Hrm560 Week 1

A Change Management, NSF
March 18, 2014
HRM560/Professor Robert Waldo

Change in BIO/IOS 1

Describe the organization in terms of industry, size, and history.
The Organization that I currently work for is the National Science Foundation (NSF). The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950 "to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the national defense…" With an annual budget of $7.2 billion (FY 2014). (NSF, 2014) The organization is the funding source for approximately 21% of all federally supported basic research conducted by America’s colleges and universities. These fields of studies include
mathematics, computer science and the social sciences. They are the major source of federal backing.
Discovery, learning, research infrastructure and stewardship--provide an integrated strategy to advance the frontiers of knowledge, cultivate a world-class, broadly inclusive science and engineering workforce and expand the scientific literacy of all citizens, build the nation 's research capability through investments in advanced instrumentation and facilities, and support excellence in science and engineering research and education through a capable and responsive organization, these are the goals of NSF. (NSF, 2014)They believe that NSF is "where discoveries begin."
Describe how the HR program /policy / process / procedure / initiative that has been proposed should be changed.
Leadership, with major input from the HR staff, is aware that attracting and retaining some of the best and brightest students, scientists, careerist in the world.

Change in BIO/IOS 2
It is crucial to the Foundation and program directors to maintain national and international competitive science market share advantage. Keeping this vision in mind HRM’s and Leadership roles know that they have to be strategic in ensuring that all its HR initiatives are equitable, consistent, continuous, and mainstream. NSF is known for its values and vision, its diversity and inclusion efforts, but more publicly for its notable efforts in the funding studies, unprejudiced systems and development and training.
NSF believes strongly in training and development, as demonstrated by the continuous and consistent efforts to offer successful learning so that employees and leaders can learn and develop to their full capabilities. While the organization offers so many onsite courses as well as offsite, many employees are not utilizing them. There are only a few courses that are mandatory, the HR monitors. The other training, such as management leadership training should be mandatory at least once a year.
Describe three (3) reasons why this change is important to make.

Three reasons for why the changes are important to make are: (1) to ensure that NSF remains relevant and successful in today’s science market; (2) so that global expansion does not detract scientist and other employees from its previous success in the job market; (3) and that all new training and development efforts continue to be as consistent and as successful as in the past but as a requirement. Because the company is part of the science world of studies and new breakthrough’s; there are not only rules, regulations, and standards that have to be followed, there are training and developmental issues that the company needs to address to stay competitive in the science world.
Change in BIO/IOS 3
According to Chinda (2012), productivity is uppermost in the measurement of a company’s competitiveness. It is considered one of the basic variables governing economic production activities. So many organizations would find that implementing training could become very expensive, yet this training is needed in such a diverse and ever expanding environment. Besides the majority of the training is onsite and given by certified NSF employees. If more managers took more training they would be given the skills to properly lead their employees. In my directorate people are becoming less motivated and we are losing the productivity we once had, due to lack of proper leadership and teamwork.
Describe the recommended change.
Some recommended changes for the organization ensure the success of the organization while attracting and retaining some of the best in the workforce includes: diversity training; team building and communications. With at least 1000 employees and expansion to the global market and relations to scientific findings, diversity training is one that stands out. Providing this training introduces employees to different cultures and different ways of communicating with different cultures. Employees will develop job-specific skills, experience, and knowledge needed to perform their job. They will also improve performance utilizing the diversity of other cultures and their training and experiences. I suggest that a needs assessment be done to identify performance deficiencies, survey employees and managers, and/or testing employees’ skills and knowledge to formulate a successful plan. Leaders must remain open to new ideas and provide constant feedback, and work with managers and staff to shape the company’s strategic vision. (Castro, 2013 p.38)

Change in BIO/IOS 4
The other change is team building and communications. NSF’s goal should be to insure all employees are one accord regardless of title. They must remember that team building is a response to keep conflicts in teams down and performance up. When management and employees can collaborate together, it shows that all staff members are valued. When employees work together as teams you will find positive rewards and promotes productivity. Open communication is essential, it’s a must for the success of any organization.
Develop a strategy that illustrates how you would address each of the eight (8) Stages of Change (Establishing a sense of urgency; creating coalition; developing vision and strategy; communicating the vision; empowering broad-based action; generating short term wins; consolidating gains and producing more change; anchoring new approaches into the culture).

