Introduction
Change management entails transformation of organizations, people or groups from the present to a future desired state. Being an organizational process aimed at improving employees’ attitudes in embracing and accepting total change in their place of work and entire business environment, it involves employees and their daily processes in an organization. Hence, change management basically entails managing processes within an organization.
For instance, before any forms of changes are adopted in an organization, it must first be approved by the relevant management teams. As a matter of fact, it takes time and proper planning for any changes to be executed in an organization and that is why it is referred to as a process. In most cases, change management is primarily concerned with the human resource aspect.
The latter explains why all the changes introduced and approved in an organization are usually done according to the challenges facing human resource as well as the emerging needs as set out in organizational objectives (Hiatt & Creasey 243). Therefore, domains involved in successful management include educational programs to train or improve skills of the human resources within an organization or improvement efforts aimed at boosting production in an organization.
Another aspect normally taken into consideration when implementing change management in the need of containing employee behavior which sometime entails combating their resistance towards proposed changes with the view to aligning them to a strategic and desired direction for the betterment of the organization.
Thirdly, there has always been need for effective communication when implementing change in organizations. For example, all the stakeholders, including employees should be part and parcel of change management process.
Therefore, they should be informed and also be made to take active roles in implementing the very changes. In other words the rationale for change, associated advantages and also all the likely limitations of change plus the associated budgetary expenditures should be made clear to all stakeholders. Hiatt and Creasey (246) observe that all these domains coupled with monitoring, process accomplishment and fine modification automatically lead to success in the change management process.
Vision and objectives
The emirates airline is a passenger airline services flying to numerous destinations globally. Its headquarters are located in the Middle East, specifically in the United Arab Emirates.
The company comprises of airlines flying passengers and cargo to more than one hundred destination across the world (emiratesairlinesonlinebooking.org). With this magnitude of assets and base, it has employed thousands of workers in different fields of the airline industry. Its annual growth rates have sparked the need for more employees and thus improving their yearly results.
According to The Emirate Group (par.1), the Emirates Airline Company has been made strong through its vision and objectives. Its vision is based on building a strong and highly stable team that is keen in decision making with high levels of ambition but with consideration of business ethics as a foundation of success building.
From past statistical evidence and levels of achievement, the Emirates has continued to demonstrate great care for its employees and involved stakeholders for their role in the growth of the company with emphasis on immediate environments and the communities served by the fleet of its airlines.
This is one of its great objectives that have driven growth and encouraged attraction of human resource. Another major objective is to maintain the past and connect it to the future with a view to maintain great service and improve with time signifying the best future in the airline industry.
A supporting objective based on future plans is aimed at making the airline one of the major global players by earning itself a top or front position in making the capital of the Middle East one of the top destination for visiting tourists every year. The latter has been found to be an influential trading hub for business in the world (emiratesgroup.com).
Literature review
Change management with respect to human resource in many airline companies has been directly associated with leadership styles. The type of leadership offered in any organization greatly determines the motivational levels of its employees. Due to this reason, airline companies have been cautious in choosing suitable leaders to run these organizations.
According to Doganis (244), they believe that all activities within the organization are largely determined by the involved leader-activities since all organizational duties are directly delegated to the leader. British airways, once reported that its employee motivational goals were as a result of great leadership skills that were well placed in running the organization. With only eight years in office, employee confidence and financial growth were rapidly attained.
These later led to corporate stability within the business and thus motivated company employees; a factor that led to motivated production inside the firm. The report points out that leadership must involve direct interactions between employees and the leaders for effective communication. Effective communication leads to individual contentment and thus motivates employees in duty discharge.
A similar study done on Virgin Atlantic revealed that there was great motivation within the company. Several reasons were attributed to the fact that the corporation had clearly stipulated programs aimed at boosting the morale of its employees. To begin with, it was found out that leadership confidence was crucial in running the organization.
Due to excellent leadership skills such as how employees were being treated in terms of remuneration and general working conditions, the working environment really improved. Secondly, many company employees expressed unwillingness in moving away, citing satisfaction resulting from the above factors coupled with effective communication with Virgin Atlantic (Doganis 290).
Rationale
Due to the fact that the company has enormous potential to improve its profitability, it raised a lot of hope in the strategies in the strategies that are currently being implanted in the organization. The main focus is on the robust development of human resource department alongside making sure that its clientele base if firmly in place through satisfactory service provision. As a result, there is implication of change management with specific regard to motivation within the organization.
It is thus essential to examine the company’s strategic change management practices with respect to employee and customer motivation thus confidence within the company; a factor that has made it overtake other airlines in terms of flights to the Middle East region as well as the becoming known as one of the world’s most famous operating passenger and cargo airlines.
Methodology
Research design
The Emirates, being a multinational company with diversities in population representations, has numerous employees and customers from regions all over the world. With this kind of diversity, designation of suitable research design for carrying out research study in understanding how motivation is employed to keep employees energetic and faithful within the industry can prove to be a tedious task.
Therefore, the research design to be applied must take into consideration the number of employees in the organization, regional or continental representations and major international airports and offices of contacts should information from samples be needed. This will mainly help in attaining primary data for analysis.
Hence, before choosing the correct methodology, it is of great importance put these factors into consideration. This research study will therefore employ these elements of change that may affect the overall data analysis, discussions and conclusions.
Due to complexities in airline ethics, required data as well as the costs involved in carrying out such a research, a qualitative research design has been preferred for the sake of efficiency and effectiveness. Emphasis has been laid on descriptive research method for enlightenment of the required information.
This research design is highly suitable for this study because it brings to light the required information in a form that can be easily understood and analyzed. In order to explain the reasons behind employee motivation within the company, a similar method will also be of great help.
