Essay: Elements Of Business Process Management - A Case Study Approach.

Benefits of Change

Discuss about the Elements of Business Process Management.

The organizational change is one of the significant characteristics of the modern organization (Benn Dunphy and Griffiths 2014). There are certain organizations that have to respond unexpected changes and there are others who have done proper planning for handling the change (Benn Dunphy and Griffiths 2014). In both these cases, the introduction, management and the approach towards the change need effective approach, which would help in mitigating the various risks associated with the change (PetrouDemerouti and Xanthopoulou 2017). There are various reasons and dimensions for bringing in change in the workplace. The organizations are gearing up for incorporating changes in their organization since there is increased competition in the market and change is needed for surviving in this market.

This case study would focus on the organizational change management in Mercy Public Hospitals. The hospital lacked an electronic medical record (EMR) framework or an IT system. Till now, the manual systems were used to keep records of patients, do billing and other administrative jobs. This new IT system needs to be implemented well in the organization. It is important to design effective change management strategies for this organization by the application of theory into practice.

The modern organizations are gearing up for change owing to the dynamic environments that they operate in (Benn Dunphy and Griffiths 2014).There are five forces of change such as certainty, purpose, control, connection and success. These factors drive the organization to aim for success.

The organization has been using the paper records for years and their staffs are comfortable with that (Penn and Pennix 2017). The hospital used to do all vital functions concerning inpatient as well as outpatient department manually. There were separate registers that were maintained for the departments. In the billing department, manual handwritten bills were given to the patients. However, there were inconveniences in using the manual systems. There were instances when the paper medical records were lost or misplaced (Huang and Handfield 2015). This prevented the clinicians from doing the perfect medical treatment of the patients, since they were unable to view the past medical history of the patients. There were also issues with the inter departmental coordination as there were issues with the transferring of the manual records from one place to other. This caused dissatisfaction among the customers and subsequently there was a decrease in the revenue generation of the hospital. The organization decided that it is the high time to implement computerized medical record in the hospital so that there is ease of hospital operations.

Planned Change Process

As opined by Cameron and Green (2015), there are many benefits of incorporating changes in the organization. It helps in the assessment of the success of the organization as well as helps in the motivation of the employees. It helps in the better alignment of the organizational resources (Benn Dunphy and Griffiths 2014). It is helpful in reducing the inefficiencies of the organization and strives to give the best organizational output.

The hospital would be highly benefitted after the implementation of IT software in the hospital. There would be greater department efficiency and it would also increase the motivation of the employees since it would reduce the manual labor. There would be increased departmental efficiency and the clinicians would be able to render proper medical care by going through the past history of the patients. This is because the clinicians would have access to the medical records of the patients and they can get the records almost instantly. There would be enhanced communication between the key stakeholders of the hospital such as doctors, nurses, paramedics and administrative staffs. There would be increased return on investment as there would be more number of patients visiting the hospitals. This would also imply that there would be increased profit generation of the hospitals.

There are usually two kinds of changes that are evident in the organizations. There can be planned change as well as there can be unplanned change (Hayes 2014). The unplanned changes are regarded as the reactive changes that happen instantly while the planned changes can be compared to proactive changes that take place subsequently (Benn Dunphy and Griffiths 2014). However, there are situations when the line of difference between the planned and unplanned changes gets blurred.

In Mercy Public Hospital, there was planned change as the senior management found it justified that it is necessary to create a digital framework in the hospital. This planned change was conceptualized after a series of meetings and discussions among the senior hospital managers and the Board of Trustees. The benefits, costs, ROI and the resources required for such change process were also discussed in these meetings. The meetings also discussed the possible risks to the change management process such as employee’s resistance to change. The outcomes of these meetings were that a proper change management process was identified and the measures that would be taken to mitigate the risks were also discussed.

The process of planned change is concerned with the intentional as well as goal oriented changes that are evident in the organizations (Burke and Noumair 2015). It can be defined as the ability to plan as well as implement the change process for fulfilling the organizational objectives (Rosemann and vomBrocke 2015).

In Mercy Public Hospital, the managers adopted a planned approach for implementing the new EMR systems. The managers examined the current system thoroughly and analyzed the need of implementing the new IT system. They gained the fundamental understanding of the existing business processes and noted the stakeholders that would be impacted by the change process. The hospital managers consulted with the IT experts and designed a Visio diagram of the EMR model. This blueprint specified the exact design specification as well as functions of the components of EMR. This was followed by examining as well as streamlining the current workflows. This step was followed by the formulation of project timeline for the completion of project. The next step in the change management process was to inform all the employees who would be directly as well as well indirectly related with the usage of the IT system. This can be in the form of awareness sessions, seminars and one to one discussion sessions. It is important to have satisfying degree of user adoption so that they embrace the new system when it is fully implemented.

There are instances of increased resistances to the change process (Watson 2013). This is because of the fact that the employees may have different kinds of fears or apprehensions regarding the type of change in the system (Craig Nevin and Odum 2014).

The EMR system and the subsequent change in the management system were not welcomed well by the employees. They were reluctant to undergo the change process since they felt that if IT systems are implemented in the system, then they may get eliminated and may lose their jobs. The older employees were against the new system since they felt that it is too complicated for them. The hospital doctors felt that they did not have sufficient time to learn the new system.