To address each of the eight stages of change, NSF develops the following strategy:
(1) NSF must establish a sense of urgency by communicating organizational rationale and employment security that are needed for gaining and maintaining competitive advantage in the workforce; (2) After the urgency for change has been established in the organization, leaders must have a coalition of employees on board that will support the change; (3) NSF must create, promote, and prove a vision that answers the question of where the company was heading and where it must go. Doing so will allow employees to understand the needed change, while setting the stage for increasing individual roles to accomplish the needed changes; (4) After developing the vision it should be communicated to employees to mobilize the company. Managers want to explain how all employees should attain the vision by being clear, show confidence in their employees, and lead by example; (5) Now that the plan has been created, employees need to know their part in the plan.
Change in BIO/IOS 4
NSF managers will start assigning responsibilities which empowers its employees; (6) Managers at NSF will need to create short-term wins that will increase the sense of true urgency. This will help in accomplish goals while reinforcing the change initiative; (7) To consolidate gains and produce more change, managers should take time to ensure that all the new practices are firmly grounded in the organization’s culture; and (8) NSF should keep the change in place by creating a new organizational culture that is supportive and sufficiently strong.
Identify potential resistance to change and describe how the resistance would be managed.
(1) Discomfort with uncertainty: employees may not want to leave their comfort zone because lack of faith or trust that the company’s new vision is really needed. They may feel that they be pushed beyond their capabilities. This can be addressed by being clear and up-front with employees. Off them training as well. (2) Lack of conviction that change is needed: as with anything understanding is needed. Employees will resist what they do not understand. Create the vision and provide it to employees. Show an analysis of where the organization was and where they can go with the change. (3) Lack of trust or past resentments toward those in leadership positions may change the expectancy of employees: employees sit on a different level of hierarchy which may impair their judgment to needs of change. They may perceive the change as a threat to what they have already have gained, and accomplished. Leaders must humble themselves and give the employees a reason to trust them. (4) Fear of the unknown and fear of losing something they value: people want to understand how the change will affect their live at the work place. Also, they resist to changes if they believe that they will lose what they value as the result of changing.
Change in BIO/IOS 6
Other ways of managing change through the Kotter model is:
1. Education and Communication- educating your employees about the change
2.
Participation and Involvement- employees are likely to buy into change rather than resist if they are involved in the effort
3. Facilitation and Support-managerial support in helping employees deal with their fear and anxiety during the transition period
4. Negotiation and Agreement- fight resistance by offering incentives to employees that resist the change
5. Manipulation and Cooperation- select leaders of the resisters to participate in the process by offering a symbolic role in the decision making, without threat to the change
6. Explicit and Implicit Coercion- Leads managers to openly or implicitly forcing employees to accept, by clarifying that resisting the change can lead to loss of promotion and even termination. Outline at least three (3) communications strategies you would use
There are several communications strategies that we could use to implement the change management plan NSF. These strategies include listening as a communication skill, selling change upward and aligning your language. When communicating speaking and listening becomes essential within the organization. There are different types of listening that include discriminative listening comprehensive listening therapeutic listening, critical listening, and appreciative
listening.

