Organizational Restructuring: Tiger Airways - Case Study Example

Running Head: Organizational Restructuring Organizational Restructuring: A Case Study on Tiger Airways A Presentation Summary of Professor Date of Submission I. Introduction Organizations are basically human systems and this particular system takes in the perspective, values, beliefs, and worldviews of not only the organization but of the individual members as well. Restructuring or changing organizational structures and behavior necessitates restructuring the value systems of its members. This mechanism of restructuring values is referred to as learning. Successful learning demands unambiguous, direct and open communications in the organization (Denning, 2005). The success of an organization decisively depends on human behavior and boosting performance demands modifying behavior. Hence organizational restructuring must have as a primary objective the fostering of unambiguous, open communication that can facilitate effective organizational learning and explain responsibility for outcomes. Organizational learning also has to be constantly updated. Organizations that are incapable of learning or refuse to learn will become outdated. Leaders must regularly scrutinize their organizational structure to ensure that it keeps on providing an atmosphere for effective organizational learning. A development-oriented performance appraisal procedure can be a potential instrument for organizational learning. The competitive advantage of an organization not only stems from the organizational structure but from its individual members (Gilley, 2005). This paper will summarize the main theories and concepts in organizational restructuring that the group presented. As an application of these theories and concepts, the group conducted a case study on Tiger Airways. II. Organizational Restructuring: The Tiger Airways Case Study There are several factors that could indicate if an organization needs restructuring, and Tiger Airways fits the bill. The airline company was voted by Australians as their least preferred airline because of poor customer service. Specifically, the problems of the airline are poor customer experience because of delayed flights, inadequate customer support, poor employee performance and high absenteeism. Tiger Airways obviously needs new skills to address existing or predicted operational demands; clear accountability for outcomes and objective performance appraisals; consistent, open and efficient communication; and technology or innovation that would generate changes in individual performance and production processes. Since these needs are not efficiently met, workplace productivity becomes sluggish or declining; employee morale is also deteriorating. The challenge then is to find solutions to these individual and organizational problems. The group claims that organizational restructuring is the best solution to the Tiger Airway dilemma but this particular recommendation has to be justified by explaining how the changes will be implemented. And most importantly, the effects of organizational restructuring to both the employees and the organization should be considered. The key theories that the group used to justify the proposed organizational restructuring of Tiger Airways are the 7s model of Mckinsey and Weisboard’s model. Basically, the 7s model is a framework for examining and enhancing organizational and employee performance. The first 3s, which are ‘strategy’, ‘structure’ and ‘systems’, are oriented to improve organizational performance. ‘Strategy’ concerns the long-term capacity and direction of the organization; ‘structure’ refers to the basic organizational structure, its divisions or departments, specializations, duties and how they link up; and ‘systems’ relate to the formal and informal practices that direct regular activities such as management information systems (Pfeffer, 2005). On the other hand, the remaining 4s, which are ‘skills’, ‘shared values’, ‘staff’, and ‘style’, are less concrete but intrinsically more cultural. And most significantly, these 4s are intended to boost employee performance. ‘Skills’ pertains to the competencies and skills that are present within an organization or its areas of expertise; ‘shared values’ decisively orient employees toward esteemed behavior; ‘staff’ refers to the organization’s human resources and the extent to which they are developed and motivated; and lastly, ‘style’ describes the leadership paradigm of senior management and the organization’s general operating framework (Wang & Alamed, 2007). The 7s model is an effective paradigm in examining the activities and performance of the organization and its individual members. In a supposed to be customer-oriented company, such as Tiger Airways, the 7s model can be applied to investigate the level to which the organization is operating consistently towards a unique and motivating environment for both the organization itself, its employees, and its customers. Another theory that the group employed to justify our standpoint for organizational restructuring is Weisbord’s six-box model. Just like the 7s model, the six-box model can be used as a diagnostic instrument for organizational competence. The model named major areas which will be helpful in facilitating organizational effectiveness and high employee performance. The outcome of the analysis is a key list of well-thought out executed interventions that can initiate a restructuring process. The first of the identified key item in the model is ‘purposes’ which attempts to determine how suitable is the organization’s objective in its immediate environment, to determine if the objectives are unambiguous to provide direction and leadership to individual members of the organizations, and to determine what degree do individual goals of organization members are congruent to organizational goals. The second key item is ‘structure’ which aims to identify the prevailing plan model, to identify the rate of environmental, technological and departmental changes, and to identify the underlying principle of previous restructuring to determine continuous indications (Balkundi & Harrison, 2006). The third key item is ‘relationships’ which would evaluate the value of relationships between people and technologies, and most importantly, between the top management and personnel. The analysis considers two aspects, namely, the degree of interdependence and the extent of integral variance in relationships. If the degree of interdependence is high and value of relationship is low, members of the organizations are obliged to try new communication modes since no method of conflict management will work (Pfeffer, 2005). The fourth key item is ‘rewards’ which attempts to identify the areas the organization has to reward and to identify the conditions that make the individual members of the organization feel recognized or punished. The fifth key item is ‘leadership’ which endeavors to appropriate the leadership style to the informal behavior of the organization so as managers will act competitively. The primary duties of leadership are to determine objectives and structure the organization to accomplish the set goals. And the last key item is ‘helpful aids’ which attempts to determine if aids are supportive: if they help in the harmonization of work integration, if they help in scrutinizing