Change Management and Communication Plan

Riordan has decided that they would like to change the way the organization is structured. They will do this by implementing a formal management system to make sure they can reach the goals they have set. The Riordan Manufacturing would like to create a formal system to manage the consumer’s information. When they make the change it will allow the managers to control the various work assignments that multiple teams and employees are doing. This will be a change from the informal way that the managers have done things in the past. When you use informal structure in the organization the co-workers may have cause for concern. The reason that there would be concern is because there is not just one person to take the lead.

There is not a sense of get the job done with informal the way that there is for formal. With formal the manager can take the lead or give the lead to someone that they know will make sure the task gets completed on time. Riordan’s needs too much sure that they have a very effective structure. With the focus being on the consumer information and how the organization handles them we think that the most effective way would be to have a chain of those that will be in command of the project. Some of the effects that may come from the employees would be resistance to how Riordan is implementing the changes.

Some may not have confidence in the changes and how it will work so they will possibly try to fight the changes. Riordan will need to make sure that they do not have too much power at the top, but enough to get the job done. Employees often resist change when new systems are put into place. This is often due to the fact that employees get comfortable with their day to day sequence. Resistance may be seen from employees as they do not want to learn new techniques as they believe the old way will always be the better way. Riordan Manufacturing is expecting resistance due to the change of the company’s customer management system. In order to deal with these changes effectively, Riordan has come up with a couple strategies to make this process a little smoother.

There will be a five step process during this plan to fully acclimate the employees to the change. We will introduce in steps so that employees will not feel overwhelmed by the change. After each step, a member of management will meet with any employees that have questions in regards to the changes and try to answer to the fullest capability. Another strategy that we have implemented is to roll out the new plan to only a few departments at a time. This will ensure that each department gets the proper training and to reduce the stress that management may have during this process.

A strategy that Riordan Manufacturing would like to implement over the next 12 months is to have weekly meetings with all departments. These meetings will allow other department’s to comment and reflect on how they believe the new customer management system is going. This will also allow questions to be answered from peers rather than management and may be perceived by employees in a different way which will create a more positive outlook on the plan going forward.

Since these new meetings will be new and different for all employees of Riordan Manufacturing, it is important to evaluate the success or failure of this change. Management will try to successfully do this by meeting with management on a monthly basis to get feedback from their employees on how the new customer management system is going. We will also evaluate the success of this change sending out blind questionnaires for employees to return to management to get an honest opinion on how they believe that they have been trained and what changes may or may not need to be made to fully understand the new system. Communication Plan

For the company’s employees to feel secure and conferrable with this big change having open communication and involvement is key to making the change go as smoothly as possible. Keeping employees connected with emails and announcement will keep them informed of the changes and then once they are notified of these changes a meeting for all employees, members of management, and members of the team helping with the change process to be a part of for further information. In the meeting information about the new system should be given and why it is beneficial to the company, employees, and customers, and open communication.

Also things that are discussed should be that training for all employees is being offered and employees will be giving feedback about the system as training is going on and after to help better the system and how it functions to make it as non-complicated and user friendly as possible. To also help the employee ease their worries about the changes to emphasize that employees can go to any member of management for help or questions that they have, and that everyone person in the company is having to adapt to the change not just employees but all members of management as well and everyone will make it through this transition and learn and concur together. These channels of communication would work best with open communication since there will be very high worry and stress in the whole company about this big of a change happening.

Having the open communication will encourage the employees to go to management with any issues, ideas, and questions. Helping employees to understand that everyone in the company management included have to train and that everyone will be learning together can help put employee’s minds to ease. Also giving the employees information about the system functions and how it will benefit everyone could get some if not most employees excited about their jobs getting a little easier once they learn the system.

Potential barriers that can affect the communication can be not communicating with employees and keeping them informed, management not trained how to use the new system, and the company not training and moving forward together as a whole. If the communication is not continuous with employees issues can arise with employees becoming confused very easily and then employees start talking and have selective hearing and telling of information. The open communication needs to be in full force and the employees should be getting updates on how the system is working so far and how the company is with their training.

If the management is not ahead/ completed training and does not know the system then they would not be capable of helping employees with questions or concerns and that can start confusion with the employees and training will become more stressful and confusing than educational and helpful. Having that strong chain of management will help the lower management to complete what they needed before training would have even started with the employees so the transition would go as smoothly as
possibly. The company should move together with training as a whole and if that is not possible then employees need to be updated on the progress and what department is behind so they know and can work around it.