Organisational Change in Royal Post Office

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Outline of the change (privatisation) progress
Reasons for privatising Royal Mail Company and its failure
Leadership, Framing, Sense making
Employee
Conclusion
List of References

Introduction

Organisational change refers to the changes in the operations within the organisation. The change may likely alter the organisational structure and distribution of resources (Chia 2014, p. 10). Obviously, organisational change may frustrate or facilitate the operations of the organisation.

For this reason, management of organisational change is an indispensible factor within the management. Management of organisational change requires accuracy in the decision-making in the organisation.

This essay discusses how Royal Mail group dealt with the organisational change. At the Royal Mail, there was depiction of new cultures that led to a different way of managing the organisation. The new management styles are because of the new plans to restructure the operations in the organisation.

Clearly, the duty of the manager is to develop strategies ensures tranquillity in the organisation (Liberati 2005, p. 225). Royal Mail Company serves a large population in the country hence it is important to develop management skills that see through the services of the organisation.

The organisation change comes amid the introduction of the advanced technology in the sector of communication.

Outline of the change (privatisation) progress

The company cannot continue obvious under the current thriving conditions. Some of the factors identified as the obstacles to the success of the company include the pension deficit, the level of operations, and the relationship between the company and the unions and regulators (Armstrong 2005, p. 23).

Therefore, the modernisation of the company will address the like exchanging the duty of responsibility of regulation. The duties will be changed from Postcomm to Ofcom. This change will ensure financial support to stabilise the services of UPS in the country.

Secondly, the modernisation of the company is concerned with the provision of ultimate powers make new government scheme (Parker 2014, p. 80). Moreover, privatisation of the company will enable the company to remain part of the government through owning of shares.

This will lead to the partnership of the company. The partnership will be between the new shareholders and the government that will have the remaining 30% of the total shares.

In essence, the planned change was the preferred type of change that could enhance the operations of the company than the emergent changes (Kolb 2008, p. 118).

This is because the planned changes encompass the strategic objectives aimed at changing the working conditions to improve the efficiency of the company while the emergent change which is unpredictable hence not able to accommodate the dynamic changes.

The privatisation of the company was affected by the criticisms from the external parties like CWU. For example, Peter Mandelson argued that the current changes in the environment makes nobody suit for the position of investment hence sabotaging privatisation of the firm.

The mastermind of the planned changes for the privatisation of the firm was Kurt Lewin. Lewin holds that keeping abreast the changes within the environment could be the best solution to the social conflicts in the privatisation of the company.

In this regard, Lewin came up with four methods meant to access the planned change (Royal Mail after liberalisation 2005, p. 77).

In three-step model, Lewin opines that the success in the company come from the three steps. These steps include unfreezing step, moving step and refreezing step. Unfreezing step involves coming up with new regulations in which change is bound to take place.

People remain aware of the changes in the environmental that can change the efficiency of the firm. The moving step is aimed at moving the person to the specific objectives (Crowder 2012, p. 60). The two companies solved their differences to make the operations of the company efficient.

The moving stage is described as the path that leads people to the unfrozen state. The management forgets the old methods of operations and aiming to implement the new method of operations. In this stage, the employees require support to work towards the achievement of the company.

According to the research, Royal Mail is undergoing the moving stage as per the 2010 national agreement (Somervill 2006, p. 29). The company is implementing the new methods brought by the modernisation in the changing environment.

The new methods under implementation in the company include automation, improved technology in the data storage and enhancing the industrial relationship. However, these changes may take time to be implemented in the company (May, Cheney, & Roper 2007, p. 79).

The final step is the refreezing step. In this step, there is need to stabilise the environment of operation within the company. It is not easy to implement the last stage because of the differences in the ways of change. In Royal Mail Company, there is still evaluation of the unfrozen stage between the company and CWU.

Reasons for privatising Royal Mail Company and its failure

Advanced technology in the communication sector like e-mail and use of social sites has led to the drastic services delivery in the company. To arrest this technological progression, there was need to find a way of soliciting funds to hasten the delivery of letters.

According to the research done by the government consultant, Richard Hooper in 2008 and 2010, Royal Mail was facing financial constraints that would affect the transfer of the postal services (Williamson 2005). As a result, Richard recommended the privatisation of the company to provide funds for the company.

Following the report of Richard Hooper, the labour government came up with intensive proposals to implement the remedies as per the report (Myddelton 2014, p. 133).

One main objective of the government was to introduce the strategy of providing the capital through private sectors.

To achieve this, the government offered more than 90% of the total shares of Royal Mail and the remaining 10% of the shares was for the employees (Reitan 2002, p. 41). The factors that pushed this decision include preventing dependence on the government funds that have remained a menace in the execution of the postal services.

Secondly, the motive was to enhance flexibility in the operations of the company. The inflexibility of the company makes the company to perform poorly hence not able to effectively deal with the changes in the market conditions like changes in costs and offering the best environment for the employees (Beale & Mustchin 2014, p. 295).

Finally, the aim was to avoid the clearance procedure from European Commission.

Therefore, privatisation is the only way to detach Royal Mail Company from postal services. The decision of the government to privatise the company will increase the revenue of the country.

For instance, Moya Greene, the director of the Royal Mail Company argues that the sale of the company will be a great investment in the country (Poulter 2008). However, the progress of privatising the company faces objections from some of the employees.

