British Airways Case Study
British Airways, pg. 239
2. What lessons emerge from each perspective and what recommendations would you draw from each in constructing your advice to BA management.
British Airways management did approach the large-scale change to its employees by implementing the swipe time cared through a change management process. According to the case study the employee unions were made aware of the change and had minimal conversations regarding how, when, and ramifications of its implementation. Nadler’s twelve action steps give organizations hugely useful tools for initiating, leading, and managing change for every aspect of the organization. There are three core elements that should have been used for the swipe care implementation that include
Managing organizational power
Motivating the participation of the airline employees it would affect directly
Managing the rollout and transition for the swipe cards
In the swipe card debacle with British Airways there was no recognition by the management team that participation in this rollout would be critical to the success. When change was not handling appropriately, the staff was able in twenty-four hours to cost the organization millions of dollars and hundreds of customers. Understanding the three core elements would have saved them money, employee retention and customers. Nadler also points out that the steps while all need to be taken through discovery are potentially done in a different order, based on the change situation (Akin, Dunford, Palmer, 2009).
My recommendations to avoid this type of backlash in the future would be to follow Nadler’s twelve action steps. Getting support of key groups is the first step, and in this case, when you are dealing with different unions and union contracts the first step would be to speak with those union leaders. Present the unions the change that is coming, the vision of why it is needed and ask for a collaborative approach to roll out it to the organization. Union leaders in
2. What lessons emerge from each perspective and what recommendations would you draw from each in constructing your advice to BA management.
British Airways management did approach the large-scale change to its employees by implementing the swipe time cared through a change management process. According to the case study the employee unions were made aware of the change and had minimal conversations regarding how, when, and ramifications of its implementation. Nadler’s twelve action steps give organizations hugely useful tools for initiating, leading, and managing change for every aspect of the organization. There are three core elements that should have been used for the swipe care implementation that include
Managing organizational power
Motivating the participation of the airline employees it would affect directly
Managing the rollout and transition for the swipe cards
In the swipe card debacle with British Airways there was no recognition by the management team that participation in this rollout would be critical to the success. When change was not handling appropriately, the staff was able in twenty-four hours to cost the organization millions of dollars and hundreds of customers. Understanding the three core elements would have saved them money, employee retention and customers. Nadler also points out that the steps while all need to be taken through discovery are potentially done in a different order, based on the change situation (Akin, Dunford, Palmer, 2009).
My recommendations to avoid this type of backlash in the future would be to follow Nadler’s twelve action steps. Getting support of key groups is the first step, and in this case, when you are dealing with different unions and union contracts the first step would be to speak with those union leaders. Present the unions the change that is coming, the vision of why it is needed and ask for a collaborative approach to roll out it to the organization. Union leaders in