Introduction
Change as a word; how we see it or use it in our daily lives; means to transform or convert, move something from its original state to something new or different - for better or worse. But in an organization, what is change? Change in organizations could be on a small scale or a large one, and could include anything like mergers & acquisitions, new product developments, technological interventions, restructuring, people leaving or joining and many more. Changes could be caused due to internal factors, or external factors such as the environment. The environment evolves over time and organizations need to be able to cope up with this. 'If organizations are too stable and nothing changes, then the system dies; and organizational change has a failure rate of about 80% or even more' (Burnes, 2005). As Burnes (2005) puts it, change is an elusive creature. Change is difficult to initiate, cope with, and achieve but not impossible. Royal Mail is a classic case of organizational change.
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It is almost a 500 year old organization, which started in 1516 when Henry VII established a "Master of the Posts" which further went up to build the network of post masters across England (Blake, 2010). Royal Mail's competency is that it has the ability to deliver a 'one-price-goes-anywhere', six-days-a-week service on a range of letters and parcels to more than 29 million addresses across UK (Royal Mail Group, 2014). 'Royal Mail Group Ltd. includes UK Parcels International & Letter (UKPIL). UKPIL consists of their UK and international parcel and letter delivery business which operates under the brands - Royal Mail and Parcelforce Worldwide. Express Parcels are also collected and delivered by Parcelforce Worldwide through the UK network. Through General Logistics System (GLS) the Royal Mail Group conducts operations in continental Europe.' (Royal Mail Group,
The U.S. Postal Service is one of the largest organizations in the world. In fiscal 2005, it had nearly 705,000 career employees and handled about 211 million pieces of mail through an extremely complicated system of carefully coordinated activities (United States Postal Service Annual report, 2005).
Change is something that must continually happen within an organization for them to be successful and become complacent. Organizations must continue to evolve and promote learning throughout as a priority to everyone. A culture must be fostered that all employees buy into, such as the culture at Facebook or Google. People must want to work where they are and enjoy what they do to not resist change as it occurs. Change in organizations is inevitable and it happens whether people want it to or not. People will get hired, fired, promoted, and rewarded for different things over the course of time. These are changes that must happen to foster a reputable organization.
Through these acquisitions and creations, UPS serves its customers by providing unique supply-chain solutions. UPS allowed its customers to better serve their own customers, and focus on core competencies. UPS has a Logistics Group to provide global supply chain management solutions and consulting services based on customers´ individual needs. UPS has a mission to provide a list of options of integrated financial products and services that enable companies to grow their business.
BRIEFING NOTE FOR THE DIRECTOR: NEW & UNIQUE IDEAS TO OFFSET GLOBAL CHALLENGES PURPOSE The purpose of this note is to inform the Director of issues related to global challenges encountered by the postal administration. This report is critical of Canada Posts’ operations, infrastructure, products, services, and initiatives, in an effort to restrict the effect of the declining snail mail. CURRENT SITUATION Technology is effecting how Canadian communicate and it has a dramatic impact on the postal service. Businesses and residential consumers are relying on digital communication and snail mail is phasing out.
The United States Postal Service is a reliable, excellent, and efficient delivery service. Overall customer rating of any business makes it a profitable and reliable industry. The post office has met these expectations and has gone above and beyond to serve their customers. This delivery service and its employees contribute in many ways to citizens across the nation. They are the best shipping industry in the United States.
This paper will be broken down into six sections profiling each critical part of implementing and managing change in an organization. The sections included are; outline for plan creating urgency, the approach to attracting a guiding team, a critique of the organizational profile, the components of change, and how to empower the organization.
