ESSAY: Change Project

Identifying barriers and formulating strategies for change are pertinent in managing a workforce. After completing the readings for this lesson download the Change Project worksheet (Word). Complete this worksheet within the downloaded Word document and save with your last name in the filename.

Points for this assignment are based on the completeness of answers provided for each step on the Change Project worksheet.

ANSWER

Change is inevitable for any organization that wishes to realize its mandate. From the management structure, policies, employee recruitment, and retention procedures among others, it is always necessary for organizations to embrace changes that align with its goals and aspirations. In implementing such changes, barriers are bound to exist as changes may easily go against the expectations of many. This task seeks to come up with an issue at the workplace and eventually come up with a plan for change based on an appropriate model. Strategies, rationale, and plan for evaluating such a plan will be described as well.

The change project	The change project is to expand the scope of employee autonomy so that they can feel part of any change process within the organization. Employees will therefore not be micromanaged and will be consulted in the decision-making process.
Model to plan change	The model to be used here will be the Lewin’s change model that embraces the three steps of planning (solidifying the intended change), action (preparing for the desired change) and then results (implementing the proposed change).
Anticipated barriers to change	Embracing employee autonomy may not receive much opposition from employees themselves. However, there are other notable barriers that can make it difficult for the whole change project to be fully implemented. They include a lack of clarity concerning autonomy. To employees, it may mean freewill to do anything while to management it implies self-accountability. If such concerns are not well addressed, employee autonomy may not be implemented as expected (Spencer, 2018). Other barriers are having cynical ideas and opposition from other stakeholders due to poor management decisions.
Strategy for Implementing the change and its rationale	There are many ways of implementing employee autonomy. Some of the notable ones are granting them ownership and making them feel important in the organization. To realize this, employees must be given time off, taken for team-building exercise and at times offered with incentives when they do well. Furthermore, there should be an element of trust since when employees know they are trusted, they give their best at all times. They should also be provided with tools and space to undertake their mandate at work. The rationale for using such strategies is that they are less costly yet they help increase productivity (Hussain et al, 2018).
Evaluation plan	To evaluate the change plan, the first step will be to collect information especially employees’ views regarding the proposed changes. It will also be important to compare productivity before and after the change initiatives. If production has improved, it implies that autonomy is effective and employees are loving it. Meetings can also be organized for employees to air their observations regarding the change initiative and especially what they feel needs to be improved to get maximum productivity.