Managing Change By Ann McDonald The one consistency in the travel industry is change and being able to manage change is crucial to the success of a business. Companies most likely to be successful in making change work to their advantage are the ones that no longer view change as a discrete event to be managed, but as a constant opportunity to evolve the business. (Rick)There are varying reasons for change. Some changes are brought about by a third party or business changes that we have no control over while other types of changes occur within our own agencies to help improve our current processes. A successful manager will be able to lead change by recognizing and planning for any type of change, communicating the change and implementing the change. Recognizing and planning for changes are crucial in any type of business. If you know that change is inevitable and have a mindset of this, when changes do come up, you are better prepared to handle them. One important concept that can assist with changes is recognizing the various paradigms that exist in our lives. As we learned in this course, A Paradigm is a set of rules and regulations (written and unwritten) that establishes boundaries and tells you how to behave inside the boundaries in order to be successful. In other words, it is a way of thinking that influences your actions. (Institute, 2006) Paradigms keep order and as humans we like things to stay as they are and have rules to keep this order. Most people don t like change if they don t have some feeling of involvement because it can create a feeling of the unknown and uncertainty. Recognizing that change will upset these paradigms and that there will be varying reactions to these paradigm shifts will assist in leading the change successfully.
Planning is essential for a smooth transition. Making changes on the fly will only create chaos and a lack of confidence by the workforce. The Queensland Government suggests that building a business case will help explain the changes to your staff and keep the planning on track. They suggest that there are steps that should be taken when building the business case. The first step is to think about the reasons for the change. You want to be sure that the change will be sound and benefit the business. It is good to list out potential problems or anything that may threaten your business. Sometimes changes occur because of outside forces, but it is important to react to those forces by changing in the best way to benefit the business. The next step is to test your argument for changing. You want to be sure that the change is going to be a benefit to the company. Take into consideration the list of problems that you have identified and conduct research to know that they can be overcome and solved. At this point, you can make a list of the steps that need to be taken in order to move the change forward and address the solutions to potential problems. It is important to share this information with all that are involved in the change. It will help to encourage your staff that you have thought about the change with careful considerations to potential problems and show real solutions. Be open to input from others. Others may see problems or solutions that you have not thought about. At this point it is essential to set clear goals and targets and share these with everyone involved. These goals should help direct you through the change process. When setting goals, you should set target dates so you know when the expected date is that you want to reach the goal. Once you have this in order, you can now put your plan into action. A very large and dramatic change occurred in our office last October. There was an announcement made in a General Conference by the leaders of our church concerning the eligibility age of missionaries. The previous age was 19 years old for boys, lowered to 18 years of age; and 21 years of age, now lowered to 19 years old for girls. We knew as we heard that announcement that this would
create a dramatic increase in the work that we were currently doing and that major changes would be in store for us. As we met together with our Director and other managers to discuss the impact of this announcement and the projection numbers started coming in, we knew that we didn t have enough staff to handle the work and that the way we had the teams arranged would not be conducive to the changes that were going to be needed to handle the workload. We knew that we would have to realign work assignments on the teams, hire additional staffing to meet the surge of work, hire a new type of flexible work staff because this surge would not be permanent, train this new workforce in a limited amount of time since the announcement was effective immediately, and still maintain the highest quality of service and consistency that we have done in the past. At first this change seemed quite daunting, but we all knew that this announcement was the correct direction from our leaders and we also knew that it was something that we could do successfully if we were careful in our considerations of people and business needs. We created a business plan to add additional staff and realign the workloads between the three teams. Even in our careful assessment of how the change would affect our teams and workload, we didn t fully realize the impact this change would have on outside forces or the changes with our partners and customers. How this change affected them has impacted us as well. Even with the best and carefully laid plans, there must be a level of flexibility that occurs so that alterations to the plans will keep things orderly and the business running smoothly. True success occurs from leading change as well, by altering the status quo, creating a new vision, communicating that vision widely, getting people to believe in it and then empowering them to act. (Institute, 2006) Communication is essential when implementing changes in the workplace. There are several key aspects that are important to remember when communicating change. When explaining the change to employees, the message must be clear and concise. One must explain why the change is necessary and
how the change will affect those in the workplace. Be honest and open with employees as to the reasons for the change and the impact that the change will have on them. When you are honest and open, trust will be strengthened and with that a sense of security. Helping people understand the reasons behind the change will help them to come to terms with it. Another important aspect of communication is to involve those affected by the change by seeking out and encouraging questions and open dialog. Spending time with face to face dialogs as well as open meeting discussions will help to create an atmosphere of trust and understanding. Truly listen to concerns and address them as they come up. This will build confidence and minimize fears. Finding ways to help people be invested in the change will help to make any transition run more smoothly. We are now six months past the initial announcement and have made some dramatic changes in the way we do our work. The resistance to these changes has been minimal because we have been careful to address and recognize people s natural tendencies to resist change. As taught in the Managing Change section of the Travel Institute CTC course, communicating change is a gradual process, one that requires not only time to carefully analyze the change and how it will affect people, but also a thoughtful process of communication. To communicate effectively, you must plan your message in a series of small steps (Institute, 2006) The management in Missionary Travel have worked diligently to ensure that our communication has been open and upfront as we have described the necessary changes and the impact of these changes. We have encouraged input from the agents as we work through these various challenges. We have explained the reasons for some of the changes and sought out feedback from those affected by the changes. We have been very open to the agent s about the necessary changes and have given them an opportunity to assist in making changes to their processes to meet these new opportunities. All of our agents have taken Six Sigma and are empowered to make changes to their processes through the Root Cause Analysis (RCA) form. This has given the agents a voice to assist in
