A New Framework For Managing Change

Question: Discuss about a Report on A New Framework For Managing Change? Answer: In the year 2003, on the 18th of July, the cabin crews of British Airways called out a 24 hours strike. This strike was known as the Wildcat strike, where almost 10,000 passengers suffered from this strike at the Heathrow Airport in London. Interestingly the trade unions was not involved in this strike; but 250 cabin crew walked out, during a peak holiday season. The situation became so worse that the British Airways (BA) had to call the police and also have to set up a tent outside the airport. For this incident, the BA was deeply criticized, especially by the American passengers who were flying to the United States that day. After 24 hours on Saturday, the cabin crew returned to work but the effect of the strike was still there. On the 21st of July, that is on the Monday BA reported that over 1,000 passengers had canceled their services, as a result of this crime. The BA faced a set back because of this strike; it face a loss almost 40 million pounds. This loss was faced at post 9/ 11 era when major events like the Iraq war and the SARs attacks were taking place in the world. The BA later declared they have lost almost 100,000 customers. There was a dispute between the BA management and the cabin crews because the BA introduced a new electronic clock in the system; this was introduced to record the attendance of the cabin crew; to record the time when they come in for the work and the time when they leave the workplace. The staff, on the other hand, did not accept this system because they thought with this new system the managers were now given the power to manipulate both their shifts and the work. BA again thought that it will modernize the whole system and improve the efficient staffs as well as the resources. Things were not so, the result of this modernization was loss or cut of many cabin crews. Almost 13,000 cabin crews lost their job and the BA always suffered because of the shortage of ground staff. According to some writers, workers felt that they were not given enough respect for the work done by them. The result of this new system was the strike held by the cabin crew on July 18. The BA on the 23rd of Jul y has a conversation with the unions and agreed to the 3% hike in the salary of the workers, and delayed the swipe card operational system till the 1st of September. According to Bergin (2015), a change in the organizational sector will affect or influence four different parts of an organization. The four different parts are structured, strategy, technology, and employee. Thus when an organizational leader is taking a decision to bring in a change, then the leader has to be very careful. Most of the time, most of the employees could not take the change in an organizational sector in a positive way because it was not communicated to them properly. There is an improvement in the communication says in the last few years, and thus now it has become easier for the organizations to communicate with their employees in the proper way. The organizational leaders should be able to convince the employees that the organizational change will enhance their skill; this will encourage the employees to accept the change in the organizational sector in a positive way. In this case, BA introduces the transformational change to compete in the present business enviro nment, and their words were not communicated in the right way to the cabin crews. According to Keenan (2005), managers in an organization often ignore those people who could bring in the relevant and innovative change in an organization, at the local level. These people can go beyond their job criteria and work for the organizations. Organizational changes in an organization will be accepted by the employees if three things are in balance. These three things are strong teamwork, leadership, and the bureaucratic system. The business environment is hyper-competitive; thus Palmer and Dunford are of the opinion that most of the time these sectors have the structural changes to cope up in this competitive market. The organizational sector most of the time, regard the changes as reorientation transformation that will help them to cope in this competitive business environment. Changes on the other hand in the organizational sector should regard it as robust transformation; that will bring in equilibrium between the management and employees. This equilibrium was not there between the cabin crews and the management of the BA. References Oakland, J.S. Tanner, S.J. (2007) 'A New Framework For Managing Change', TQM Magazine, 19 (6), pp.572-589, [Online]. Keenan, H. (2005). 'The hard side of change management'. Managing organizational change: a multiple perspective approach. (2009). . Werkman, R. (2010). Reinventing Organization Development: How a Sensemaking Perspective Can Enrich OD Theories and Interventions. Journal of Change Management, 10(4), pp.421-438.