the performance of the organization, and assist cope with concerns from examining and evaluation activities. Aids are helpful and unhelpful. Examples of aids are planning, policies, informal instruments, procedures, programs, and others (Gilley & Gilley, 2007). In accordance to these two management theories, the group has formulated several solutions to Tiger Airway’s problems. First is to make use of new check-in technology to facilitate self-service or for customers to check-in by themselves. In this manner, long queues will be prevented. Also, there should be personnel assigned in managing the queue and clearly announce or communicate when flights are closing for check-in. In order to successfully implement these changes, employees should be provided with training in conflict management and customer service. Personnel should also be involved in workshops to deliberate upon the existing procedure and for them to be able to suggest for improvements. Furthermore, it would be helpful to create a change team which is comprised of check-in staff and external change consultants who have specialized experience in the airline industry. And then, in order to efficiently analyze the effectiveness of restructuring there should be a business process consultant or modeler on the change team to scan the process to search for improvements. However, the realization of these solutions rests on approach to change implementation. In relation to the 7s and six-box models the group formulated the following approach to change process: changing the job of the check-in staff to include queue management tasks in order to reduce late customer check-ins and consequently improve customer service; providing check-in personnel with training on conflict management so they will know what to do with difficult customers and they will feel more capable in dealing with these problems. Providing check-in staff with adequate training on conflict management and on new self-check-in service will potentially reduce staff absenteeism and boost employee morale. These trainings will not merely improve employee performance and moral but it will also boost customer satisfaction. And last but not the least, implementing a reward system for the check-in staff will motivate them to be more engaging and responsive to the needs of the customers. Aside from the solutions and the process of restructuring implementation, the models require the do’s and don’ts in achieving organizational effectiveness. Some of the don’ts are refusing or failing to give time and effort to understand and analyze what intervention is essential; failing to involve those that will be affected by the change; failing to communicate why the change is necessary; failing to give those effected a notice of when the change will occur; and expecting all employees to respond agreeably and not to feel threatened. And obviously, the do’s are merely the opposite of these shortcomings: analyzing the situation by conducting qualitative research; planning the intervention and taking into account possible employee responses; communicating openly and directly the reason for restructuring; involving personnel from the beginning and respect their suggestions for improvements; and creating sustained improvement of organizational culture. To sum it all up, a successful organizational restructuring requires effective communication, a well-thought out and organized approach, skilled and knowledgeable management and personnel, clear explanation of the necessity of change to those who will be affected by changes, and involvement of these individuals in developing process improvement to significantly increase its success rate. III. Reflection on Change Management Being a member of a multinational group gave me valuable experience in diverse backgrounds in the course of change management. Jillian provided the group the key theories and shared with us her own experiences in this field which was useful in understanding the theories the class have discussed in the course. With regard to the group presentation, my knowledge essentially comes from various sources and I shall classify them into three kinds of sources. First is course material in which the group has the major reliable sources that the group can use to develop the group members’ career and deal with economic crises which distresses almost all societies. My main area of expertise is in the public sector and I discovered that the theories and concepts we took in the course were in fact attainable. In reality, numerous public organizations initiated restructuring and reengineering of their work tasks and structure in order to cope with the new strategy of my city called Abu-Dhabi 2030. This strategy is a 25-year plan of all public and private sectors in which each department in the government declares them strategy in a short time period of publishing the regulation by the highest government executives. Hence, theories in change management are genuinely important for me and I find this course really informative. Second is my personal experience with other group members who openly share with me and the students a personal experience in restructuring, downsizing and re-engineering as demonstrated in the presentation. The experience was really priceless for me due to the fact that there is no involved third party to approve the appropriateness of this personal experience. Also, without exaggerating, I found the examples of my team members absolutely accurate when I have witnessed the audience agreeing on their examples and approving that even the customers of these examples could discern the changes that should be instigated in this organization, specifically in the case of Tiger Airways wherein the check-in staff were significantly underperforming. The group, therefore, recommends that Tiger Airways re-engineers its check-in process by providing self-service check-in to increase the speed of check-in, and allocates a staff member to manage the check-in queue and to check if there are customers in line for departing flights. The group, in my belief, helped the class in understanding better the concepts of restructuring, downsizing and reengineering. The third is academic journals research wherein our group obtained support for our presentation and wherein we located quite a few valuable information. Furthermore, during our research we have found other areas of change management that are required in different companies in almost all industries. As long as it requires management it would have to be applied occasionally due to fluctuations in the economy and of complaints in attempting to keep the customer satisfied. IV. Conclusions Organizational restructuring has turn out to be a widespread solution amongst companies in order to cope with the increasing competition in the marketplace. Companies, such as those in the airline industry, have to adopt change in the organizational structure for the improvement of the organization. Several of the key reasons for organizational change are: shifting nature of markets; the persistent technological innovations, work processes, production, and organizational culture; diverse work performances compel values, demands and competitions; and organizational and individual demands for development. References Balkundi, P., & Harrison, D. A. 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