The organizational change at AKU is a complicated process, which will require working with the entire management team and will take substantial time and effort of the employees at all levels of power. To introduce a product that has not been manufactured before, the company will have to re-arrange the workforce and to re-think its production process, while at the same time focusing on the cultural, ethical and corporate social responsibility (CSR) implications of such change. The main areas of concern for this project are the restructuring of the workforce, the need for new training, and environmental considerations associated with the new production line.
Restructuring the Workforce
As noted in the previous assignment, one of the implications for the introduction of the new product line will be the need to introduce new layers and departments into the AKU’s currently flat organizational structure. This is justified by the increase in the overall number of workers, as well as by the separation of duties. It would be costly and unnecessary to involve all the current employees in the new production line; hence, the introduction of a more complex organizational structure would allow distributing the new duties around some employees without affecting the rest of the workforce. However, the introduction of the new production line still allows implementing major changes to the structure of the company, which could help to increase the effectiveness in all business lines.
Cultural and Ethical Issues
To address the cultural and ethical issues, outlined in the previous assignment, it is crucial to make sure that the new structure promotes good communication and improves organizational climate, which in turn can increase employees’ job satisfaction (Noordin et al. 2010). For AKU, the best organizational structure involves four separate layers. The first layer consists of teams of production workers. Introducing team structure would help with the induction of new employees into the companies, as well as with training of the entire workforce. Teamwork is one of the core factors that promote good organizational climate and job satisfaction (Noordin et al. 2010); thus, it can be used to reduce the employees’ negative feelings about the organizational change and ease the adjustment to the new structure. On the second level, each group should be managed by a supervisor. Supervisors are effective leaders as they are most involved with the work of the team. A good supervisor will learn about each team member quickly and will determine the best way of distributing tasks around the team without causing stress or confusion. Moreover, a supervisor could help to solve any conflicts arising between the workers, which can be caused by the introduction of new people into the teams. Next, the teams should be allocated to different departments by their responsibilities and area of work.
Dividing the company into several departments would ensure a smooth initiation of the new production line by separating the work processes, thus minimizing the confusion among the employees. It would also help to promote their safety during the production process, as it would be easier to monitor safety concerns by the department. Each department should have a manager, who will be responsible for collecting information about the teams’ progress from the supervisors and to determine any improvement strategies specific to the department. This would help to decrease the number of HR issues for the CEO to address, as many of the issues would be solved either at the supervision or the departmental level. Lastly, the CEO would remain at the top organizational level. CEO would be responsible for monitoring the work of the departments and initiating any company-wide changes. Moreover, the CEO would also have to establish a new communications channel to remain close to the employees in the new organizational structure. Such a structure would help the company to improve the organizational climate and to achieve its cultural and ethical goals by ensuring that the change process is effective, smooth, and stress-free for the employees. To measure the outcome of the organizational change, the HR department would need to monitor the employees’ job satisfaction through interviews or questionnaires.
Furthermore, as noted in the previous assignment, the management has some concerns over the training required for the new employees. However, the training period can be used as an opportunity to introduce the worker to the team and to improve the overall teamwork in the department. As noted in the study by Tabassi, Ramli, and Bakar (2011), the organization’s focus on employee training and development has a strong positive effect on teamwork. In the case where a large organizational change is in progress, and new employees are added to the company, embedding training and development in the organization’s core values can decrease the incidence of conflicts and improve performance. Thus, training should be implemented not as a separate course for new employees, but rather as a set of tasks to be fulfilled by the team upon the addition of a new employee. Such a structure of training would also help the new employee through the induction process and create a sense of the company’s inclusiveness, which enhances communication and makes employees feel valued. The efficiency of training can be measured by the production outcomes and regular employee surveys.
Corporate Social Responsibility
In the case with most production companies, corporate social responsibility issues become very important as they determine not only the imprint of the company’s activity on the environment but also the image of the brand in the eyes of the public. With the recent popularisation of environmentally-friendly production practices, most consumers value brands that have strong business ethics. Therefore, optimizing the production to adhere to the current standards of the environmental safety is crucial to ensure the public’s interest in the new product. One of the ways to promote environmental safety is by reducing the amount of solid waste from production and reducing energy usage where possible. The introduction of a well-rounded environmental managing system will also require the company to hire an additional member of staff as an environmental manager to evaluate the company’s performance, make necessary changes, and monitor the production with regards to its efficiency and safety by conducting regular surveys. Optimizing the production would also help AKU to cut down the production costs, thus increasing the profitability of the new product line. Moreover, the fulfillment of its corporate social responsibility will create a positive corporate reputation of the company, as it constitutes a substantial competitive advantage (Melo and Garrido‐Morgado 2011).
Conclusion
Overall, to perform an effective restructuring of the workforce and to introduce a new production line, AKU needs to address its cultural and ethical responsibilities by ensuring that the process of transition is taken well by the employees and that the incidence of workplace stress and conflict is minimized through the use of an efficient organizational structure. Moreover, it is also important for the company to address its corporate social responsibility to minimize its negative impact on the environment and ensure a positive corporate image to boost the sales of the new product.
Reference List
Melo, T & Garrido-Morgado, A 2011, ‘Corporate reputation: a combination of social responsibility and industry’, Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 11-31.
Noordin, F, Omar, S, Sehan, S & Idrus, S 2010, ‘Organizational climate and its Influence on organizational commitment’, International Business & Economics Research Journal, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 1-9.
Tabassi, AA, Ramli, M & Bakar AH 2012, ‘Effects of training and motivation practices on teamwork improvement and task efficiency: the case of construction firms’, International Journal of Project Management, vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 1-12.