Change And Culture

Change And Culture

Table of Contents

An organization structures that are hierarchical, the structure is divided as top, middle, and bottom. The middle managers in the organization are the supervisors and usually he or she is the project manager. They are subordinates of the senior managers and above the bottom level of the operational staff. The middle managers have a great impact on the performance of an organization. They are responsible of implementing and executing the plans and policies that are created by the upper management. While in this position, communication is extremely required both written and verbal. There are different reasons why organizations merge.The main reason for the merging of the organization is so that the corporation can increase its level of competition in the market.


Merging is essential as it helps in improving the production of organization; however, the key challenge that is involved with merging is making the two different groups of staff to collaboratively work together so as to realize the benefit (Liebler, G & McConnell, C 2008). In this case, I am a middle manager in a heath care organization that has merged with an earlier competitor. Until now, the employees see the competitor as the enemy that provided poor quality of care, and this new organization has numerous inpatient and outpatient services that our organization do not have. This paper will aim at answering how the staff can change its perception and work as a team for the good of the organization.


Discussion

When an organization merges, the first thing as a manager to consider is the culture and the working condition of the staff. Culture is an essential thing during merging, and this should be dealt with during and after merging. The issue of culture arises during merging of an organization because the organizations are not exactly the same as both were competing to improve the care of patient, safety, and health. Because the different organizations have their own way of doing business, the staffs are used to the way their organization used to work. When the two organizations merge, the organization will have new policies and procedures. Therefore, the management and employees should get used to the new procedures and policies that will be introduced in the organization. The organization will also have new expectation and new order of business. The role and the job description of many of the employees in the new organization will change.


Culture

The new corporation has several outpatient and inpatient services which the other organization does not have. With this services being an added advantage to the organization as it shows a positive working environment. The main aim of the combined organization is to provide patient care of high quality, and for this to happen, the manager has to ensure that the staff work together as a team to the good of the patients. One of the main reason why merged organization usually fails is because the organization leadership failed in addressing the issue of culture when the organizations were merging. If the management has knowledge on the culture process, it will have a positive influence on the merging process.When two health care organizations merge, it leads to a new organization that has a new culture. In merging, integration of two different cultures occurs, and this is likely to result to culture problems (Liebler, G & McConnell, C 2008).


The sale of the two organizations will necessitate the need for the formation of a new organization with the new organization structure. There will also be a cultural change which is difficult, time consuming, painful, and involving. The manager will have to develop a culture for the new organization which is time consuming and requires a lot of effort. During merging, most people in the organization normally feel left out; thus, they tend to resist change. During the process of merging, the top management level people are usually less aware of what the lower level workers are thinking. This leads to layoffs, which is likely to affect the power level staff, supervisors, and managers (Smith, K 2001). This clearly indicates that the sale is going to have an impact on the combined organization culture.


It is essential for the organization to consider conducting an evaluation of the different cultures of the organizations. The merged organization will have to evaluate the different cultures and determine how the cultures can be incorporated so that to be of benefit to the new combined organization.Conducting a cultural assessment is also recommended during the planning process of the merger. Developing a cultural integration plan which is comprehensive is also necessary. The goals and vision of the combined organization is essential despite the persistence of the small problems that tend to emerge. The management can influence the organization culture by encouraging social activities like seminars, behavioral and cultural training and providing incentives for behaviors and social activities.


During the management of culture change process, all aspects that include business design, work process, drivers of organizational behaviors, people practices, leadership, and organization design are to be engaged in the organization (Righi, N Ritchie, J & Morgan, B 2010).These aspects will have an influence on the behavior, and it will also influence the outcome. In order for the combined organization to ensure that cultural integration is successful, the outcome should be well defined and well understood the behaviors should be clear according to the culture of the parties that are involved, the drivers of the behavior should be well understood, and effective change management process should be planned and executed.


Helping staff work together

As a middle manager of the combined organization, in order to ensure that the combined staffs work together without having a competitive stance, I will ensure communication. Communication is an effective means of making people with different views about others to understand one another. The employees from the different organizations should work together in order to get used to each other and eliminate the differences (Righi, N Ritchie, J & Morgan, B 2010). If negativity will create a dysfunction environment, as a manager, I will take the responsibility of shifting the employees to work in other locations of the departments.The middle management should be responsible of communicating the new culture to employees and everything entailing to the employees. This is essential as it enables the employees of the combined organization to accept the change in the organization.


Employees need to know that the voluntary departure if the employees usually form part of developing a new culture (Worthington, A & Cameron, J 2010). Therefore, this part of the process involves some conflict and dislocation and cultural difference can be washed out by the employee’s departure.When organization are changing from one was of operation to another, it is common for employees to resist change. When employees are required to work with different groups, they tend to resist change because they have doubts if the change will yield positive results. As a middle manager, it is my responsibility to deal with the resistance of change.


The emotion of employees during the change process may include excitement, disbelief, acceptance, and loss. I can get to know why employees are resisting change by talking freely with them about the reason for change resistance. The management will then immediately deal with the problems that the employees present.As a manager, it is necessary to recognize that change is a normal process that employees usually go through. In order to solve the problem of change resistance among the employees, it is essential to have an employee assistance process. This program will help the employees understand why there need to be change and convince them that it will yield positive results at the end. Employees will stop resisting change after they are completely convinced about the need for change.I will ensure that employees work collaboratively to provide quality care by making sure that there is consistent communication.


Communication that is relevant helps in relieving the fear and confusion of the employees that concerns working together with people who were their competitors (Righi, N Ritchie, J & Morgan, B 2010). I will be responsible of assuring the employees to have trust on the middle management that they will always be informed of everything that is happening. When there is no communication between the management and employees, the employees to have a negative aspect of the change. It is necessary for the combined employees to know how the change will affect their job and position in the organization when they will be working together.It is the fundamental role of the middle manager to ensure that the combined employees accept the change and collaboratively work together without taking competitive stance.


Communication is extremely important when employees from different organization culture are working together. This helps in ensuring that the quality of service that is being delivered to the patient is high. Therefore, it is significant to have a smooth flow of information between the employees and management. During merging of the organization, it is the role of the middle manager to make sure that the employees get involved in the change process (Smith, K 2001). The two groups of staffs from the organizations that are merging need to understand the benefit of the merge so that they can be able to effectively work together towards a common goal.


Conclusion

When health care organizations merge, they tend to have an increased competitive advantage and economic benefit on the basis of cost effectiveness. Culture conflict is one aspect that the combined organization is supposed to first address because it is usually the main cause of failure for merged organization. In order to ensure employee productivity, it is essential that the organization management communicate to the employees the need for the merge so that the staff can accept the change and be ready to work together. The cultural differences between the two organizations that are merging should be considered so that to determine the cultural values to be done away with and that to be assimilated.


Reference

Liebler, G & McConnell, C (2008). Management principles for health professionals Jones and Bartlett

Smith, K (2001). Peter Senge and the learning organization Retrieved from http://www.infed.org/thinkers/senge.htm

Righi, N Ritchie, J & Morgan, B (2010). Job satisfaction in the home health care context Journal of health care management 55 (1)

Worthington, A & Cameron, J (2010). Physician retention in rural Alberta Canadian journal of public health 101 (1)





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