The Change Process in Hospital - Case Study Example

Managing organizations and change It is said that the sole thing that remains constant in business is the change itself. The competitive advantage ofa company today is determined by how fast it can adapt itself to the rapidly changing environment. In the present dynamic business situation, organizations are coming face to face with changes more than ever before. CEPTUREANU, 2009) These sudden changes are the results of mergers and acquisitions, restructuring and downsizing in the company or even the introduction of new technology in the organization. (Managing Organizational Change, n.d.)    This brings to the fore the importance of managing changes effectively within an organization. The change has to be implemented in such a manner that the complexities and the cost involved with the same get rationalized. For this there is a need of designing an effective workflow process and putting in the best quality practices. Also the framework for the same must be easy to implement.        One of the biggest challenges which are often faced by the organizations desirous of implementing changes in their organization is the resistance which they face from their employees. The employees are emotionally attached with their organization and workplace. Any changes here are definitely going to affect the morale of the employees and hence they resist changes. As the organization itself is made of employees, it is of utmost importance to take the employees in confidence before implementing any major changes in the organization.  Case Study:    The case study is about a project for transforming from paper documentation to electronic documentation in hospital.  Objectives of the case study are as following: (1) To reduce the time consumption.    (2) To facilitate communication between departments and;    (3) To secure storage for the information.  Issues involved: The hospital is facing some problems while implementing these changes. These problems are the result of resistance from workers who are not conversant with the new technologies. Resistance to change in this case has occurred because the people are unable to understand why at all any change is taking place in the organization. The employees have also been found reluctant to move out of their comfort zones. They have this fear of future uncertainties, which might develop after the implementation of changes. There is also a feeling among the employees that these changes have been forcibly enforced on them by the management and they are lamenting about the fact that they have no say in such change management issues. Also the timeframe for such changes is kept short by the management.  Management Perspective: To deal with this situation and in order to manage the change effectively, the management of the hospital has decided to provide the best environment to its employees. The following guidelines will be under the adoption of the hospital management to get the desired results. (1) Firstly, the management of the hospital will take the staff into its confidence so as to market the idea to them. Here the management needs to clarify to the staff as to why there has been a need of change and how the same will be carried out in the hospital. The idea is to create a transparent picture about the proposed change in front of the hospital staff. (2) Adequate training will be provided to the employees along with the necessary support so as to effectively manage change in the organization. (3)It will also be made known to the employees that they will miss out on career growth opportunities if they are unable to accept changes. In the present dynamic world knowledge of these skills is essential for working in any organization, as there is always the demand for such staff those are forward looking and have the ability to make difference in the organization. (4)The employees will be made to understand that if they become resistant to the new changes in the organization then they will forgo an opportunity to learn new technical skills in the process. For instance, in this case if the employees refuse to cooperate, then they will also miss out on a chance to acquaint themselves with this new technology.  (5)It will also be demonstrated to the employees that once they learn to accept and incorporate the new changes then they will be able to work in a much smarter way and will save time in the process.  (6)The employees will not be discouraged to make criticisms on the changes, but these criticisms must be constructive ones. They will be encouraged to provide recommendations about the same, so as to better implement the changes in the organization. Then idea is to promote a two way communication between the management and the staff of the hospital. (7)The company management will use formal power, peer pressure, incentives, and other influencing techniques to drive in the importance of this change among the employees.   (8) All the possible changes which will take place in the organization have to be communicated to the employees. Management believes that this will help to clear the picture about the future even if a few elements of it are less than desirable for the employees. (9) Finally, the employees will be told to come out of any pre conceived notion which they might have developed and to view the changes positively. At the first instance many things look quite impossible, but when the same is given some time and invested with some efforts, then our views regarding the same starts changing.   Being competent to manage change essentially means to transform the way in which the individuals in the organization react to changes. The basic idea here is to give the employees the necessary information and the required authority and skills so that they are in a position to support all the organizational changes. Discussion and Lessons This exercise has helped to reconfirm the belief that the employees are the most vital assets of the company. They account for the largest cost centers in the business. Along with their pay the employees also look for recognition in the organization. These people are very much emotionally attached to their workplace and hence any major organizational change which will have a profound impact on the employees has to be implemented cautiously. (Managing Organizational Change, n.d.) In a similar context it can be stated that the performance of an organization can be bettered only by improving the performance of the employees. The individuals working in the hospital were found to be divided among various formal and informal groups. These groups constantly interact with each other and in many cases have been found to be interdependent and having significant role in the determination of organizational culture. Their importance can be gauged from the fact that only after the influence of such groups were used; the desired changes could be successfully implemented in the hospital. Another important lesson learned was that along with the employees the focus has to be made on the changing nature of the workplace. Like all the modern organization, a hospital also needs to maintain an efficient workforce supported by necessary technology so as to meet their targets and to serve the customers better. Hence introduction of technology which can reduce time and increase efficiency must be welcomed by everyone. Another lesson which can be comprehended from this experience is to evolve out of the closed system of functioning into a more open one. Thus there is a greater need of interaction between different subsystems of the organization. Hence the management of the hospital has learned an important lesson in this regard that no major changes can be incorporated until adequate support is received from other stakeholders of the organization.  