Managing Organisational Change - Parkway Nursing Care - Case Study Example

Parkway Nursing Care is an organization with 220 facilities across the south western part of the United States of America. As the need for skilled nursing care increase, Parkway nursing care desires to be in a position to meet this growing demand and hence the need for continual expansion. According to the study conducted, it is evident that the culture of the organization is being eroded with the opportunity cost being more bed occupancy. The number of patients has been steadily increasing placing more pressure on the caregivers. The current staffs are not properly motivated to work as professional caregivers and therefore take the job as any other. There is no flexibility in the working hours and stiff punishments (immediate firing) in case an employee takes an unexcused leave of absence. There is a breakdown in communication both among the nurses in respect to shift changes and from the nurses to the management in regards to procedural proposals. Change management is a move towards the shifting or transitioning of individuals, groups and organizations from an existing state to an aspired future state. Change management can also be defined as the employment of fundamental structures and tools to direct any organizational transformation effort. The goal of change management is to capitalize on an organization's benefits and play down the change impacts on staff and steer clear of distractions (Kotter, J. 2011). Change Management should start with an orderly analysis of the existing situation in order to establish the requirement for change and the potential to change. The goals, substance, and procedure for change should all be specific as part of a Change Management plan. Leadership and change management guru and professor at Harvard Business School, John Kotter, introduced an eight step change process that laid out the steps that have to be taken in order to administer change effectively in his 1995 volume, "Leading Change." The first step is to create urgency. For any form of change to take place, it helps a lot if the whole organization actually wants it. If a sense of urgency is developed, the initial motivation for change is already in place. The second step is forming a powerful coalition. In convincing people that change is crucial, strong guidance and evident support from senior people within the organization will play a huge role in ensuring this. Thirdly, one should create a vision for change. This involves linking the concepts identified for change to an overall that the staff can grasp without difficulty and remember. This helps in everyone to understand the reason for asking them to carry out something. The fourth step then requires communication of the vision repeatedly and effectively and ensuring that it is embedded within everything that is done within the organization. The fifth step calls for the management to empower others to act on the vision. Removing any obstacles that may hinder change can empower the staff you need to carry out your vision, and it can assist the change shift forward. The sixth step requires creation of short-term wins. Success is a great motivator and therefore, creation of short term targets and achieving them can further inspire the whole staff. In step seven, one should build on change. Scores of change projects are unsuccessful since triumph is declared way before time (Kotter, 1995). For a new system to be declared as working efficiently, several successes have to be achieved. The final step is to institutionalise the new approaches. This calls for to making the changes made to stick, it must become a component of the core of the organization in question. Continuous efforts should be made to ensure that the change is witnessed in every feature of the organization and hence giving that change a firm place in the organization's culture. Todd Jick came up with a tactical ten-step model for implementation of organizational change. In his proposition, he declares that implementation is a combination of both art and science (Mento, 2002), this is simply to state that how an executive implements change is equally as important as the change itself. The first step in this model involves assessing the particular organization and its need for change. Once an actual need for change is established, Jick’s second step, entails generating a collective vision and a common course for driving change. The third step points out the significance of separating the current change proposal from past initiatives. The fourth step in this model entails creating urgency of the vision and the separation attained in the second and third steps. Making available support to strong leadership is the fifth step in this process. This step emphasizes that it is vital for a change orientated manager to have a team that is able to and will support and implement the change vision. At the seventh step is where Jick proposed the crafting and creation of an implementation plan. The eighth step in this course of action captures goings-on around developing enabling structures that empower the staff and removing all anticipated obstacles that may hamper the progress of the initiative at hand. Communication, which is another major feature of any successful change program, is the ninth step in the process. This step is essential as it involves publicizing an honest message in the midst of the change couriers and the recipients of change. The final phase centres on strengthening the actual change project and then institutionalizing the change making sure that the effort can be maintained well after the actual change endeavour has been carried out (Jick, 2001). Kurt Zadek Lewin, a social psychologist was a pioneer in the field of organizational development, developed an early model of change. This social scientist viewed behaviour as a vibrant equilibrium of forces functioning in opposite directions. There are driving forces that smooth the progress of change since they push workforce in the required direction. Restraining forces however obstruct change as they push the workforce in the reverse direction. Lewin analyzed these forces and proposed a three-step model can be of assistance in shifting the equilibrium in the course of the intended change. This three step model is referred to as Unfreeze, Change, Freeze (or Refreeze). According to Lewin, the first step in the process is to unfreeze the existing situation which is considered the equilibrium state. This is necessary to prevail over the strains of individual resistance and group compliance. The second step in Lewin’s model of varying behaviour is movement. This step requires movement of the object system to a new equilibrium. The final step of this three-step change model is refreezing. This step has to take place subsequent to the implementation of the change so that it can be sustained or it can “stick” in the organization over time. This is the actual incorporation of the new ideals into the organizational values and traditions. The aforementioned change theories and models share similar core values which are noted in the various steps. All three models acknowledged a procedure where the organization has to institute a rationale and need for change. This step has to begin with the management or board of the organization. An organization’s challenge is to pick the right managerial leaders who can generate an ambience where the staff are inspired to achieve beyond the minimum expectations. Organizational leaders are more probable to act if they notice a gap in the actual level of performance in comparison to some benchmark (Wischnevsky, 2004). Research has shown that some particular circumstances have a tendency to increase the chances that leaders will employ major organizational change programmes. These circumstances consist of changes in top management, environmental shifts and a fall in performance. The three models all integrate the