Managing, Leading, And Organizational Change For Fast Track Courier Services Essay.

Strategic Goals and Organizational Changes

Discuss About The Managing Leading And Organizational Change.

The following report is based on the analysis of the strategic aims and organizational changes that are undertaken by the management of a particular courier company named Fast Track. The management of the company has recently appointed an external change management consultant to make sure that they undertake the correct and the most effective change management steps to bring success to the organization. A number of specific organizational goals have been recommended by the consultant directly to the General Manager of the company.

The most important requirement that needs to be implemented within the organization is;

1. It is important for the General Manger of the company to present at the office for at least 3 times a week. His presence is utmost important for the success of the company.
2. The drivers of the trucks owned by the organization must be trained adequately and must be made aware of the benefits of single riding.
3. The changes in the organization must be brought in a gradual and organized manner so that, it does not provides wrong message to the employees and the drivers.
4. The management of the company must make sure to start face to face communication with the employees of the company as because it is important for the company to make use of such kinds of communication to increase the trust and loyalty of the employees.
5. The use of PDA and GPS trackers must immediately be started  to usher in new revolutionary measures

The above mentioned recommendations have been suggested by the consultant in view of the current strategies aims of the mentioned organization. The presence of the General Manager of the company in the workplace for a certain time period is utmost important for the functioning of the organization as because the subordinate managers have to report a lots of things directly to the GM (Cameron and Green 2015). Apart from this the installation of the GPS and PDA will help the organization manage all the deliveries at the correct time which in turn will help the organization to make quality increase in the small  and  medium range delivery items of the business. The development of a well motivated workforce can only be achieved through a quality training program.

A: People-The people here includes the employees as well as the customers of the mentioned courier services. The presence of an effective change management policy can ensure happiness for both employees as well as the customers.

B: Policies and Processes-The policies and processes like the installation of the PDA and the GPS systems will surely be a game changer in the courier service industry and will help the management of the organization to gain the much needed competitive advantage in the market.

C: Technology- As mentioned earlier the technological advances like GPS installation and use of automated doors for unpacking and packing the different kinds of goods will be useful for the organization (Cameron and Green 2015).

D: Structure- The change in the organizational structure has a huge impact on the success of the business. It is better to appoint an active General Manager than a rather inactive one who hardly visits the workplace.

1. Forming unions by the drivers can be  a  threat
2. Presence of other highly skilled courier companies

B:  First and foremost the reaction of the drivers has always been negative to change and thus formation of unions can further mess up the situation. The unions in such cases can bring up unjustified demands to the management and act as an barrier to any change. On the other hand presence of other courier companies with a high level of technological advancements can lead to a loss in the business (Benn Edwards and Williams 2014).

Specific Organizational Goals

A: Changes due to Performance Gaps- Performance gaps must be identified by using a proper training program that helps the employees to identify their particular work and also by providing different incentives and rewards to motivate them to perform better.

B: Changes due to Business Opportunities- The changes will occur in modern business once the management installs modern facilities like PDA and GPS system within the organization.

C: Identify Changes due to Threats- The changes like better communication system, buying new trucks, increasing business must be implemented accordingly to counter different threats.

D: Identify Changes due to Management Decisions- The main types of the organizational demands includes the likes of the changes to be made within the organizational structure of the organization.

1. The specialists that will be needed for the identification of change are the  management consultants  and the financial consultants
2. The Change curve Model will be  implemented by  the  consultants to  implement change in the business organization

The consultant will be involved in the processing of the different kinds of the organizational needs like the implementation of the different types of the methods that will be required to capture the market, innovating new promotional campaigns to make sure that the organization has the innovativeness in them to deliver the best services to the consumers.

The General Manager, Financial Manager, Accountant and the HR manager needs to be informed about the impending changes. First and foremost the General Manger needs to be informed with an email and then further communication on such regards will be done to manage the organizational change.

The main changes that are needed is the identification of a much needed training program that is to be implemented in the organization to make sure that it is used in the best way to make the employees much more skilled.