Change in BIO/IOS 7
We use these modes to determine significance of auditory/visual messages, trying to understand messages for future reference, evaluating the message explicitly that may include discriminative and comprehensive listening.
Avoid information overload, do not pass to much information at one time, but be transparent. Theorists believe that by practicing these types of listening modes, dialogue will emerge and create an environment that will make change. Selling upward change is just as important when communicating with employees. Change will sometimes start at the bottom and work its way up; this means employees can push and persuade management with new ideas for change. This step can encourage the entire organization to buy-in to the idea of change versus soliciting participation from employees. The door to open communication will be open while fostering a healthy superior/subordinate relationship.
Finally the alignment of language with the desired change; you will need to change the conversation skills within an organization. We sometimes find that change will fail because the imagery and metaphors that managers are using are not aligned with the proposed change. This leaves unsure about what is being asked of them.
Propose two (2) diagnostic tools to identify the changes that need to be made in the organization.
There are many diagnostic tools that we could use to identify the changes that need to be made in the organization however I will discuss only two of them. The first tool would be the Six-Box organizational model (1976). This model was proposed by Marvin Weisbord, and was one of first diagnostic models created.
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It is centered on six variables that causes organizations like NSF to ask questions in regards to its purposes, structure, rewards, helpful mechanisms, relationships and leadership. It is said that the most important concern of human resource management is absorbing, keeping and promoting human force so that if managers can employ experts, keep them for the organization using different motivational and legal rights and promote their position and ranking, they have actually created the best and the most desirable environment for their staff. (Hamid, Siadat, Reza, Arash, Ali, and Azizollah (2011) p. 85)
The next diagnostic tool that I suggest is the Star model. The Star model is like the Six Box model, because it is employee focused, reviews strategy, structure, processes and lateral capability, rewards systems, structure, and people practices. This process could give light to the misalignment of NSF and demonstrate how it operating in its current stage. According to Palmer, Dunford and Akin (2009) “Misalignment of any of these five factors is considered to produce suboptimal performance” (p. 126). The Star model potentially shows how the manager has the upper hand to control employees’ behavior, which can affect the organizations’ performance overall.
Recommend two (2) strategies for sustaining the change
To affectively achieve growth we have decided that it is pertinent that proper recommendations for increasing the probability of success are established in our company. To sustain change and future growth in NSF, we will have to use two primary strategies. One strategy is to strengthen the infrastructure by investing in ‘safe bets’. It doesn’t matter which growth strategy that we choose to select, but it is the standards of NSF that will support execution.
Change in BIO/IOS 9
Committing to create an infrastructure such as this is a ‘safe bet’. To achieve this use must do away with departmental or regional depots, which utilize leading indicators and performance drivers. These indicators and performance drivers align with the strategy as well as all levels of leadership: managerial and non-managerial
We will secondly have to initiate a process to identify strategies with a high probability for success. We would need to start a three customer change/growth strategy. These include expanding the core business, growing by sub-segmenting customers as well as growing in training and developmental opportunities. We would recommend that senior leaders begin the process by considering the growth potential within its present core business. We would also ask that they consider that of the opportunities and growth potential that is in association to creating innovative value propositions for underserved customer groups.
In conclusion it should be the goal of NSF to increase its knowledge of ways to creating a better change. They should first asses their current situation and later create a vision. The vision should not be impossible to reach and come with a cost of resistance. We need to make sure all employees will be on board and view themselves as value employees who are an asset to the organization.

References:
Castro A. Rethinking diversity. T+D [serial online]. February 2013; 67(2):36-40. Available from: Academic Search Complete, Ipswich, MA. Accessed March 18, 2014.
Chinda T. A dynamic model of productivity enhancement in the Thai food industry. Engineering Management Journal [serial online]. June 2012; 24(2):15-29. Available from: Academic Search Complete, Ipswich, MA. Accessed March 18, 2014
Hamid, R., Siadat, S., Reza, H., Arash,A., Ali, N., & Azizollah, A. ( 2011). The analysis of organizational diagnosis based on six box models in Universities. Higher EducationStudies, 1 (1), 84-92. DOI: 10.539/hes.v1n1p84
Kotter, J.P. (1996). Leading change. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.
NSF (2014) NSF at a Glance. Retrieved on March 18, 2014 from: http://www.nsf.gov/about/glance.jsp
Palmer, I., Dunford, R., & Akin, G., (2009). Managing organizational change: a multiple perspectives approach. New York: McGraw-Hill.