Background of the company:
Scenario Mi-ORG—a Boston-based, global consulting company with 250 employees—was presented with some unsettling information at the latest quarterly board meeting. The organization has realized it is losing members of its workforce despite strong efforts in employee retention and its successful launch into digital application products (specifically the LEAP app, aimed at assisting servicemembers’ transitions into civilian workforce). The most recent employee engagement survey (see attached) results and other data indicate a decline in overall workplace satisfaction and reveal a concerning turnover rate compared to data from only a few years back. CEO Taylor Shaw has tasked the human resources director, Kevin Sheridan, with conducting an analysis of employee departures. This analysis has identified a number of key factors driving staff to seek other work elsewhere. The CEO has also hand-selected an interdepartmental team to serve as a guiding coalition to address some of these factors. The group will serve as change agents to reshape the organizational culture and to continue building employee retention. Due to your previous efforts with retention planning at Mi-ORG, she considers you to be a valued stakeholder in this effort and has invited you to be a member of the guiding coalition. In this project, you will create a plan to facilitate changes in our organization, Mi-ORG, using Kotter’s 8-Step Process (see attached) for Leading Change. Successful completion of this project demonstrates your ability to plan for a successful organizational change, using Kotter’s model as a road map. Kotter’s 8-Step Process for Leading Change. Please respond to the comments in the document titled “Vision(1).docx”. I have also attached the original documents for this assignment. Also, the original directions for this assignment is below: Mi-ORG—a Boston-based, global consulting company with 250 employees—was presented with some unsettling information at the latest quarterly board meeting. The organization has realized it is losing members of its workforce despite strong efforts in employee retention and its successful launch into digital application products (specifically the LEAP app, aimed at assisting servicemembers’ transitions into civilian workforce). The most recent employee engagement survey results and other data indicate a decline in overall workplace satisfaction and reveal a concerning turnover rate compared to data from only a few years back. What Is a Guiding Coalition? A guiding coalition is a team formed specifically to plan and implement a series of changes that achieve specific goals. A guiding coalition should be composed of members from different departments and levels of the organization, and should report to senior leadership. CEO Taylor Shaw has tasked the human resources director, Kevin Sheridan, with conducting an analysis of employee departures. This analysis has identified a number of key factors driving staff to seek other work elsewhere. The CEO has also hand-selected an interdepartmental team to serve as a guiding coalition to address some of these factors. The group will serve as change agents to reshape the organizational culture and to continue building employee retention. Due to your previous efforts with retention planning at Mi-ORG, she considers you to be a valued stakeholder in this effort and has invited you to be a member of the guiding coalition. Meeting With CEO Taylor Shaw [The CEO speaks to you and other members of the guiding coalition.] “I’m glad to have you all on this team. I hand-picked each of you as representatives of various departments and perspectives within our organization. As you know, the recent employee engagement survey and HR’s turnover analysis have both indicated high turnover rates within Mi-ORG. We can’t afford to let this continue. This kind of turnover has a high cost for us, including both time and money lost to hiring and training new staff to replace those who have departed. More importantly, the data shows that elements of our workplace have a negative impact on our own employees. This is simply unacceptable. That’s not the kind of environment I want for our organization; I want everyone at Mi-ORG to feel respected and empowered, which will also raise employee motivation. We need to do everything we can to improve employee retention. Our turnover has risen to 35 percent annually. We want to see turnover return back to the industry average of 20 percent over the next 12 months. Although we have successfully filled all open positions, the fact that we reached 35 percent turnover annually indicates that we need immediate change. I need this group to serve as a united front in helping to work through the changes necessary to accomplish this goal, and to communicate the urgency of this change to the staff as a whole. This meeting was just to get everyone on the same page; we’ll be in touch about next steps soon. I’m looking forward to your thoughts on this and to working more closely with each of you. Thanks for meeting on such short notice!” [The CEO asks if the guiding coalition has any questions and the conversation continues. Once everyone’s concerns have been addressed, she