United States Air Force’s Change Management Plan

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Table of Contents

Description of the Organization
The Human Resource Management Policy to Be Changed
Communication Strategies
Conclusion
References

While promoting change in the organization, it is necessary to develop an effective plan of actions according to which the change can be successfully implemented and supported. Many human resource management policies and initiatives are not effective enough to improve the procedures in organizations because they are not associated with the promotion of significant changes. Thus, it is important to discuss the strategies used to create and sustain the change in such organizations as the United States Air Force in detail, in order to determine the strategy’s important steps.

Description of the Organization

The United States Air Force (USAF) is a branch of the US Armed Forces which provides the military air services since September of 1947. The USAF is a large organization which specializes in supporting the US military air forces at the highest level. Previously, the organization was the part of the US Army, but it was reformed in 1947 in order to establish the separate services branch (Gildea, 2014). The organization works to support the US surface forces with more than 330,000 active personnel, more than 180,000 civilian personnel, and 100,000 air guard personnel (McDonald, 2014). In order to manage the work of all the personnel effectively, the organization needs to pay more attention to revising the management strategies and approaches.

The Human Resource Management Policy to Be Changed

In their managerial practice, the USAF uses Enlisted Performance Reports (EPRs) as a specific evaluation form to provide the feedback on the airman’s performance. Recently, the USAF managers initiated the reformation of the current policy in order to avoid inflating the system. The problem is in the fact that ratings stated with the help of the EPRs are often far from the real situation, and they cannot reflect the real performance of the airmen while affecting the quality of all the services provided. The USAF management initiated the reformation of the evaluation system to improve the promotion process or the Weighted Airman Promotion System (WAPS) (McDonald, 2014).

The main goal of the HR initiative is to improve the EPRs, simplify the evaluation process, and improve the promotion process in order to avoid the reduction of the services’ quality. However, the proposed HR initiative and policy improvement should be revised and changed because of the observable weaknesses of the system. Much attention should be paid to dividing the change process into separate stages.

Reasons to Make the Change

Three important reasons to promote the change and reformation of the evaluation and promotion processes in the USAF can be discussed in detail. The first reason is the necessity to make the promotion process associated with the WAPS more simple, effective, transparent, and profitable. The problem is in the fact that the current promotion process followed in the organization is not performance-based in spite of the requirements to measure and emphasize performance while working according to the WAPS. The second reason is the necessity to create the conditions for the equal evaluations of all the airmen in spite of their schedule and work time.

It is important to avoid focusing on the benefits for different groups of the personnel because all the airmen should be evaluated according to their performance and without depending on the external factors. The next reason to promote the change is the necessity to make the evaluation process properly scheduled and fixed in order to support the effective promotion process.

The Recommended Change

The recommended change to improve the current policy includes the focus on such aspects as the necessity to develop and propose new variants of the EPRs, the necessity to improve the WAPS calculation, the necessity to reduce the constant high flow of the ERPs reviewed by leaders, and the necessity to make the procedure less time-consuming (Gildea, 2014). Thus, the modification of the Enlisted Evaluation System and the WAPS is recommended to be realized in several stages where the first stage is the development and introduction of new EPR forms to include promotion recommendations, the second stage is the reformation of the WAPS calculation system to focus on the recent airmen’s performance, and the third stage is the development and implementation of the static schedule for the performance evaluation at all the levels in order to reduce the administrative time.

The Strategy to Address Eight Stages of Change

At the first stage of creating the change in the organization, it is necessary to establish a sense of urgency. While discussing the situation in the USAF, it is important to draw the stakeholders’ attention to the fact that the weak evaluation system affects not only the promotion process but also leads to the constant decrease of the services’ quality because of the absence of the adequate evaluation system (Kotter, 2012, p. 23). It is important to state at meetings that the system will inflate and corrupt without updating the EPRs and basic requirements. Thus, it is important to note that the development of the effective plan to improve the Enlisted Evaluation System is necessary.