Since this research is only concerned with the explanations behind maintenance of employee and motivation management within The Emirates airlines, taking a quantitative approach might provide inappropriate results which will also be unsuitable for conclusion-drawing in regards to motivation management within this airline company.
Therefore, basing on reasons such as the cost of carrying out the study, location of research elements, regional representation and company location, a qualitative approach has been preferred in this study (Creswell 70).
Data collection
Data collection plays a very important role in implementing a research question. Having chosen a qualitative design and approach in methodology, it is also important to consider a mode of data collection. In this regard, survey becomes the most preferred method of data collection due to several reasons.
Having considered this, the choice of methodology is of the great essence. As already mentioned above, this research study will assume the descriptive design path for study and report writing purposes. As a matter of fact, this is important in attaining the required information from the study. Since individual motivation and change associated with it can only be explained by internal employees of the company, taking a case study may proof to be futile.
Naturalistic observation is also something close to impossible and if not, serious time and money consuming. Therefore it is of great advantage that this descriptive research design employs survey as the method of data collection. Survey will thus involve questionnaire for reasons of its affordability and time saving attributes.
Questionnaire – interview questions
The following are some of the likely questions that may be contained in the questionnaire. It is imperative to note that the proposed questions may be changed accordingly in order to match the expected needs of the research study.
- Are you contented working at The Emirates?
- If you were offered a chance to move on, would you immediately opt for another employer in the airline industry? Explain your choice.
- What makes you comfortable or uncomfortable at The Emirates?
- Do you feel like coming to work another day at The Emirates?
- Do you enjoy working at The Emirates?
Data analysis
Data analysis is one of the critical steps taken in materializing the research question. Under analysis section, it is vital to underscore the fact that evidence is brought to light and further conclusions can be made once data analysis has revealed the required premises. A suitable data analysis method to be employed in this research is obviously pre-determined by the method of research design and available data.
Since this study presumed a qualitative research model with non numerical data arising from questions in the questionnaire, a statistical approach has been recommended. The use of statistical software would be of great help in reducing the amounts of time that would have been consumed in manually performing the involved calculations, hence recommendation for SPSS. Data acquired from the survey questionnaires shall be run through the SPSS software package for analysis and discussion.
SPSS takes preference in data analysis in this case due to various reasons. To begin with, SPSS saves a lot of time when used to analyze large volumes of data. Computation of required indexes is automatically done and results are displayed immediately for immediate analysis.
Secondly, the package is readily available and more business and social sciences are laying recommendations in the use of the package for data analysis. This thus makes it a mandatory for students pursuing courses in business degrees and social sciences to use this statistical package in analysis form data.
Thirdly, statistical approach provides ground for wider discussions. For instance, discussions in reasons of employee contentment at the company can be broadened at length, giving wider perception for contentment, while a second item (willingness to remain at Emirates) also presents wider ground for discussion.
With such broad analysis, accurate discussion can be done and thus lead to drawing of accurate conclusions. Therefore for particular and highly accurate conclusions and recommendations, a statistical approach will be invaluable in analyzing the data collected during this research.
Findings
Contentment
- 90% of all interviewees affirmed contentment at the emirates. 5% did not respond and 5% were not contented.
Figure 1: Contentment level of employees (%)
Loyalty level
- 95% of all interviewees reiterated that they would not move away from the Emirates while the remaining 5 % said they would seek other employment opportunities.
Figure 2: Loyalty level
Reason for working for the airline company
- 60% of interviewees cited better pay as the reason why they were comfortable working for the Emirates, 30% cited leadership excellence while 10% cited home schedule accommodations.
- 80% of all the interviewees said they were willing to come to work the next day while 10% said they were not and 10% did not respond.
- 60% of all interviewees said they enjoyed working at the emirates, 25% confirmed they were not while15% did not respond.
Challenges encountered
Discussion
From the data obtained, it is evident that majority of employees at the emirates are contented working there. The five percent of employees raise concern that there is need for further studies on why they are not contented. From the response of willingness to continue working at the emirates, it is evident that most employees would not move away from the company, implying they are motivated to continue working for the organization.
In addition, majority of employees expressed willingness to continue working at the emirates. All these results give an implication of motivation within the company. Continued and sustained motivation means that the company is conscientious of change management. With sustained levels of contentment, comfort, willingness and enjoyment, the company is efficient in change management.
Recommendations, risks ad effects
From the research study, it is evident that data obtained partially explored change management. It is highly recommended that exhaustive questionnaires be applied for clearance of doubt. For instance, lack of contentment at The Emirates was not substantially accounted for. Secondly, The Emirates should regularly carry out research to find out whether new changes introduced into the system improved the motivation levels of its employees.
Conclusion
These results concur with previous researches done on change management in regards to motivation. Previous researches indicated that change management with respect to motivation was as a result of good leadership within an organization- a statement which this piece of research confirms. Secondly, better working conditions coupled with better pay were also responsible for continual motivation and enjoyment, thus source of motivation.
On the contrary, this research concludes that out of all the possible reasons given for discontent, home and cultural proximities were absent from previous researches. This indicates that this research study presents relatively new findings in managing change within organizations. Indeed, globalization has made it possible to work in any location across the world but total willingness should be sought first before accepting employment contract.
Works Cited
Creswell, John. Research design: Qualitative & quantitative approaches. New York: Sage Publications, 1994. Print.
Doganis, Rigas. Flying off course: The economics of international airlines, New York: Routledge, 2003. Print.
Emirate Airlines. Arab Emirates Airline. 2010. Web. <https://emiratesairlinesonlinebooking.org/>
Hiatt, Jeff & Creasey, Timothy. Change management: the people side of change, Madison: Prosci Learning Center, 2003. Print.
The Emirates Group. Our Vision & Values, 2011. Web. <http://www.theemiratesgroup.com/>