ASSIGNMENT 3 - QUALITY PAPER

Running head: DIAGNOSING CHANGE 1

DIAGNOSING CHANGE 3

Diagnosing Change

April 28, 2019

Introduction

Organizational change requires an organization to view the current processes such as operational methods, structure, strategies and the steps to be taken to improve practices. The best practice an organization can take when implementing organizational change is to prepare. Some of the disadvantages to organizational change include costs, personnel resistance and the direct effects the changes may present. Organizations must plan change out accordingly to successfully maximize change efforts. This paper entails the U.S. Navy implementing a new initiative to optimize customer service relations. The additional suggested change is to train individuals properly, and it is preferred not to completely shut down the PSD’s and CSD’s allowing for the face-to-face customer service aspect to remain.

The company in terms of industry, size, number of employees, and history

The Continental Navy was first founded by General George Washington on October 13, 1775, to defend American Colonies from British attacks. The primary mission of the U.S. Navy is to maintain freedom of the seas making it possible for the United States to use the seas when and where national interests require it ("U.S. Navy"). The Navy is also primarily responsible for transporting Marines to areas of conflict ("U.S. Navy"). On April 30, 1798, a congressional act was signed by President John Adams establishing the Continental Navy as The Department of the Navy.

The United States Navy is one of the five armed forces branches in the United States of America and the largest most capable Navy in the world. As of March 2019, there is 332,507 personnel on active duty, 101,018 in the Ready Reserve and 274,854 Department of the Navy Civilian Employees totaling a force of 708, 379 personnel (US Navy, "Navy.mil Home Page"). Furthermore, as of today, the U.S. Navy has 289 deployable ships and a plethora aircraft.

Current HR practice, policy, process, or procedure to be changed

The Navy rolled out an initiative to consolidate several Personnel Support Detachment (PSD) and Customer Support Detachment (CSD) locations designed to improve efficiency and provide Sailors with a modern service delivery model. Modernizing and centralizing customer support services are beneficial towards self-service initiatives, such as, updating records of emergency data, submitting changes to marital status, adding dependents, and requests to separate or retire online.

Consolidation of the personnel and customer support detachments led to massive workloads that are required to maintain adequate and timeliness of tasks in regards to customer service matters. The changes implemented were hastily implemented in a disorganized fashion without comprehensive guidelines. Furthermore, the implemented changes eliminated the face-to-face and personal aspect of customer service that was being provided to thousands of Sailors and civilian personnel. It is vital for all Command Pay and Personnel Administrator’s (CPPA’s) to maintain accountability, auditability, and full engagement with personnel in the absence of the local PSD’s and CSD’s.

To date, countless Sailors lack the guidance on how to initiate the vital requests they are now responsible for completing which requires them to rely on newly published guidelines or CPPA's. The unknown is hinders personnel readiness for change. An abundance of Sailors lack guidance regarding individual requirements of the self-service integration, allowing room for needless error and delays. These errors and delays will require either additional training or consistent revisions from CPPA's. Subject matter experts should have had effective training and a trial period before the action was rolled out into the fleet.

Proposed change based on current change management theories.

Based on Kotter’s Change Management Theory, the centralizing the PSD’s and CSD’s required more training and preparation then what was given. This was an urgent change, but not enough thought was put into the change. As for the proposed change, big Navy should have created a sense of urgency around the opportunity (Hodges & Gill, 2015). Personnel should have been better trained on the function that came along with the centralized before the change took place. Creating a sense of urgency is critical to heighten the organization's awareness that it needs continual strategic adjustments and that they should always be aligned with the biggest opportunity in sight (Hodges & Gill, 2015).

When the decision was made to go through with the change of consolidating PSD’s and CSD’s there should have been a trial and error phase to ensure processing documents through the Transaction Online Processing System (TOPS) and calls made to the Centralized Hotline were effective. As stated in the text, if done properly, with creativity, such communications can go viral, attracting employees who buy into the ambition of the message and begin to share a commitment to it (Hodges & Gill, 2015). Large-scale change can only occur when massive numbers of people rally around a common opportunity. They must be bought-in and urgent to drive change – moving in the same direction ("The 8-Step Process for Leading Change").

