CASE STUDY- DOWNSIZING AT ENERGYCO

Case Study: Downsizing at EnergyCo

Downsizing at EnergyCo

Introduction

Downsizing is the strategy that has been used more regularly in recent years to respond to different situations of crises in the organisation. The "downsizing" is a form of reorganising or rebuilding the companies that require an improvement in work systems which leads to proper establishment of human resources and maintains business competitiveness. (John Garrick, 2000, 145)

One of the main objectives of a company is to make a strategy which pursues optimal organisational size ("Rightsizing") and re-think the organisation ("Rethinking"). (Vemon, 1998, 15)

The "downsizing" was a form of re-organising or restructuring which help companies to conduct an improvement in work process and organisational design and also helps in the proper establishment of human resources that maintains the business competitiveness. The "downsizing" was a strategy that affects the size of the workforce, operating costs and work processes. It was not something that arises spontaneously in organisations but it was something they do deliberately, so that it becomes a proper strategy. For this purpose, it involves organisational action in many cases. (Vemon, 1998, 15)

According to (Cook, 1999, 381), strategic change was a transformation of the dominant ideology, culture, system meanings and power relations within the organisation. Define change as a reconfiguration of the structures and systems of the organisation together by a change in the interpretive scheme. As we see the definitions refer to organisational change a broad spectrum of phenomena ranging from the structural to the cultural and symbolic way. (Pettigrew, 2001, 697)

The EnergyCo came out from a public sector company which was serving the sector since early 1990s. This energy company was one of the top technologically advanced organisation at that time but it was cluttered with a large quantity of staff and workers. The company experienced the privatisation of the organisation and change of ownership process. After the privatisation as it was oblivious the new management practice the downsizing and it was necessary to downsize the new organisation. The EnergyCo undergo through the transfer process from public to private sector and that the new management rules and regulations would be implemented as well. The privatisation process resulted in two organisations and the assets of the company divided into these two organisations. The first step after the privatisation takes place was Downsizing.

Discussion:

Review the case discussion and make notes on

The Company started the process of downsizing and minimising the workforce cluttering and making the organisation effective and efficient with a lesser workforce but with effective skills. The management of the company started the performance evaluation process and started searching the talent in the already inherited workforce and also stated terminating others. The bench marking exercise was the initial step of the process that undergo with the requirements of staff for power stations as it was the core competency of the business. The management came out with the results that the staff should be reduced with more than 50% from the power ...