development of a vision and movement from the status quo to a future state. Visioning is one of the most important steps of a change process. A good and well thought out vision helps people in the organization know where they are heading to. Numerous organizations have come up with visions that are available in print, circulated to workers and hung outstandingly on the walls. This however is not enough, the leaders have to communicate the vision to the staff in the organization and they have to show the way by example to actualize the vision. When there is a disparity in what the leaders say and what leaders do, both the leaders and staff lose trust and faith. The models deal with the notion of changing procedures to empower staff in the organization to adopt change. This step comprises of evaluation of the current systems, procedures and potential to facilitate change. Expert opinions state that leaders should be involved in stewardship (Herrick, 2005). This entails the transformational procedure of including the entire staff in resolutions and actions. All the models have as a feature the proposal of strengthening and creating little improvements to promote additional change. Most companies have a model for progression and development one of the most common being the Deming Cycle, also referred to as the Plan-Do-Check-Act Cycle (Deming, 1986). The models all address the significance of communication in order to achieve support for the change. At Parkway Nursing Care, change management is extremely necessary. According to the study, it is evident that the culture of good service has been eroded by the thirst of increasing the client base. The organization has placed a lot of emphasis on bed occupancy and does not do the same for staff welfare. The staff members are overworked, don’t have job flexibility and in that case feel that their efforts are unappreciated by the management. The nursing care staff feels that their point of view on patient care are hardly ever given an proper hearing yet they are the ones that spend the most time with the patients. Communication between shifts is also a major problem affecting the caregivers as the process is still very old. During a change in shifts, the incoming personnel is unable to check what took place in the previous shift because of time constraints. In today’s world of that has constant and complex change, organizational leaders who react quickly and responsibly are thriving. The organizations that do not survive are those that are led by people who fail to invent the future or even adapt to change. Successful change is a repetitive process and is demanding from an operational as well as a result driven approach. Effective change must have the suitable organizational in addition to social structure at the project level inside an organization that will guarantee and smooth the progress of ongoing awareness of the change process. The management of Parkway Nursing Care should first hear out the predicaments that the staff face. The vision of the organization should be to have the best personnel in the industry and therefore management should not disregard employee opinions or hire unsuitable applicants and use up little in the way of employee training. This conveys a message that the vision is not in actuality does not merit the paper that it is written (Simonson, 2005). There are several key areas that are central to change. The human resource function has been slacking and hiring that are not staff just because the government keeps an eye on staffing levels. This has led to the employment of personnel that are not patient care oriented. The current workforce is also evidently overworked and do not enjoy schedule flexibility. The system of documentation also poses a problem as the staff members claim not to have enough time to check what took place in the previous shift. Parkway Nursing Care should review their human resource appointment strategies. I would propose a database of qualified nurses to be set up. These employees should not just be employed on merit only but also on their ability to be compassionate caregivers. Additional staff should also be employed to control the situation where the employees can take time off when they need it. The organization should set up a system where they have stand by temporary caregivers that are available when an employee needs to be absent. These temporary workers should be paid on locum basis. This will in effect ensure that the staff is in high spirits in their work and the care would be a lot better. This is largely expected to boost the morale of the workers and by so doing improves on quality of work achieved. The management should also undergo training in management skills. Communication is a core value in every aspect of an organization and nurses, who are the primary caregivers, should get a platform where they can express their opinions on procedures and general issues affecting them. This should be in form of meetings held weekly with the management where the main agenda should be ways in which they can improve patient care. It is empowering when the entire staff is involved in the development as well as the actual change management process (Collins, 2001). This organization should employ an employee reward scheme where the caregivers that show exceptional performance are rewarded. This should be on a regular basis like an employee of the month with a good compensation package that will motivate the others to work harder to receive the same. Empirical research ought to be conducted to assess the level to which the organization has developed a system that can constantly reinvent itself. This research should explore what elements of the system are absent or poorly aligned in order to predict how capable the organization is in terms of transformation. Transformational change is an infinite process that affects the entire organization. In this respect, communication is very vital to effect the change. A change model should be rational, objective and plan oriented. The change could look good in theory, since it makes rational sense, but in the process of implementation, the need of bearing in mind human feelings and experiences should not be ignored as they can have negative consequences. As an evident pathway on transformation plans, organizational change management supports collective expectations, communicates, amalgamates teams and administers people training. It uses performance indicators, such as fiscal results, commitment of leadership, operational efficiency, effectiveness of communication and the apparent need for change to devise suitable strategies, in order to steer clear of change failures. As a great Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, once said, "Change is the only constant." REFERNCES Kotter, J. (2011). "Change Management vs. Change Leadership -- What's the Difference?". Kotter, J. (1995). Leading Change, Harvard Business Review Jick, Todd D. (2003), Managing Change: Cases and Concepts, Second Edition, New York: Irwin Publishing. Jick, Todd D. (2001), Vision Is 10%, .Implementation The Rest,. Business Strategy Review, Vol.12, No.4 Mento, Anthony J., Jones, Raymond M., Dirndorfer, Walter. (2002). A change management process: Grounded in both theory and practice. Journal of Organizational Change Management Wischnevsky, J.D. (2004), “Change as the Winds Change: The Impact of Organizational Transformation on Firm Survival in a Shifting Environment, Organizational Analysis, Vol.12, No.4 Simonson, M. (2005), .Distance Education: Eight Steps for Transforming an Organization, The Quarterly Review of Distance Education, Vol.6, No.2 Herrick, K.S. (2005), .The Opportunities of Stewardship, Nurse Administration Quarterly, Vol.29, No.2 Deming, W. Edwards (1986), Out of the Crises, 2nd, Ed. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Center for Advanced Engineering Study. Collins, J. (2001), Good to Great, Harper Collins Publishers Inc, NY Read More