The following study has determined the change management process that will be undertaken in Fast Track Courier services to attain a certain degree of competitive advantage within the organization. The company has appointed a special consultant for the organization to suggest suitable ways for the effective implementation of a change process. The consultant has identified a number of different changes that needs to be made and has also received an idea on what are the possible barriers of implementing such a change program in the organization.  The main changes that need to be implemented are;

1. The organization must invest in quality technology like the use of PDA and GPS system and also the automated door system to reduce the manual task of labors and also increase the productivity of the company
2. The organization must implement a proper organizational structure to make sure that the organization has the right set of people and leaders to steer into the path of success.
3. The implementation of a proper training program will be of utmost help as because it will lead to the proper awareness of the employees
4. The implementation of a face to face communication will be necessary for the implementation of the organization as because it will be necessary for changing the management structure of the organization.

1. The drivers are generally very much oppose to changes, this makes the implementation of the change much difficult for the organization.
2. The implementation of one driver system will be a tough task for the organization
3. The change in the management structure will be a tough problem for the organization.

All these different changes will make it difficult for the organization to implement these changes. However the organization has to take the recommendations of the consultant and implement them in a gradual way to receive all the benefits of the change without any disruption.

The Most Important Organizational Requirement

Fast track couriers employ the communication with the employees through the process of head office employees. They offer newsletter to their drivers. The drivers have been kept under the process of GPS track. The staffs are given the practice of monitoring the progress of the location of the trucks and to record the information.

The company has planned a change in the workplace. The trucks are fitted with a GPS system and this has been done to assist the drivers with the navigation to every pick-up and drop facility. The company introduced the new design of collecting the data from the trucks and they were submitted to the head office. This was done to monitor the progress of the trucks. This change could record the time of the time spend by the drivers on their jobs (Situma 2015).

The truck drivers are impacted because of the change. The change has been introduced to keep a track of the working hours of the drivers.

The working hours of the drivers were initially kept in the form of the manual record. With the change the data could be kept in a systematic and genuine form.

The impacts will be realized when the company will be able to find sincerity among the drivers that will affect directly in the increased revenue.

The change goals are related to the strategic goals as the training of the drivers will enable the improvement of the internal environment of the company. The next change is the change of the manual system of conversation with the employees to a face-to-face conversation. This would build a better communication system which would lead to strategic development. The other change is the presence of the general manager in the office that will lead to a better form of communication between the staffs and the manager.

The cost of the change would not be high. It is one time investment. The company should recruit a faculty of trainer who would provide training to all the employees of the office.

The only risk is the attitude of the employees. Some might act negatively and might turn up for the training. In such case the investment made would go in vain.

The change can increase the seriousness of work between the employees and they might therefore increase the production of the employees. The introduction of the digital system in the company would enable the company to make their work done in a faster pace and the records will be more authentic and systematic.

People, Policies and Processes, Technology, and Structure

Risk and cost are the part of the change. Keeping those aside the company will benefit in terms of production of their employees, it will be able to save time and it will be able to increase the motivation of the employees that might turn out to be beneficial for the company.

The changes that can be feasible is the recruitment of a trainer and providing training to the employees and the staffs. The presence of the general manager in the office is also a feasible change.

The change that maybe feasible is the communication with the employees in the process of one-to-one.

The change that may not be feasible is the launch of the digital system of communication within the organization (Morvillo 2017).

The risk is the investment and the cost. The barrier is the attitude of the employees. The truck drivers did not accept the change and they reacted in a negative way. This is because of the ego problem that prevails among the employees. The employees have this in their mind that the company have no faith on their skill and this is the reason this can act as a barrier (Eiselt and Bhadury 2015).

The company had to invest in order to recruit a training faculty. The employees who are unwilling to take the change would not attend the training and therefore the investment would not be worth it. The truck drivers would not let the change to be a successful one therefore this could be considered to be a barrier (Webb 2017).

In order to mitigate the problem, the company should have a one-to-one conversation with the employees in order to make them understand the effects of the change. The other strategy in order to resolve the conflict is to introduce a drop-box so that the employees can drop their grievances in the box and they can be dealt in a confidential manner (Izzah et al., 2016).