making the appropriate changes that have been required to meet the increase in work. When an agent has in idea and wants to implement an RCA, they must gather data and feedback from others in the department. There must be buy in from all the areas that will be affected by the suggested change. These brainstorming sessions have been very valuable because the different points of views allow us to look at all the consequences of the change that is being proposed. We are able to make better informed decisions that are accepted and implemented well. We have learned with some difficulty that good communication with partners can make a large difference accomplishing the work at hand. One of our partners is the Missionary Department. They oversee all the missionaries that are currently serving and will be entering the mission field. They have felt the impact of this change as dramatically as we have. The problem is that there is a large gap in communication between this department and ours. They have made changes to travel dates and processes that directly affect our work without any communication to us until after their changes have been made which has created a great deal of work for our agents on top of all the additional work they are already handling. When there is a breakdown in communication, it can cause a great deal of frustration and damper the work that needs to be accomplished. This negative experience has taught us the importance of communicating and thinking about all outside possibilities of how the change will impact one another and implement this in the planning portion of managing change. Implementing the change should be done in stages and be carefully thought through. In our situation, we were not told about this change prior to the announcement that was made in the General Conference. We had to work as quickly as we could to plan and implement the changes required in order for us to keep up on the surge of missionaries that jumped at the chance to leave earlier on their missions. The phases of the implementation process may not necessarily follow in strict chronological order or be performed in isolation from each other. The path toward successful change implementation
weaves among and between various steps, resulting in a dynamic, fluid change process. (Institute, 2006) The Travel Institute CTC course teaches us that we should clarify our plans. Communication should be open, clear and upfront. There should be opportunities for questions to be raised and be responded with honest answers. There should also be clear and concise goals that are presented to all so there are no surprises. Arnold Anderson suggests that everyone be involved in order for the change to take hold. The management team must be unified so that it is easier for the employees to accept the change. (Anderson) Through all of the changes that have occurred over the last six months, one thing has been consistent is that management has stood united in the decisions that have been made. In doing so, it has created a sense of strength and consistency that is felt throughout the office. We have sought out the advice of our agents and used their suggestions to improve processes and make necessary changes. They feel vested in making the necessary changes and keeping our business running smoothly. Feedback must be ongoing through the implementation of change and it must be a two way communication. Feedback to the employees will help them to know how they are doing. Feedback from the employees will allow management insight as to how the change is working. Listening to the front line employees is imperative because they are the ones actually doing the work. Their knowledge about the day to day procedures is invaluable in understanding which directions management should take when implementing change. Feedback is the best tool that change implementers have to give employees some insight about the outcomes of their performance. (Institute, 2006) Another important phase discussed in our course is to carefully integrate new practices. A gradual transition can help overcome paradigm paralysis. (Institute, 2006) Making the changes in a slow and methodical manner will help the employees to adjust and accept the changes. People tend to be nervous about change and it will freeze up the work if they are thrown in fire. We did not have this
option available to us because we didn t know about this change prior to the announcement. We have given our seasoned agents additional training to help give them a feeling of support and provided them with additional staffing to help support them with their workloads. It has still been very stressful for the agents to take on new missions and manage the additional workloads at the same time. It has not been easy for them but we have tried very hard to give them a great deal of support and encouragement through this time. Providing education and additional training is also an important step in the implementation of change. Empowering the employees with knowledge will boost their confidence and reduce the fear of the unknown. We have assigned one of our Senior Agents to be a dedicated trainer and support to all of our newer agents. She provides one on one training and class room trainings periodically to help them to get up to speed as quickly as possible. We also provided a series of trainings for our seasoned agents shortly after the announcement to boost their knowledge base before the surge hit and to be better equipped to assist in training our new people. Fostering ownership and proving the employees with a sense of responsibility will help in making a smoother transition. When your employees are on board with organizational change, they can then make the internal transition smoother and help clients and vendors adjust as well. A technique that can get employees personally involved in change is to encourage them to look at the business as though they were running it. Virgin International CEO Richard Branson, writing on the Entrepreneur website, says that having employees think like entrepreneurs by letting each employee know how their impact on implementing change can improve profitability makes change a personal responsibility. (Anderson) When an employee does well and accepts the change, it is helpful to recognize when milestones are met.
One of the most challenging changes that we had to implement was a realignment of work assignments between the three teams in Missionary Travel. Some of the agents had to give up work that they had been doing for a long time. They were comfortable and experts in these areas. They then had to take on new assignments in which they had to learn these new visa processes. We knew that we had to give them time to learn these new assignments before we started hiring our additional staff which the seasoned agents would need to assist in training. The supervisors spent time with the agents individually and as teams to discuss the plans that we had to divide up the work. We sought feedback from the agents and set up expectations and deadlines for them to learn these new assignments. We provided additional training in order to boost their skills and prepare them for not only their new assignments, but the help we would need to train our new staff. Root Cause Analysis forms were done to help standardize and document our processes to ensure that we kept the highest quality of work through these transitions. The employees that completed a Root Cause Analysis Form and the process improvement was implemented the agent was invited to a recognition meeting with the Director. The agent was given the opportunity to explain their RCA and be recognized for their process improvements. The way we do things are dramatically different than what we were doing just six months ago. We still have a long road ahead of us but we have learned from our successes as well as our mistakes. Change is inevitable and being able to manage change is essential to keeping the work moving forward. Planning and watching for change, communicating the change and implementing the change is key to being successful in this ever changing travel industry.
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