This process can be termed as shared problem solving. Similarly the staff of the hospital also understood that if any change is received with an open mind and without any pre conceived notion in the mind, then such changes always prove to be beneficial in the long run. (Senaratne, and Sexton,. 2008, pp 1303) Lastly the management of the hospital has used various techniques so as to make the staff accept and implement the desired changes. The company has gone for marketing the change plan to its employees. The employees of the hospital have been provided all kind of training and the necessary resources to deal with the same. It was also made known to the employees that they will miss out on a big opportunity if they fail to accept the changes. Criticism and suggestions from the employees were accepted and well received. Incentives were given to the employees who accepted the change. For those who were not ready to accept change were influenced by using the peer pressure and the formal power of management. This long exercise has been a great learning experience for the management of the hospital, who now will be able to utilize the experience from the same in course of any future change management process. It seems that the management of the hospital has adopted the Six Change Approach. This model was developed by Kotter and Schlesinger and it is used to reduce the employee resistance to change. Through this approach the management considers three factors which often lead to resistance from the employee towards changes. These include the self interest of the employees, their misunderstanding of changes and the low tolerance levels for employees towards change. (Newton, September 02, 2006) The six approaches which have been suggested based on this model for minimizing employee resistance are as follows: (1) Education and Communication: The model postulates that direct communication with the employees and educating them on the necessities and effects of changes goes a long way in reducing opposition to change. It helped the employees to understand the logic behind the necessity of change in the hospital.   (2) Participation and Involvement: These include involving the employees in the change management process and to solicit their views and suggestions for the same. (3) Facilitation and Support: This involves the support provided to the staff from the side of the hospital management to help them in coping with the changes. (4) Negotiation and Agreement: In order to deals with the resistance from the side of the employees they were given incentives for supporting the changes, like performance related pay plans, stock options and share in profits.   (5) Manipulation and Co-option: This process involves bringing such person on board, who may not make sufficient contributions towards change but whose presence can lower the resistance from the side of the employees. (6) Explicit and Implicit Coercion: Managers can also coerce the employees by forcing them to accept changes. Those who do not fall in line can be punished by transfer or retrenchment.  Although the first four approaches were adopted by the hospital management, the last two were wisely kept aside as these are more case specific. On the basis of its experience the management has adopted the following chain of steps which it has used successfully in bringing about the change in the hospital work culture. The hospital management has decided to follow these steps in all its future change requirements. Start-up and contracting: In this step, the change agents identified the issues and the critical factors associated with the changes. This was then linked with the various processes of the organizations, which were awaiting changes. This also helped in identifying the roles and requirements of various employees working at different levels in the organization. (Kennem, Jan 21, 2007) Assessment and diagnosis: In this next process, data was collected regarding the difficulties of the organization. The data was collected keeping in mind both the problems to be solved and what opportunity can be availed from the same. Along with this a gap analysis was performed to show the difference of current results with the desired results. Feedback: In this part all the findings are discussed by the management. Everyone who had contributed in providing the date is entitled for such kind of feedback. This gave an opportunity to the people in the organization to get involved with the process and to learn those facts which are new to them. Action planning:  In this step action plan was decided based on the information which was gathered from the assessment of the data. The plan gad to be best suited to the needs of the organization and it should be result oriented and must be measurable. Intervention: In this phase the major task of actual implementation of the change process was carried out. Although it has to follow the action plan but also must be flexible so as to meet the changing needs of the organization. Evaluation:  For the success of the change it is must that the same should have a proper framework for evaluation, so as to verify its success and to make improvements wherever necessary. Thus an evaluation framework was decided in this phase. Adoption:  After the evaluation has been successful the company went forward and adopted the new changes, which now becomes a permanent feature of the business. Although ideally these all steps should be followed systematically, but if the management feels otherwise, then the plans could be made flexible enough so as to meet the peculiarities of the changes. (Rouda, 1995) Concluding remarks Implementation of changes is very vital for achieving success in business and also to stay a step ahead of the nearest competitors. Organizations pass through several stages and changes are necessary in each of such stages so as to maintain the organization’s vitality. (Mcnamara.C. 1997). Initiating changes in the organization is only a job half done if it is not managed properly. Thus utmost care needs to be taken so as to make the change plan a success. It has to be kept in mind that if any change is poorly planned or is badly implemented then the result of such failure may be very severe on the company. Hence change needs to be implemented only for some proper reason. The commitment and the capability of the company management are also of great importance for the successful application of changes. Thirdly, the organization needs to formulate SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time bound) goals and communicate the same to the employees. This will go a long way in successfully managing change in the organizations.                              References   1. “Change Management Guidelines” (September 1997), Department of Commerce, UK, available at: http://www.gcio.nsw.gov.au/products-and-services/policies-guidelines/Change%20Management%20Guidelines.pdf, (accessed on June 25, 2009) 2. Newton, Z. 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