concludes the meeting.] To achieve your desired outcomes, the guiding coalition must tailor any proposed changes to Mi-ORG’s specific situation. Read the following email and review the attached documents to get a clearer view of what might be driving employees to leave the company. From: CEO Taylor Shaw Coalition members, As I mentioned in our meeting, the Human Resources department has already conducted a considerable amount of research on our current retention problems. I’m attaching those documents here for your review. Please examine the HR Turnover Analysis, which draws from the results of the most recent Employee Engagement Survey (comparing it to a previous survey) for quantitative data and the Focus Groups Summary for qualitative insights. Surveys and focus groups are valuable forms of feedback that help us to understand others’ experiences working here. The first step of Kotter’s model is to express a sense of urgency regarding the change. Employees must understand both the need for change and why that change needs to begin now. To this end, Mi-ORG’s CEO has requested that the guiding coalition design an all-employee meeting and set its agenda. She invites you to discuss these plans with her. Meeting With CEO Taylor Shaw [The CEO speaks to you and the rest of the guiding coalition.] “Good to see everyone again. I hope everybody has reviewed the HR materials I sent out regarding employee engagement and turnover. They should have given you a good understanding of the problems that some of our employees are experiencing in our current work environment. I think it’s time to express the urgency for change across the organization. I’d like to host an all-employee meeting as soon as possible and I’m trusting you to determine the agenda. I believe that transparency and honesty are the best tools for gaining momentum and trust, and so we need to explain the true costs of turnover to our employees for them to understand our need to move forward with our upcoming changes. The second step of Kotter’s model is to generate a guiding coalition. This step was already completed when the CEO hand-selected you and other members of this team from across Mi-ORG. However, it is important to understand the composition of this guiding coalition and to reflect on the collaboration that is key to Kotter’s model. From: CEO Taylor Shaw Team, As we move forward, it will be critical that you understand how to work together to accomplish the tasks of change management at hand. I am providing guiding coalition team profiles for you to review in order to put together a team agreement. The team can be stronger than the sum of its parts, but only if we work together to maximize every team member’s strengths and to address any conflicts that may arise. We draw strength from our diversity; in the weeks and months to come, we will all need to be examples of how we want this organization to be in the future. When we demonstrate our respect for others, we inspire those around us to do the same. Note the roles and seniority of the guiding coalition members. What do you notice about their positions? What can you infer about the CEO’s reasons for choosing these individuals based on their positions in the company? How can the team leverage the members’ positions to be as effective as possible at the assigned task? “Team, Sorry I can’t be there with you, but I wanted to repeat my gratitude for all of your work so far. The all-employee meeting was an important step in getting started. Now, I want to make sure we are as clear about our goals as we have been about the problem we’re taking on. We need to be able to describe what the change will look like for both our current stakeholders and those to come. Let’s envision a future state for Mi-ORG; beyond the drop in our turnover rate, what do we want our workplace to be like after this retention concern is addressed? I’ll be back in a few days, and I’ll look at your vision statements then. I have to run, but I’ll be glad to answer any questions you have by email or when I return. Good work, everyone!” The third step of Kotter’s model is to envision the intended future once change is fully realized, particularly in terms of organizational culture. See if you can identify any workplace norms at Mi-ORG that would need to change in order to turn the tide on employee departures. How would these norms need to be different to improve retention? Refer back to the HR Turnover Analysis and Focus Group Summary. Now, imagine what the experience of working at Mi-ORG would be like once the factors you identified have changed. Write down your answers to the following questions. You will submit them as part of your next deliverable. Describe three ways in which Mi-ORG’s future will be different from how Mi-ORG is today. Name three future organizational values and beliefs needed to support the future vision. Explain why you think those values and beliefs are needed. Select the component of transformational leadership that is most relevant to achieving your vision, and explain the rationale for your choice. You have envisioned a destination for Mi-ORG. But what path should the organization take to get there? What techniques can be used to build resilience? How