The hospital administrators dealt with these resistances in a positive manner. There were counseling sessions for the employees who helped them to clear their fears, doubts and apprehensions. The senior management as well as IT team was present to clear all their doubts. They were mad understood that there would be no redundancy and that the new change process would help them to perform their day to day job in a better manner. The old employees were assured that they would be provided adequate training about the new IT software so that they can use them in their day to day lives. The hospital clinicians were assured that relevant practical trainings of new EMR would be provided to them in their own convenient time so that they can avail the software training.

Conclusion

The organizational change is one of the most significant aspects of the modern organizations that are important for maintaining competitive advantage. This report focused on the organizational change management process in Mercy Public Hospital. The hospital lacked an electronic medical record (EMR) framework or an IT system and hence it decided to implement a robust IT system for increasing the organizational productivity. The different forces of change in the hospital are discussed such as the inconveniences of using the manual systems. The different benefits of the organization that would be gained by the implementation of the change management process are defined. The different types of changes defined by the subsequent changes in the organization are defined. There are mainly two types of changes such as planned changes as well as unplanned changes. In Mercy Public Hospital, there is planned change process for implementing the EMR process. The different steps of the implementation of the change process are defined. There are different resistances to changes, which are discussed in detail. This report has contributed to better understanding of the organizational change concepts.

I think organizational behavior is the most important aspect if we are working in real organizations. It is responsible for correct organizational culture which increases the employee productivity (Miner 2015). I have worked in two organizations and have learnt the different aspects of the organizational behavior. I learned that there is subsequent increase in my performance when we had correct behavior among the team members. In the initial phases, the team members were not cooperative and hence they were several issues in the organizing and performance of the tasks. However, there was an improvement of the interpersonal relationships of the employees, which resulted in good employee behavior among the team members. This helped me to improve the behavioral aspects of the team and there was achievement of the targets. The team was able to achieve the production targets and this was due to increased organizational behavior.

Prior to the good organizational behavior, there was reduced organizational coordination and the employees rarely supported each other due to their ego clashes. All the employees engaged in their individual work and they rarely supported each other during the team interactions. They were often views engaging in organizational politics, which often decreases the organizational productivity. These problems were resolved once there was an improvement in the team bonding, which was the output of the enhanced organizational behavior.The organizational behavior is an integral part of the change process as an improper workplace behavior would not foster change in the organization.

Motivation is one of the most important aspects of the workplaces, which are increasingly becoming popular. I have realized that motivation is the core element needed for organizational productivity. Earlier, there were lack of motivation in the workplace, which resulted from the poor compensation structure and poor organizational structure. However, after one and half year, the employees were given appraisals and their salary packages were increased. This improved the motivation of the employees of the organization as there were other good organizational policies that were introduced. There were financial as well as non-financial benefits given to the employees and hence this increased the motivation level of the employees. I also felt that I am eager to do more work when I am motivated. I do not feel the burden of work when I am motivated. The organization took various initiatives of improving the motivation of the employees. The employee engagement activities were instrumental in improving the interpersonal relationships of the employees and they achieved greater motivation levels. The training and development activities are also useful in improving the motivation of the employees (Noe et al.2014). If the employees are motivated enough, then they would be able to implement the change process in a better manner.They would be the torchbearers of change and they would lead the change process.

References

Benn, S., Dunphy, D. and Griffiths, A., 2014. Organizational change for corporate sustainability. Routledge.

Burke, W.W. and Noumair, D.A., 2015. Organization development: A process of learning and changing. FT Press.

Cameron, E. and Green, M., 2015. Making sense of change management: a complete guide to the models, tools and techniques of organizational change. Kogan Page Publishers.

Craig, A.R., Nevin, J.A. and Odum, A.L., 2014. Resistance to Change. The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Operant and Classical Conditioning, p.249.

Hayes, J., 2014. The theory and practice of change management. Palgrave Macmillan.

Huang, Y.Y. and Handfield, R.B., 2015. Measuring the benefits of ERP on supply management maturity model: a “big data” method. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 35(1), pp.2-25.

Miner, J.B., 2015. Organizational behavior 1: Essential theories of motivation and leadership. Routledge.

Noe, R.A., Wilk, S.L., Mullen, E.J. and Wanek, J.E., 2014. Employee Development: Issues in Construct Definition and Investigation ofAntecedents. Improving Training Effectiveness in WorkOrganizations, ed. JK Ford, SWJ Kozlowski, K. Kraiger, E. Salas, and MS Teachout (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1997), pp.153-189.

Penn, I.A. and Pennix, G.B., 2017. Records management handbook. Routledge.

Petrou, P., Demerouti, E. and Xanthopoulou, D., 2017. Regular versus cutback-related change: The role of employee job crafting in organizational change contexts of different nature. International Journal of Stress Management, 24(1), p.62.

Rosemann, M. and vomBrocke, J., 2015. The six core elements of business process management. In Handbook on business process management 1 (pp. 105-122). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

Watson, G., 2013. Resistance to change. R. Cohen, J. McManus, D. Fox, & C. Kastelnik, Psych City: A Simulated Community, pp.246-257.