The second step is the creation of the coalition. The coalition should involve personnel managers, senior noncommissioned officers, supervisors, chief master sergeants, and technical sergeants who are responsible for evaluating the airmen’s performance at the current stage. The responsibility for developing the revised evaluation procedure should be delegated between managers, officials, and chief master sergeants.

While developing the vision at the third stage, it is necessary to draw the authorities’ attention to the fact that the improved Enlisted Evaluation System is the main step not only to making the WAPS effective but also to making the USAF most structured and productive organization. The fourth stage is the use of strategies to communicating the vision. In order to make the Enlisted Evaluation System more workable and the promotion process more representative, it is important to inform the coalition and all the personnel about the benefits which follow the change with the help of face-to-face communication, online messages, and written reports.

While empowering the action and overcoming obstacles, it is necessary to ensure the leaders and personnel that the improved HR initiative is more effective than the current variant of the policy because of reducing the administration efforts and becoming more objective and performance-based. The focus on generating short-term positive results is also important because it is necessary to demonstrate for the team that the effective completion of all the recommended stages leads to observable positive changes in the evaluation process and actual performance of the personnel (Kotter, 2012, p. 23). Concentrating on these wins, it is also possible to move to the seventh stage and produce more change while implementing the proposed plans as the regular schedules. Finally, anchoring the changes and strategies, it is necessary to report on the gained benefits and improvements in the evaluation and promotion processes which can be realized more efficiently now.

Potential Resistance to Change

The supervisors and the personnel can resist to the change because of relying on the tradition and because of the necessity of adaptation to new schedules, EPR forms, and reports. The inadequate evaluation which prevents the effective promotion can be observed in the organization during a long period of time even if the change is promoted (Palmer, Dunford, & Akin, 2009, p. 112). In order to overcome the resistance to change, it is necessary to ensure supervisors, managers, and airmen that the changes in the procedures do not lead to making the process more complex. The advantages and short-term positive outcomes such as the simplification of the procedure, transparency, and adequate administration should be accentuated during face-to-face meetings.

Communication Strategies

The communication strategy to use while promoting change is the discussion of the main visions and ideas with the coalition at face-to-face meetings. Face-to-face communication is preferable because the participants receive the opportunity to ask and answer questions and share opinions immediately. The second communication strategy is the use of online resources and technologies in order to communicate short-term wins, the progress, and successes as well as to organize online conferences (Palmer et al., 2009, p. 81). The third strategy is the use of written reports to share all the important data and facts with stakeholders.

Diagnostic Tools to Identify the Changes

To identify the changes which should be made in the organization, it is helpful to use such diagnostic tools as the collection of the data with the help of interview and the further statistical analysis of the data and the collection of the data with the help of observation. The first diagnostic tool is based on the survey, and it provides the important quantitative information. The second tool is effective to discuss the areas for the further reformation, modification, and improvement in order to prevent conflicts.

Strategies for Sustaining the Change

The change in the organization can be sustained with the help of such two strategies as the promotion of the performance-oriented approach in all the organization’s departments and the fixation of the developed schedule for planned evaluations in the organization. The main goal of the change is to support the performance-based evaluation strategies. That is why, the focus on promoting the change in all the departments is necessary. Influencing the evaluation and promotion procedures at all the levels, it is possible to sustain change during a long period of time (Palmer et al., 2009, p. 54). Applying the fixed schedule to the promotion system is also necessary to gain benefits from the change.

Conclusion

The Enlisted Evaluation System policy used by the USAF should be improved in order to support the WAPS and create the effective conditions for the promotion process. That is why, the managers of the USAF proposed the rational initiatives for reforming the current management system which is operated in the organization many years. In spite of the fact that the initiative is rather effective, and significant positive outcomes can be predicted, the proposed changes are not efficiently fixed at the current stage of the policy’s discussion, development, and implementation.

References

Gildea, D. (2014). AF implements static EPR closeout dates, eliminates change of reporting. Web.

Kotter, J. (2012). Leading change. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Web.

McDonald, A. (2014). Air Force to change enlisted evaluations, promotions. Web.

Palmer, I., Dunford, R., & Akin, G. (2009). Managing organizational change: A multiple perspectives approach. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Web.

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