will you shape the organizational culture? Complete the third step of Kotter’s model by strategizing a significant change initiative to address a factor driving employee turnover based on the HR Turnover Analysis. For this project, you will only address one factor. Talk to your instructor about which factor you should take on in this project. What should Mi-ORG do to solve the problem that employees face? What change will it have to implement using this model? Try brainstorming several actions that could address your factor in employee turnover, and then decide which approach would be the most practical, plausible, and effective. You will further develop and refine this action in later steps, so you do not need to have the entire strategy mapped out now. However, you’ll need to contemplate strategies for leading change within your decisions and reflection. Demonstrate your courage by putting forward new, creative ideas of your own. Assignment Instructions for this order:
It’s important, to be honest, direct, respectful, and constructive in your feedback to one another. In this course, all learners are equals and should treat each other as such, regardless of military ranks. Keep this in mind as you give and receive peer feedback on your mitigation strategies or short-term wins. The purpose here is to provide constructive criticism. Explain which parts of your teammates’ proposed mitigation strategies or short-term wins you think will work best and which parts might need revision. Note anything that you believe will require additional changes to the company and any problems that you predict might occur if Mi-ORG follows your peer’s recommendation. Make sure to support your comments with evidence from both your peer’s writing and course concepts. The intention here is to help each other improve, both in these plans and in broader leadership skills. Please respond to 1) and 2)
1)
Greatest Value to Stakeholders
Short-term target: The short-term target with the greatest value to Mi-ORG is to increase the number of individuals who work remotely. The goal is to have 50% of employees working remotely at least one day a week within the next three months, as identified by the number of telework agreements that have been signed. Outline of process for reaching target: To reach this target, updated telework policies including a telework agreement will be developed and all individuals should be trained on the new policies immediately. Once trained, supervisors would be required to grant employees more telework opportunities. Cost to achieve target: Teleworking may require additional computer hardware (for example, monitors) and technology infrastructure (for example, cybersecurity protocols, SharePoint sites so everyone can work on documents at the same time). The costs may be minimal since telework is already an option at Mi-ORG.
Rationale for relative value to stakeholders: The HR turnover analysis showed that Mi-ORG employees were overworked. One mechanism to restore work-life balance is to allow more employees to telework. This is ranked first as it is an easy win for Mi-ORG as telework options and most likely an infrastructure to support telework are already available. Improved employee morale due to decrease stress of driving in and flexibility in work outweighs the IT costs .
2)
Barrier 1: Managers feeling loss of power (Perceived Loss of Power, Fear of Failure, Personal Impact of Change)
Impact: With the changes proposed, managers may feel like they are losing power. Encouraging innovation from employees may lead to managers feeling as though they are being left behind or that they are becoming less relevant. This can be particularly true of the innovation includes technology that the managers are not familiar with.
Encouraging telework for employees can also lead to managers feeling like they are less relevant than they have been. Many managers may struggle to manage their employees’ tasking without being able to talk with employees in person. Others may feel as though they cannot adequately assess employees’ performance if the employees are not co-located in the office when performing their work.
Managers who feel as though they are losing power or that they are becoming less relevant may shut down, or even leave Mi-ORG. It will be important that the role of managers is strongly considered when implementing policies. Managers must feel like their voice is heard in addition to the employees.
Rationale for the degree of impact: The loss of managers in an organization can cause anxiety and confusion for employees, especially if the exodus impacts how work is accomplished. Highly technical projects that require management oversight may suffer as employees scramble to find guidance and direction in the execution of their tasks.
Mitigation Strategy: As changes are implemented, meet with managers, and explain the change. Encourage questions and feedback. Managers are key stakeholders and will be critical to implementing the changes necessary to change the organizational culture. Explain how the changes will impact their role in the company and reassure them that, if embraced, the upcoming changes will actually benefit them personally and professionally.