Organisational Change Management for B.R Richardson Timber

Question: Discuss about theOrganisational Change Management for B.R Richardson Timber. Answer: Introduction B.R Richardson Timber product company faced some limitations in its structural, human resource and processes aspects of its operation. All of this is summarized in the organizational culture that does not reflect the best practices. The company had B.R Richardson at the helm with his right man and several senior staffs including Joe and Richard Bowman running the operations. However, a significant fraction of other workers lacks the qualification and requisite skills and experience to deliver standard performance. This lack of will to employ the right people for the job adversely affected the companys performance through non-strategic decisions and actions taken by these workers. Moreover, B.R Richardson Company suffers much cost of extensively training unqualified workers to elevate them to a level of anticipated outcome performance. Literature Review An investment into the human resource is important in every business organization. The company should invest reasonable resources in its human resource to realize its targets and goals. To achieve this, B.R Richardson has to advertise for positions also outside the organization for specialized skills. The company previously sourced for personnel inside the firm for promotion an aspect that was making it miss on qualified candidates outside the organization. Hiring from outside the organization guarantees the company new ideas, knowledge and strength which is healthy considering the competitive market environment. Therefore, implementing change in the human resource of this organization is likely to boost its wellbeing (Senior Swailes, 2010). Another tragedy in the company is lack of employees specialization. The workers are forced to undertake every assignment on their site without the touch of professionalism. This issue denies the company the optimum performance it would have gotten from a specialized employee and further, complicates the matter of accountability. The company gets to the point of not knowing where and who to be held liable since everyone does everything. Also, the productivity of the workers cannot be measured and evaluated for lack of clear responsibilities which complicate decision making regarding promotions or poor performance from workers. Organizational Issues and their solution Communication style and culture Good practice communication in an organization advocates for boarder-less interactions with an atmosphere of trust, friendship, and openness. B.R Richardson was an organization with employees of different ranks and status. This informs the reason to establish a transparent, robust and credible communication culture. The norm of proper and best practice in communication needs to cascade from the top management to the operational level workers. The founder R.B Richardson does not set adequate platform and practice of communication. He is noted to have visited the lamination company a countable number of times obviously ruling out sufficient interaction with his workers. Consequently, the organization's management misses an opportunity to capture the realistic feedback on performance and welfare of employees (Barge, Lee, Maddux, Nabring Townsend, 2008). Further, the timber plant lacks proper channels and practice of communication both vertically and horizontally across departments. Example, Joe the manager of Lamination plant is feared by some of the workers for his aggressive personality. Although he is respected and admired, some workers in the organization are not able to face him and sustain a conversation. The management should devise training on communication to the whole team which will emphasize of teamwork and craving avenues for the players to have sufficient quality time with each other. An improved communication system is critical in promoting the free flow of information in the company (Kotter, 2008). It helps eliminate issues that are related to misunderstandings and poor communication system. Thus, an improved communication system is likely to increase the productivity of workers at B.R Richardson. Leadership style Joe's ideology of leadership also does little to support dialogue in operations. He believes in giving instructions and having his team tore his line of doing things. The manager of the plant does not believe in teamwork but individuals performance and achievement. Example, in the course of his duty, Joe often skips some heads of department to make decisions solely. This, according to some people, amounts to undermining other people's positions. He needs to be consultative and seek the input of relevant stakeholders in decision making. Best practice in communication dictates consultative decision making involving all the relevant stakeholders because their input is likely to add value in the outcome decision (DeHart-Davis, 2009). Workers compensation process The management of B.R Richardson is not adequately compensating its workers. The principle for compensation advocates for pay equal to labor and skills of the worker. The company was grappling with the issue of overtime payment yet it wanted its employees to work for extra workers until completion of day's schedule. This point demotivated many workers who felt not adequately compensated for their labor (Rath Conchie, 2008). Also, the issue of working for long hours often brought nervousness and tension which ended up causing accidents and worse-case, when the company registered a death of an employee. The organization can solve this problem by instituting reasonable length of working hours and adequate compensation, which is competitive in the industry, for the extra hours worked. There is a need for B.R Richardson to review its working and compensation terms. The employees should work within the standard working hours to avoid issues of overworking the employees which reduce their motivation. Besides, it is essential for B.R Richardson to solve the prevailing current