The change management project plan would include improving better communication strategy; the staffs should be regularly trained on the skills of the employees. They should recruit a training board who would train the employees on their job roles. The purpose of the training is to motivate the employees (Richards 2017).

The company should maintain the quality of their service so that the customers remain committed towards the company. The customers have the choice of selecting some other service as they are the biggest decision-makers. In order to bring the commitment towards the organization the company has to make all the efforts to satisfy the customers with their improved quality (Ankrah 2015).

Impact on Truck Drivers

In case of the issues faced by the clients they should be resolved immediately and by having a conversation with the employees.

In order to perform the consultation method the company can provide premium service to their customers.

b). the audience of the communication plan would be the clients, the employees of the organization.

the message that should be communicated to the audience is the goals and the objectives of the company.

This communication will occur once in a month.

The message to the clients will be communicated through email. The communication to the staffs will done through, face-to-face method and the newsletter method.

The person responsible for this is the HR team.

c). the participants of the training is the employees of the organization.

the training will provide the skills that are related to the job roles. The training will also include the activities that are related to the act of motivation (Dwivedi and Sahu 2014).

The training will occur once in a month.

The training will be delivered in a particular training room. It can include the on-the-job training as well. The staffs who are newly recruited are given the on-job training, they are given a certificate for attending the training and scoring a good marks in the test.

The person responsible for offering the training is the special trainer recruited by the company. The trainer who is expert in giving trainers shall give the training.

a). the success can be measured only through the feedback session. The feedback can be taken with the help of Google forms that will be submitted online. The responses of the feedback will be recorded on the basis of the likert scale.

b). the relevant managers are the general manager and the operation manager.

The operation manager will submit information for reporting.

The general manager will produce the report.

c). the report will follow a formal report in the excel sheet format.

The reports will be produced in the weekly format.

The head office and the working teams will receive the report (Nyaga 2017).

The project plan should include the training tools. This would include the agenda of the training, the venue. The training kits shall be provided to the ones who are attending the training after the training. The resources should include the matter that shall be provided during training (Taneja, Pohit and Prakash 2015).

Fast Track Courier is a medium sized logistics company which serves companies in the Sydney area. The company has an experience of 15 years of operating in the logistics industry and the company intends to increase its market share by 7.5 percent. The company also intends to integrate its distribution management by increasing the use of technology. Fast Track Courier also seeks to manage its talents more strategically to achieve its business goals. The company also looks forward to expand its fleet of trucks to achieve its first goal mentioned above. The company also looks forward to train its employees and reduce industrial problems it suffers from (Mooren et al. 2014). The company also aims to work towards reducing injuries employees face while lifting. The company functions under the leadership of general manager to whom the chief financial officer reports. The human resource of the trucking logistics company also consists of an accountant, twenty truck drivers, office team managers and five office team members. The five team members look after administration, sales, customer relationship, manages the truck drivers’ activities and reports the same to the office team manager. The company also provides rewards to motivate the drivers and encourage them to improve their performances (Huang, et al. 2016).

Change Goals and Feasibility

1. What would be change management strategies which can be applied in Fast Track Courier and discussed with the HR manager?
2. Would the change management training prove to be more effective if the same is designed department wise instead of all employees together?
3. Should the trucking manager be present on the field along with the drivers (sometimes) to understand the problems they face?
4. Should the trucking manager train the drivers on work health and safety norms on regular intervals like quarterly and half yearly?
5. Should the HR manager arrange trainings of drivers?

The feedback of the survey questions reveal that the employees feel that the human resources manager of fast Track Courier needs to offer training department wise on the change management. For example, the change management training of the accountant would be different from the truck drivers. Most of employees especially the drivers feel that the trucking manager should be present in the field to understand the issues drivers face better. They also feel that the trucking manager should train the drivers on WHS which should arranged by the HR manager (Ueda et al. 2017).