More than 100,000 employees are against the opinion of privatising the company. As a result, there was a suggestion of conducting riots in late 2013. The government started to offer shares to the public on 15 October 2013.

Despite selling of the shares, the government still aims to retain not less than 50% of the total shares (Williamson 2005). According to the business secretary, Vincent Cable, the government was to give priority to the long-term investors.

Later the government remained with 30% of the total shares in the company (Grint 2005, p. 1470).

The urge to modernise operations in the Royal Mail Company

According to the research, Royal Mail Company would be efficient in its operations if there were some level of competition in the UK. The modernisation of the company of the operations of the company is due to the factors like to enhance the existence of the universal postal services.

That is, to maintain the collection of mails in six days per week at fair prices. The quantity of the letters that Royal Mail can collect per week extends to 20kg (Grint 2005, p. 1473).

Secondly, there is need to increase the sales volume in the company. Initially, the invention of the 5% weighted average resulted in low level of revenues. To recover from this mess, there was need to use electronic media that will enhance the operations in the company.

Leadership, Framing, Sense making

There are various challenges that influence the operations of the firm. These factors determine the organisational change in the company. When there is, need to adopt a certain organisational change, the organisation responds by trying to implement the change.

Organisational changes ensure maximisation of the output and improve the general goodwill of the company (Chang 2006, p. 74). The effect of organisational change depends on the views of the management.

Some managers consider the organisation change as the negative impact to the company while other managers vie the organisational changes as the sources of the success in the organisation.

For instance, some of the organisational changes include continuous transformation changes that involve the identification of the future projections in the organisation like educating the employees (Ihlen, Bartlett, & May 2011, p. 125).

Secondly, punctuated equilibrium that is exercised in Royal Mail where changes in the organisation can happen at intervals in the organisation.

Some of the objectives that led to the organisational changes in Royal Mail Company include privatisation, commercialisation, adoption of the modern methods of operations, ensuring commercialisation and automation of the services (Hopkins 2003).

Ever since, the aim of the government is to privatise this company in order to enhance competition in the liberal market. According to the government, the company may not make good use of the incoming technology unless it undergoes privatisation.

Equally, privatisation of postal organisations reduces industrial unrest from the government owned organisations.

With the notion that modern technology may result to less job opportunities in the country, the government have opt to privatise the company to avoid pressure from the public (Watson 2001, p. 187). Therefore, the urge to privatise the company has led to tremendous organisational change.

Employee

Resistance to change in the Royal Mail

Resistance to change refers to the obstacles that come from other parties to sabotage organisational change. The degree at which the obstacles may stop change within the organisation depends on the view of the management on the force.

Some of the forces that have derailed organisational change in Royal Mail include modernisation in the organisation (Warner & Rowley 2011, p. 22). Various parties like employees among others have rejected modernisation within the organisation.

For instance, for the last two years, Royal Mail Company has experienced industrial unrest. According to the report, four major obstacles affect the change in Royal Mail.

Union resistance

The union of workers in Royal Mail Company also called communication workers union (CWU) affects the organisational changes in the company by rioting to stop the changes (Hopkins 2003, p. 68).

This is the major challenge on the change within Royal Mail because of the huge number of employees that forms the union. In addition, the large population of the workers makes it difficult to control the crowd during the industrial unrest (Mumby 2006, p. 594).

Poor relationship between the management and the employees

Report shows that there have been poor relationships between the employees and the management, which have affected the performance of the company. Remarkably, the conflict between these two parties exists to date in the company.

This condition has affected Royal Mail Company from expanding and modernising the operations within the firm (Mullerat & Brennan 2011, p. 117).

Nevertheless, the recent existence of business transformation 2010 has led to the mutual agreement between the two parties. The two parties agreed to develop new culture that will enhance corporation within the company.

Negative attitude on the use of technology

The employees in Royal Mail organisation are reluctant on using the technology within the organisation to enhance efficiency. Some of the employees receive misdirection from the union to boycott using the available technology (Smith 2011, p. 53).

According to the research, the efficiency of the Royal Mail has reduced by a greater percentage because of the idling technologies within the organisation.

Employees discouraging modernisation plan

The report shows that Adam Crozier who was the initial director of the company confessed that despite the difficulty in embracing change, Royal Mail have to maintain the level of competition by adopting the modernisation in the organisation.

The current communication market requires modern technology that matches that of the competitors. Lack of change in the organisation according to the director of Royal Mail Company is due to the individuals who do not embrace change in their life.

For example, employees that are against the strategic plans to change the organisation discourage the efforts to change organisation (Idowu & Leal 2008, p. 93).

The management of organisation records that the new strategies in the organisation have reaped more than $7 million. The employees are claiming that the changes come along with their extra efforts that deserve reward.

Conclusion

Privatisation of Royal Mail will enhance the efficiency of the company. Some of the benefits of privatising this company include reduction in the monopoly of the organisations, increases the level of competitions, and increases the productivity of the firm.

The steps that the organisation makes adjustments to before privatisation include the modernisation of the operations and resolving the conflicts between the management and the staff. However, some forces influence the change in the organisation.

For example, negative attitude from the employers on the progression of the organisation, wrangles between the employees and management.

List of References

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