problems regarding the overtime payment. A better remuneration system is vital in improving the productivity of the company labour. Initiating this change will boost the morale of the workers and increase their productivity because of pay satisfaction and availability of sufficient time to rest before resuming work (Buckingham, 2009). Workers Safety The organization, besides having meager resources has not invested in the safety of its employees. This matter is equal to de-motivating the workers. An incident occurred which made one of the employees succumb to injury due to an accident. Worse-still, the workers continued their day's schedule with the huge loss of their human resource. The workers of the plant were demotivated hence affecting their productivity. This called for some immediate intervention by the leadership of the company to procure services of a motivational consultant who will aid the situation bringing back employees to efficiencies (Heifetz, Grashow Linsky, 2009). Safety of the employees is paramount to their motivation and productivity. This has an eventual impact on the performance of the company. The manager of the plant has to re-align the operations of the organization to ensure that safety measures and standards are observed. Further, the safety protective wears and equipment to be provided to the workers to protect them from injuries, cuts and any other harm to their bodies in the course of their duties (Anderson, 2013). Failure to consider the safety of the employees will lead to a dangerous working environment, and the worker's safety and health conditions are compromised. This reduces their motivation and morale to work for the company (Little, 2014). How waste and other hazardous materials are disposed of also pose a threat to the safety of the workers. The company is noted to have sites with massive waste disposal until there are not enough pathways. Further, the arrangement of the stock is not safe for operations. Workers alleged that the stacks were unstable and threatened to collapse sometimes. The employees of the lamination plant were demotivated hence affecting their productivity (Skelsey, 2013). This called for an immediate intervention by the leadership of the company to procure services of a motivational speaker who will aid the situation bringing back employees to efficiencies (Mitchell, 2012). Recruitment and Retention R.B Richardson Company was experiencing difficulty in retention of employees because of poor conditions workers were subjected to. This has been discussed as long working hours, unsafe working environment without protective equipment and wears, lack of trust and friendliness and inadequate compensation. The company even losses further if it is not able to retain its workers through costs associated with training and worker development (Heath, 2010). Loosing of already trained employees subjects the firm to a repeat of the instruction to newly recruited employees thereby consuming company resources. Social life R.B Richard firm made it extremely difficult for the workers to fully exploit their social life. Firstly, the top management did not display support for the company's team through denying them sufficient funds to support their activity. Also, the company working hours and shifts were too tight to offer an opportunity to its workers to attend their soccer events a move that was not taken politely (Bennett Bush, 2013). Recommendations and Actions The leadership of the lamination company should cultivate the culture of borderless, free friendly and open communication throughout the firm. Breaking the communication barriers between the senior staff and the junior employees is critical and promotes a comfortable working environment which turn increases the employee productivity. Besides, the system will eliminate issues from the communication discordance that may exist in the system. Promotion of culture to implement a better communication system is one of the most influential tools for the effective adoption of the better system. The management of the company should invest more in the safety of the workers to realize morale and productivity. Provision of a safe working condition for the employees is an important ethical issue that helps boost the confidence and comfortable working environment thus, in turn, increases the productivity of the employees in the company (Ford, 2009). The leadership of the company should review the compensation package and strategize on the recruitment process in bringing on board specialized professionals. An excellent remuneration package is critical in promoting happy employees. The workers are motivated and increase their morale towards working for the company. Poorly remunerated workers lack motivation, and thus their productivity is low (Herman Renz, 2008). The company should procure communication training course from service providers to elevate the communication of the team to a professional level. Training boosts the talent and skills of the employees in their job positions (Shiralkar, 2016). Besides, it promotes one's self-development which is important to make the workers feel recognized and thus, boost their motivation to work for the organization. Conclusion The lamination firm suffered many problems for lack of adopting sound practices in its managerial decisions and operations. This resulted to demotivated staff and reduced the productivity of its workers. The company was extremely operational-orientated to a level of assuming other fundamental issues impacting on the welfare of its workers including their safety, compensation and social lives. Value-additional proposals have been discussed to salvage the lamination firm from its woes that the top management needs to implement and cascade to the junior workers. Thus, make reformations that are employee centered is critical and will boost the motivation of people which is an important step towards increasing their productivity that has a direct impact on the profitability of the company. 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