In today’s ever changing world people must adapt to change. If an organization wants to be successful or remain successful they must embrace change. This book helps us identify why people succeed and or fail at large scale change. A lot of companies have a problem with integrating change, The Heart of Change, outlines ways a company can integrate change. The text book Ivanceich’s Organizational Behavior and Kotter and Cohen’s The Heart of Change outlines how change can be a good thing within an organization. The Heart of Change introduces its readers to eight steps the authors feel are important in introducing a large scale organizational change. Today’s organizations have to deal with leadership change, change in the economy,
At one point or another, we have all held and opened a piece of mail. Whether it was a birthday card, a letter from a friend, or even a bill, we have all held a piece of paper that was sent from somewhere else. Even in the age of Facebook and email, it is likely that you have held a piece of mail and most likely, the way it got from point A (the person sending the mail) to point B (the person receiving the mail) was through the United States Postal Service, or the USPS. In the past decade, the postal service has experienced a decreased volume in their letter mail. In fact, for the postal service, the volume of this letter mail has been "falling at a rate not seen since the Great Depression" and it is believed to be because the "substitution [of snail mail] to Internet-based communications" (Geddes). The postal service has started to experience such a decline in funds that they now face the issue of staying afloat. The United States Postal Service has to dig their way out of rut in order to keep from going down into extinction. Peter Rorvig, a United States postal worker in Zirconia, North Carolina, talks some about the USPS's struggles and the involvement that Congress has with the USPS in his blog "More Normal than Not." This passage raised two outside questions, exactly what is the postal service trying to do to solve this decline in funds and how much is Congress actually involved with the USPS?
Change is a fundamental element of individuals, groups and all sorts of organizations. As it is the case for individuals, groups and societies, where change is a continuous process, composed of an indefinite amount of smaller sub-changes that vary in effect and length, and is affected by all sorts of aspects and events, many of which cyclic are anticipated ones. It is also the case for organizations, where change occurs repeatedly during the life cycle of organizations. Yet change in organizations is not as anticipated nor as predictable, with unexpected internal and external variables and political forces that can further complicate the management of change (Andriopoulos, C. and P. Dawson, 2009), which is by itself, the focus of many scholars in their pursuit to shed light on and facilitate the change process (Kotter 1996; Levin 1947; et al).
Changing situations throughout the world affect all organizations in business today. Therefore, most organizations acknowledge the need to experience change and transformation in order to survive. The key challenges companies face are due to the advancements in technology, the social environment caused by globalization, the pace of competition, and the demands regarding customer expectations. It is difficult to overcome the obstacles involved with change despite all the articles, books, and publications devoted to the topic. People are naturally resistant to fundamental changes and often intimidated by the process; the old traditional patterns and methods are no longer effective.
This is accomplished by walking along the shelves and doing a visual inspection of all the packages in the facility. This is a time consuming process, and it is easy for clerks to miss old mail or make mistakes in the process of visually inspecting more than 5,000 packages that we typically have in our facility on a daily basis. The other part of this process for accountability is for the clerk to scan the package at the delivery window so that the packages can be tracked online and show up as delivered on the United States Postal Service (USPS)
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What is change? More and more organisations today face a dynamic and changing environment. This in turn is requiring these organisations to adapt. “Change or die!” is the rallying cry among today’s managers worldwide.
The idea of change is the most constant factor in business today and organisational change therefore plays a crucial role in this highly dynamic environment. It is defined as a company that is going through a transformation and is in a progressive step towards improving their existing capabilities. Organisational change is important as managers need to continue to commit and deliver today but must also think of changes that lie ahead tomorrow. This is a difficult task because management systems are design, and people are rewarded for stability. These two main factors will be discussed with reasons as to why organisational change is necessary for survival, but on the other hand why it is difficult to accomplish.
The world is constantly changing in many different ways. Whether it is technological or cultural change is present and inevitable. Organizations are not exempt from change. As a matter of fact, organizations have to change with the world and society in order to be successful. Organizations have to constantly incorporate change in order to have a competitive advantage and satisfy their customers. Organizations use change in order to learn and grow. However, change is not something that can happen in an organization overnight. It has to be thought through and planned. The General Model of Planned Change focuses on what processes are used by the organization to implement change. In the General Model of Planned Change, four steps are used in order to complete the process of change. Entering and Contracting, Diagnosing, Planning and Implementing, and Evaluating and Institutionalizing are the four steps used in order to complete the process of change in an organization. The diagnostic process is one of the most important activities in OD(Cummings, 2009, p. 30).