Once the additional personnel receives the training and the trial and error phase has been complete the organization should sustain acceleration. This in tune requires the organization to continue learning throughout the process of the change. They must continue to carry out strategic initiatives and create new ones, to adapt to shifting business environments, and thus to enhance their competitive positions (Hodges & Gill, 2015). Through the change process, there should be some personnel left in the local PSD's and CSD's to provide the face-to-face customer service until it is made clear throughout the fleet on how to properly function the self-service portions related to the change.

Diagnostics tools

After thorough appraisal of the diagnostic tools provided, the two essential tools suitable for diagnosing whether the U.S. Navy is ready for change, PESTELI and SWOT analysis. Below you will find the explanation and reasoning for the chosen diagnostic tools.

PESTELI. This framework is used to analyze the external factors for the organization. PESTELI stands for Political, Economic, Societal, Technological and Industrial factors. The PESTELI tool assists with understanding the political influences and forces that are likely to affect the performance of the organization, the nature of the competition that the organization faces, the demographic changes and trends, the new approaches of things and the industry review. Moreover, this concept is used as a tool by companies to track the environment they're operating in or are planning to launch a new project/product/service, etc. ("What is PESTLE Analysis? A Tool for Business Analysis"). However, it would require an additional tool to assess the internal environment of the organization

SWOT analysis. SWOT, on the other hand, is the acronym for examining the organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT). The main principle underlying SWOT is that internal and external factors must be considered simultaneously when identifying aspects of an organization that need to be changed (Hodges & Gill, 2015). The SWOT analysis would be considered superior as it factors in both internal and external factors opposed to the PESTELI diagnosis tool. Strengths and Weaknesses are the internal factors while opportunities and threats are external.

Assess the organization’s readiness for change

Provided will be a SWOT analysis of the Navy's readiness for change. This analysis will provide the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in regards to the modernization and centralization of PSD’s and CSD’s. See the results of the SWOT analysis below.

SWOT ANALYSIS

Strengths:

· Centralized Locations

· Self Service

· One-stop shopping

· Additional jobs in the centralized location

Weaknesses:

· Training

· Self Service Initiatives/Knowledge

· Face-to-Face Customer Service

Opportunities:

· Training

· Strengthen administrative skills

· Assistance provided to CPPA’s

· Teamwork

Threats:

· Rework

· Inconsistencies

· Hindrances to implemented change

There had initially been a change which centralized all PSD's and CSD's to centralized locations. The proposed change is to clean up shop, meaning to assist with ensuring the fundamental changes function a bit smoother. Training is vital at this point because the pressure is on for CPPA’s and rework is happening at a large scale. The SWOT analysis shows that the U.S. Navy is capable of change. The main principle underlying SWOT is that internal and external factors must be considered simultaneously when identifying aspects of an organization that need to be changed (Hodges & Gill, 2015).

Conclusion

The U.S. Navy revolves around change. Military personnel are accustomed to change, but all change is not always good. Change without analysis can be a disaster but with proper planning, it can be a success. Hence, implementing Kotter's eight-step change theory would have benefited the transition of centralizing and modernizing PSD's and CSD's. Recapturing Kotter's theory, the eight steps are creating a sense of urgency; building a guiding coalition; forming strategic vision and initiatives; enlisting a volunteer army; enabling action by removing barriers; generating short-term wins; sustaining acceleration, and institute change. The listed steps will assist with implementing a second change to ensure centralizing and modernizing PSD's and CSD's reaches and maintain success. Analysis proves that the U.S. Navy is prepared and ready for change.

Reference

Hodges, J. & Gill, R. (2015). Sustaining Change in Organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA:

SAGE Publications

Kotter (n.d.). “The 8-Step Process for Leading Change.” Retrieved April 27, 2019, from

from  www.kotterinc.com/8-steps-process-for-leading-change/ .

Navy Personnel Command Public Affairs. (2017, February 06). Navy Personnel Command

Consolidates Several PSD/CSDs. Retrieved April 26 2019, from https://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=98732

US Navy. (n.d.). Navy.mil Home Page. Retrieved April 26, 2019, from

https://www.navy.mil/navydata/nav_legacy.asp?id=146

U.S. Navy. (n.d.). Retrieved April 26, 2019, from

https://foundationofpatriotism.org/new-exhibits/u-s-navy/

What is PESTLE Analysis? A Tool for Business Analysis. (n.d.). Retrieved April 28, 2019,

from https://pestleanalysis.com/what-is-pestle-analysis/