Midterm 2

Question 1

9

96. Two aspects are critical to organizational change efforts and foundational to the HR function. Describe these two areas, providing examples of how HRM is involved in strategic change process.

Answer 1

_ 1. One aspect of HRM that is critical to implementing strategic change is clarifying and communicating the values that are central to the organization and the need for the change. When TD Bank acquired Canada Trust Financial Services in 2000, the main messages that were made clear were that customers would immediately experience better service through longer banking hours and more access to automated banking machines, and that the new organization would do as much as possible to minimize the negative consequences to employees as a result of the acquisition. It is interesting to see that both these values flow from TD Canada Trust’s central value proposition that “banking can be this comfortable.” Part of HR’s role at TDCT during this time included developing planning initiatives to minimize the number of layoffs that are inevitable with an acquisition. Because TDCT is a large company, these plans incorporated the redeployment of employees from areas of the firm that now contained redundancies to areas that were growing, by limiting new hires to allow for attrition to reduce a surplus of human capital, and providing severance policies that exceeded industry standards as well as outplacement training and services. An important aspect of communicating a set of organizational values is making certain that no HR practices are inconsistent with the message that is being communicated.The HR function plays a very important role in ensuring that the need for change is understood throughout the firm. Consistent with Lewin’s three-step model of change, senior management must communicate the need to change the status quo, and HR plays a role in demonstrating how the new state and the process for moving to that state is consistent with the firm’s values. This helps to bring about employee buy-in to the change initiative.2. The other area of HRM that is critical to implementing strategic change is training, education, and organizational learning. The HR function is responsible for developing each of the dimensions of organizational learning. To the extent that HR fosters the five dimensions of organizational learning, it builds a culture of learning within the organization. This enhances any training that occurs within the firm, and it encourage employees to take a learning approach to daily tasks. The HR function must also thoroughly understand the new activities that are required to get the firm to the new state and to refreeze the new state. Based on these strategic activities, HR can determine the KSAOs and competencies required to perform these activities and institute training, redeployment, and hiring where appropriate. Organizational change requires a great deal of new learning, and when HR anticipates the learning needs, and has a culture in place that facilitates learning, organizational change has a better chance of success_