Organizational change is a significant alteration that provides companies with an opportunity to cope with existing issues, respond to external influences, and enhance their overall performance. Those changes that deal with structural changes tend to be the most significant because they affect the whole company at each level. Toyota is an organization that has altered its structure in 2013 to respond to the existing problems. In 2009, the company faced a range of product recalls, which affected its competitiveness and reputation greatly. The human resource (HR) leaders realized that their old organizational structure required a range of improvements because of the safety issues. A centralized global hierarchy applied by the company initially turned out to be ineffective. In fact, it seemed to be a spoke-and-wheel structure, which did not bring the desired success when being used by such a large company as Toyota. The HR leaders from Japan decided to make an organizational change because they identified that business units failed to communicate and share information appropriately. In this way, they had to alter a structure in the framework of which safety issues were addressed rather slowly. Reorganization, allowed the company to focus on “global hierarchy, geographic divisions, and product-based divisions” (Lawrence 2017, para. 4). As the structure of Toyota altered because of the necessity to implement changes in the way its departments interacted, HR professionals were the ones who affected the situation the most. In fact, they made all critical decisions to ensure that company’s business goals are supported.
The information obtained from this case and course readings provide me with the opportunity to gain the knowledge required to be aware of the goals of organizational change and the way it should be maintained to reach the most success. The combination of my personal experiences and differing perspectives makes it easier to understand what is meant by the authors of the readings as they tend to focus on various elements of organizational changes. My thinking about HRM expands as I realize that it is involved in a wide range of different decision-making processes that are critical for the company.
Now I can also discuss strategies an organization can use to mitigate problems and maximize the opportunities presented by a significant restructuring. The company must provide a strategic context of a change and share it with the employees so that they are aware of the necessity to implement alterations. Professionals need to identify those groups impacted by the restructuring the most and consider how to cultivate behavioral change so that employee resistance is minimalized (Kutzavitch 2010). In addition to that, it is significant to develop a learning environment, in which employees are encouraged to participate in planning and implementation processes so that their commitment enhances. Additional rewards can be utilized to motivate them to achieve the change and value it. Defining change agents within the company’s departments, HR leaders can streamline restructuring, as the rest of the employees will be more likely to follow a person they know and respect. However, resistance cannot be avoided completely, and it is critical to accept this fact (Armstrong 2006). Emphasizing communication and training HR managers to obtain an opportunity to prepare the personnel, which is the most critical implication. It is also significant to reduce complexity and focus on the main activities so that employees do not get lost in changes (Perry 2013). Finally, the implementation of organizational change should be monitored so that its success can be assessed and evaluated.
Reference List
Armstrong, M 2006, A handbook of human resource management practice, Kogan Page, London.
Kutzavitch, K 2010, Change management issues and risk mitigation strategies for the enterprise, Mastech, Pittsburgh.
Lawrence, G 2017, Toyota’s organizational structure: an analysis, Web.
Perry, R 2013, The seven principles of a successful restructure, Web.