ATTN: Lady Taylor PhD (Full Performance Strategy Analysis)

Running Head: CHANGE MANAGEMENT IMPACT 0

Daniel Ortiz

Change Management Impact

HRM 531

Martin T. McDuffie

University of Phoenix

January 4, 2017

Introduction

Virtually all tech companies in the US are providing high compensation to their employees. Also, some of the tech giants offer benefits such as massage chairs, dry cleaning services, and electric cars to their employees (Tugend, 2017). Just like Google, Sony, and other tech companies, Apple Inc introduced new perks to attract new talents into their business as well as to retain its workforce (Goel, 2017). The decision to increase workers’ pay is a rigorous and complex undertaking. The process brings on board shareholders, and the management team including the CEO. Structured meetings are held; the management team deliberates on the proposal before a task force is instituted to look into the viability of the plan. The task force consequently looks into the potential costs and the benefits associated with the proposal and table its findings to the stakeholders.

The Process Involved in the Change Management Plan

Upon receiving the recommendation of the task force, the stakeholders further ventilate on the proposal and then depending on the outcome of the working group, approve or decline the process of effecting change. In case of approval, the change management officer takes charge of the operation forthwith. The change management officer subsequently embarks on assembling a team of experts to offer assistance in drawing a comprehensive plan capable of delivering the required change at Apple.

The process of establishing the plan is exhaustive. First, it requires an assessment of the constraints that typically surrounds the processes of effecting changes in organizations. The restrictions herein include the budget, the time factor and the scope of the change to be effected (Todnem, 2005). For instance, the management team would want to ascertain whether the proposed increase in pay, targets all Apple employees or whether it targets workers with specific skill sets.

If meant for the entire workforce, then the team may compute the amount of money needed to cater for the deficit in the money set aside for salaries in case the changes were mooted and initiated midway into the fiscal year. A supplementary budget may be considered at this point. Representatives from the Finance department may, therefore, be a part of the team spearheaded by the change management officer who mostly likely may be a senior officer from the Human Resources Department.

According to many organizations, time remains a valuable resource. For that reason, every undertaking in the process of effecting the changes in employees’ remuneration may require clear-cut time frames. In change management planning exercises, schedules are often drawn and lines of communications established. When meetings are planned to discuss certain elements of the proposal deemed contentious, the venue must be secured in advance and the attendees informed through proper channels of communication such as through emails and phone calls. Such precautionary approaches throughout the process are meant to reduce inconveniences that would otherwise garble the entire process leading to delays and confusions.

Other than drawing a schedule that details the time for each planned activity, the venue, specific attendees for each meeting and anticipated follow up meetings as well as a plan on the module of effecting the changes in perks, the change management officer alongside his or her team may also explore various tools that can aid the process of change in a smooth and transparent manner. For this particular change, the change management team may in their discretion, and for the purposes of simplicity, settle on using Microsoft Excel as a tool through which revised pay may be tabulated at a later date, in the subsequent steps before being relayed to the officers in charge of the payroll for stipulated actions. The existing payroll may thereafter be reconciled with the existing records from the change management team.

Microsoft Excel unlike other project change management software may be picked primarily because of its simplicity. During tabulation of the new parks, authorized officers may have access to Microsoft Access files at their disposal from where they may easily track and identify mistakes and recommend corrections as the process continues.

The activities for the change management plan may include reviewing, analyzing, and approving change requests (Todnem, 2005). The change control boards support changes. Coordinating changes across the project; when changes are approved as per the time frames set in the change management plan, they may end up affecting other groups and departments within the organization. The lines of communication to the change control boards may also be created in the planning stage so that when the time comes at later stages and their approvals are needed for the process to move to the next steps, then they could easily be traced through existing channels (Todnem, 2005). The outline of a letter for seeking approval from the change control board alongside the requisite attachments must also be outlined during the change planning phase.

As the process proceeds, all the steps and milestones may be documented. Frequently, maintaining and keeping documented files of the process forms a part of the change management plan. It is, of course, important to keep records because projects may be canceled, put on hold and replicated. Also, there may be a need to replicate the same exercise later, and the only reference materials may only be found in the documented files.

A Follow-Up Plan to Review Impact of the Change on the Human Resources Function

After the implementation of the change, Apple Inc through its regular performance appraisal exercises may compare the output of the employees after the implementing the revised pay for all workers. If from the appraisals, it is ascertained that the worker's efficiency increased then the management at Apple Inc may assume that perhaps that perks other than keeping employees at their jobs also motivated employees impacting their efficiency. Also, Apple may need to monitor its revenues. If it registers higher high revenues after a period of time then the new perks may have contributed to the changes. It could be hard to authoritatively point to the perks as the contributory factors towards the differences in turnovers and revenues because other markets factors could be responsible for the changes as well.

Conclusion

The change management plan encompasses different steps that involve assessing the budget, reviewing the existing model alongside the proposed model with the aim of highlighting the differences. The change management plan also determines the tools and modalities that could be used later to implement the change. The process follows various steps and the change management officer; at the end of the process present the outcome of the exercise to the management.

References

Goel, V. (2017). How Apple Empowers, and Employs, the American Working Class Nytimes.com. Retrieved 3 January 2017, from http://www.nytimes.com/

Todnem By, R. (2005). Organizational change management: A critical review. Journal of change management, 5(4), 369-380.

Tugend, A. (2017). One Downside of an Up Economy: Employee Turnover. Nytimes.com. Retrieved 3 January 2017, from http://www.nytimes.com