Implementing these changes like training the drivers on WHS would draw resistance from certain stakeholder groups. For example, the management of the company may consider the training of drivers as loss of productivity because they would have to attend training sessions. Similarly, the customers may be deprived of the service of the drivers which would cause business losses to the company (Linton et al. 2016).

The communication strategy of Fast Track Courier can be changed to accommodate both training of the drivers and ensure uninterrupted flow of services to customers. The HR manager would arrange the training in a way to ensure that half of the drivers are on the field while other half of the drivers receives training. Secondly, the trucking manager should be present in the field to learn about the issues which drivers face while carrying out their responsibilities. This would enable him to incorporate those issues in the training sessions of the drivers to boost their efficiency (Hall 2016).

The revised communication plans should to be adopted in Fast Track Courier Company should consist of mentoring and training of employees. The risks identified at Fast Track Courier Company consist of lack of trust regarding productivity report between employees and refusal to adopt changes. The productivity of all employees should be maintained as per the new communication plan on dialy basis and the employees performing weakly should be mentored to improve their performances. These two risks stem from job security threats which employees perceive and as a result resist changes. Mentoring of weakly performing employees would enable the company deal with this risk. The last risk mentioned in the case study consists of industrial actions. Improvement of employee conditions would enable the firm deal with industrial relationship pressures. The new communication policy would as a result promote transparency among the apex management, the middle level managers and the drivers of the company (Jain 2017).

Barriers and Risks

The revised communication plan should incorporate the needs of the various stakeholder groups involved in the business of Fast Track Courier Company. For example, the transparent productivity reporting system would enable both the apex management and the drivers develop clear idea about the latter’s performances. The productivity reporting would also show the flaws of the drivers while delivering packages to the clients, a very important stakeholder group. The trucking manager, another important stakeholder would be able to device trainings and mentoring the drivers. These actions would ultimately benefit the customers who would be able to get better service from the company. The company would as a result earn more revenue by serving these satisfied customers (Knoch et al. 2016).

The drivers should be provided training using creative methods like role play and simulations. The managers should use power point presentations and projectors to enable the drivers imbibe the training better.

The training of drivers through role play may attract resistance from stakeholder groups like drivers and managers. The drivers may resent this training a method of point out to their weaknesses and may not prefer attending it. The manager may view this as unnecessary interruption and may not attend it (Williams-Whitt et al. 2016).

The drivers and manager should be explained the importance of the WHS training to improve the performance and reduce the injuries according to the future plans of the company.

A 15-20 sessions on work health and safety training should be imparted to the truck drivers. The activity, their duration and the goal these activities seek to achieve are outlined below:

Activity	Tenure	Goal to be achieved
1.      WHS training	10 minutes	Improved WHS knowledge
2.      GPS training	5 minutes	Improved technological knowledge

The resistance from stakeholder groups like manager and truck drivers would be overcome by making them understand the significance of improving of the training of the truck drivers.

The session for the truck drivers on WHS and GPS would last for 20 minutes and would invite participation of all the drivers and the manager. The participants would be encouraged to ask questions to develop deeper knowledge on WHS. The drivers would be encourage to express their creative ideas to bring about more innovative work health and safety norms which would be more suited to the needs of the company (Brunton et al. 2015).

The following are the final revisions which need to be brought about in the communication and project plan after consultation with the general manager:

New communication plan	Training activities	Roll out of changes
The general manager should address the employees and supervise their productivity	The employees should be trained about the future business requirements of the company.	The productivity of every employee right from managers to drivers would be clear before the apex management.
The senior managers should closely scrutinize the productivity and recognize any fall in productivity on consistent basis.	The employees across departments should be provided with trainings	The trainings as mentioned above should not be restricted to drivers alone but extended to all employees
The managers should mentor and train low performing employees	Training of employees on WHS and GPS	Reduction in accidents and workplace injuries
The customers would be communicated about the ongoing up gradation of system and temporary delay in service they might face	NA	Transparent communication to clients and better client support

All the documents regarding the new communication plan should be submitted with the general manager and other important people in the organization.

Strategies to Mitigate Barriers and Risks

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