dyson. This will put timely change attainment at risk.
From the above discussion it is analysed that the most beneficial category of organizational culture in case of implementing change at Dyson is ask culture. This is because it not only gives leaders power to make effective decisions for benefit of shareholders but also helps employees voice their opinions and influence decision making regarding change. Employees at Dyson will be able to make their concerns and interests heard which will reduce employee resistance towards change at the company. In addition to this the goals related to change of Dyson headquartered will be attained in a timely manner because of positive influence of task culture on primary stakeholders.
Conflicts resulting from a change
Terre are various reasons which lead to conflict in a corporation and elimination of conflict is essential for ensuring that goals related to change are successfully achieved. The type of conflict taking place at Dyson because of change of moving headquarters to Dyson is inter-personal conflict. Intra-personal conflict arises when there is a difference between vision and objective of employees and vision of the company (Faupel and Süß, 2019). The vision of Dyson in relation to change of moving headquarters is to expand into Asian markets and gain economic advantages by moving headquarters to Singapore.
The vision of UK employees who are showcasing resistance to change is to gain job security and development in the United Kingdom. This vision is threatened by the movement of headquarters of Dyson from UK to Singapore as the Intellectual property is moved from UK to Singapore along with major future investment. In addition to this recent job cuts by Dyson in United Kingdom have increased this conflict as fear of job security has increased. It is essential the leaders at Dyson come forward to resolve this conflict and gain employee acceptance so that the company continues to function smoothly on an international scale after headquarter relocation.
Employee motivation
It is essential for successfully relocation of Dyson that the respective company looks at the reasons for employee conflicts and employee resistance and takes steps to increase employee motivation towards change so that successful results can be gained from change in a timely manner. Employee motivation theories such as Maslow's hierarchy of need can be utilized by the respective company to improve employee motivation and reduce resistance towards changing the headquarters. The application of Maslow's hierarchy of needs in context of change being implemented at Dyson and improving employee motivation is provided below:
- Physiological needs: The requirement for basic elements for survival food water and shelter are included in this part of the hierarchy (Sharma, Narasimha and Singh, 2022). Dyson can fulfil physiological needs of the employees during relocation of headquarters by giving them appropriate and timely compensation.
- Safety needs: Security stability and safety are the main requirements of this level in the hierarchy. Dyson needs to ensure that leaders communicate job security assurance to employees in United Kingdom so that their need for stability and security is fulfilled and the resistance to headquarter change will lower.
- Belonging needs: Employees require to become a part of a community where they feel valued and accepted. Leaders at Dyson need to unite workforce at United Kingdom and Singapore and enforce same organizational culture in Singapore to create a global community of talent. This will create bonds between workforce of UK and Singapore and solve the belonging needs of employees.
- Esteem needs: This level of the hierarchy looks at the need for gaining respect and recognition in life (Schulte, 2018). Dyson needs to ensure that employees are recognized for their contribution in UK so that they fell more connected to the company and their needs are achieved. This will lower employee resistance towards change.
- Self-actualization needs: The last level of hierarchy emphasizes the need for accomplishment and achieving maximum potential. Employees at UK outlets of Dyson need to be given career development and performance management opportunities so that they can strive to becoming better and achieving professional’s goals with the company. This will help them envision their future of the company and increase their motivation towards accepting change.
Feasible strategies for change management
Change management is defined as the way of enforcing and describing change in context of internal as well as external activities (Abd El-Shafy and et. al., 2019). The best way of supervising change management is to adopt an effective change management model. Dyson need to utilize appropriate change management model in order to achieve the best results from moving headquarters from UK to Singapore. Change management models provide feasible strategies to company for enforcing organization wide change. The application of Lewin's change management model in context of change at Dyson is provided below:
Lewin's change management model
- Unfreezing: The focus of this stage of the change management model is to increase awareness about change and help employees understand the value of change so that employee resistance can be lowered. In case of Dyson, this stage of change management model is determining the need for change, gain approval from major stakeholders and communicate the issue as positive necessity for the organization. This is feasible strategy for Dyson as it will help the company deal with current conflicts in UK and prepare the global workforce for change effectively.
- Changing: This part of the change management model focuses on the actual change being implemented at the company. Overcoming this step of this change is the main barrier in change management as employees struggle with reality issues. In case of Dyson the company needs to maintain continuous flow of information to every employee so that they are informed of their role and task in change and are reassured about the positive impact of change on their profession. This is feasible for the company as it will promote unity across the global workforce.
- Refreezing: In the final stage of change management the focus is on reinforcing, solidifying and stabilizing change at the company (Gunjal, 2019). In context of Dyson, the company needs to tie the change in headquarters with task culture and establish feedback processes to ensure that change is institutionalized. This will act as foundation for achieving long-term change at Dyson.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it is determined that implementing change involves understanding organizational behaviour and culture as it helps handle the challenges and conflicts associated with change. Changes in external environment and growth opportunities are some of the most common drivers of change which create different responses from employees and the company. Hnady's model of organizational culture can be used to understand the influence of organizational culture on stakeholders dealing with change. Organization wide changes such as headquarter relocation invite conflict and leaders need to take action to improve employee motivation so that change acceptance increases. Lewin's change management model can be used by businesses to effectively implement different types of change sun a systematic manner. Are you worried about online assignment help UK from experts? Contact Instant Assignment Help.
Related Services:
Organisation behaviour
RECOMMENDATION
- It is recommended that Dyson offers training, support and communication for attaining both short-term and long-term results from change. This is justified recommendation for the company as it will help Dyson reduce employee resistance by making them feel valued.
- It is suggested that Dyson celebrate small accomplishment during change management to motivate employees towards making continuous efforts towards change. Celebration of success creates a positive environment for timely accomplishment of change (Bailey and et. al., 2018).
- Dyson is recommended to engage and communicate with front-line employees so that they feel connected to change management. Communication and engagement with top leadership will help the company easily transition to through the change process and lower resistance and conflicts.
REFERENCES
- Abd El-Shafy and et. al., 2019. Decreased pediatric trauma length of stay and improved disposition with implementation of Lewin's change model.Journal of Trauma Nursing JTN,26(2). pp.84-88.
- Bailey and et. al., 2018.Strategic human resource management. Oxford University Press.
- Caliskan, A. and Zhu, C., 2019. Organizational culture type in Turkish universities using OCAI: Perceptions of students.Journal of Education Culture and Society,10(2). pp.270-292.
- Cheah, Bellavitis and Muscio, 2021. The impact of technology complexity on the financial performance of R&D projects: Evidence from Singapore.The Journal of Technology Transfer,46(2). pp.431-458.
- Collins, D., 2021.Rethinking Organizational Culture: Redeeming Culture Through Stories. Routledge.
- Faupel, S. and Süß, S., 2019. The effect of transformational leadership on employees during organizational change–an empirical analysis.Journal of Change Management,19(3). pp.145-166.
- Gunjal, S., 2019. Enterprise resource planning (erp) as a change management tool.Journal of Management,6(2).
- Harmon, 2019.Business process change: a business process management guide for managers and process professionals. Morgan Kaufmann.
- Schulte, M., 2018. Adult learning degree and career pathways: Allusions to maslow's hierarchy of needs.The Journal of Continuing Higher Education,66(1). pp.62-64.
- Sharma, M. K., Narasimha, S. and Singh, P., 2022. Battle of royale game: Perspective from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.International Journal of Social Psychiatry,68(1). pp.227-229.