ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE

Organisational Change



Organisational Change

In a business environment where change is inevitable, managers must adapt and develop their organizations, to successfully survive in today's corporate world. Managing change effectively can be a tough and complex challenge and needs careful consideration. One of the most important aspects of the change process is the impact it has on a company's human resources. A firm's human resources are critical to the operation of the company and represent a large fraction of the total cost of doing business. They certainly can make the difference between organizational success and failure. Hence it is critical to pay particular attention to employees at times of change within the organization (McCarthy, 2004). This is particularly important in times of good economic health, such as that being experienced by Western Australia over the past 5 years, or bad economic health as experienced in the early 90's. I believe that while Organization Transformation theory is often useful when the economy is going through a trough, Organizational Development theory plays a more critical role in the facilitation of changes in an organization, because it can help understand the impacts change can have on a company's most important resource.  

The Western Australian economy is booming and firms are finding it increasing harder to acquire and retain employees for the long term. For the last 4 or 5 years Western Australia has undergone radical changes in its human resource strategies. At a time of record low unemployment and an increasingly mobile labour force, companies must differentiate themselves to attract and retain staff. I believe Organisational Development is critical to the success of a firm under the current economic conditions being faced by Western Australian and Australian companies. The market is experiencing more competition, globalisation and many external and internal forces which require changes to an organisation.

"Look ahead twenty or thirty years. Does anyone expect the next twenty years to be less tumultuous than the last twenty years? Given the changes expected in technology, biology, medicine, social values, demography, the environment, and international relations, what kind of world might humanity face: No one can say for sure, but one thing is reasonably certain: Continuing challenges will tax our collective abilities to deal with them. Failure to rethink our enterprises will leave us little relief from our current predicaments: rising turbulence causing rising stress; increasing disconnection and internal competitiveness; people working harder, rather than learning how to work smarter; and increasingly intractable problems beyond the reach of any individual or organization. If you are an organizational leader, someone at any level concerned deeply about these challenges, then you face a daunting task. In effect, you are engaged in a great venture of exploration, risk, discovery, and change, without any comprehensive maps for guidance." (Senge et al, 1999:11)

To illustrate a point, have you noticed any changes to your work or family life in the past 30 years? Perhaps you only have to go back ten years. Think back to the late 1980's, home computers were just ...