Homework week 3 – Change Analysis-Dimensions

Case Study on NTN Bearings's Management Changes

I am working for NTN Bearings Corporation of America which is locating at Atlanta. I am there as a night shift supervisor of shipping and receiving department with about twenty (20) employees. The first shift starts the warehouse at 9:00 am and the second shift closes the business at 8:00 pm. The total numbers of employees of both shifts are about forty five (45) people. Due to crisis economy today, our business was going down quickly as others, so, the company started cutting off many positions at our facility. From forty five (45) employees originally, there are thirty (30) workers now which including receiving, packing, and shipping. Someone has to cover someone else’s job to keep the business in good shape. Recently, the business seems to be backing up and the jobs were getting behind. We decided to look for and fill up at least five (5) positions in our location to catch up our behind work. However, we were not very sure that how long the business would keep up and we would not want to have new hires and let them go in a short term. We decided to hire new people through temporary services; we would send them back to temp services whenever job is going down. We were following the permission and direction from the Human Resource headquarters office in Chicago to hire new temporary employees. We hired three (3) persons to work 40 hours a week, and two (2) persons for 30 hours a week (i.e. they work from 3 pm to 8 pm from Monday to Friday). We called them as 40 hours workers or 30 hours workers. According to our text, we are applying “Change Manager as Director” image in our change. The change was started one year ago. We just simply follow the direction from Human Resource to hire five (5) persons. We had spent time for contracting with temporary services, interviewing people, and training new people. We had never promised them that when we are going to hire them as a full benefit worker after a period of time. The change was working very fine at the first couple months; and it was starting being struggled when people started leaving us. Some of the 40 hours workers left us because they found better jobs which may pay them more or hire them permanently with full benefit. Some of the 30 hours workers left us because they wanted to work more hours, more money to take care their living. Any person left us, we have to replace them right away to avoid behind workload. Since we were working with new persons with fewer experiences about the job, error percent rate and late shipments started going up in our monthly reports. By applying the Images of Change Outcomes, Change Manager as Director, we assumed that the change is a strategic choice that managers make and the survival and general well-being of the organization depends on them. The strategy seemed to be not getting along with the change in our facility. We figured it out that, somehow, we should find some better ways to handle the change. Back to that time, I had not taken this course yet; I did not know what are the six-images or any of Images of Change Outcomes. We just simply tried to find the ways to fix the problem. We would like to avoid the 30 hours workers from quitting; we would rather look for students who really need part-time work only because of school. We were applying the Change Manager as Navigator in this situation. The manager is in control of a given situation and the outcomes are partly emergent rather than completely planned and result from a variety of influences, competing interests and processes. In this change, we were successful in partially when hiring people to work for us as planned. Others issues will occur during the change, therefore, we would navigate to find the properly way to complete the change. For those who work 40 hours weekly that we have hired from temporary services, we also hire them to become NTN’s employees after a period of time being with us. For example, they could be hired permanently to be NTN’s employees after they have worked with us for three (3) months. They are able to have all benefits from the employment such as health insurance and 401(k). The Image Change Manager as Coach is applied in this particular situation. The manager is in a position to shape the organizations capabilities in particular ways. Since we started our new strategy of change, we not only have a very good work-team now, but it would be also for at least a few years in the future. Based on what I have learned so far in this course, first, I would like to use the Image Change Manger as Caretaker in this change. This ideal image of management is still one of control, although the ability to exercise control is severely constrained by a variety of forces, both internally and externally driven, that propel change relatively independent of manager’s intentions. Second, we would still use Change Manager as Director in the future. The reason for being the Director should keep the main focus as well as deliver the change in a positive matter. Change Manager as Director takes charge and understands that the change outcomes will be achieved anyway.

References
John, F.R. (2011). Managing Change: Managing People's Fear. Retrieved July 21, 2011 from: http://management.about.com/cs/people/a/MngChng092302.htm
Lorenzi, N. (2000). Managing Change - An Overview. Retrieved July 21, 2011 from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC61464/
Palmer, I., Dunford, R., & Akin, G. (2008). Managing Organizational Change. New York: The McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
Sooialo, S. (2010). Managing Change – “control” or “shaping” - which one are you? Retrieved July 23, 2011 from: http://www.sooialo.com/managing- change-control-or-shaping