Change Management A Case Study Of Rowing Canada Aviron Rca

1. Introduction

Change management provides an opportunity to the organisations to assess the external and internal environment for doing the business internationally by ensuring proper identification and implementation of the changed strategic planning in the workplace for achieving the pre-specified vision of the company (Hayes, 2018; Doppelt, 2017). Through the study, it is possible to discuss the strategic planning of the Rowing Canada Aviron (RCA) in order to review the potential of the company in achieving their success in near future. The study is also important for conducting in depth analysis of the environment through SWOT analysis and 7S model and monitor the triggers of change management at the workplace. The paper also provides a scope to recommend some suitable suggestions on order to accept change at the workplace, improve mind set for change among the employees as well as engaging the employees and managing resistance so that the change management practice and procedure can be implemented in the RCA in order to achieve the vision.

The visions of RCA are to ensure for Canada to be a leading rowing nation across the globe. The desire of the organisation is to develop sport in Canada and achieve sustainable success at the international stage. Rowing is more than the sport as it foster person’s excellence by improve personal growth. The purpose of the RCA is to inspire growth and excellence in Canada through the sport of rowing here critical success factors for the organisations is such as excellence, innovation and partnership (RCA, 2019a). The strategic planning of the organisation lies in three segments such as high performance, sport development and organisational sustainability. Core strategies of the firm are podium performance, optimising the pathways grow the capacity of the organisation as a whole as well as enhancing experience, improving organisational excellence and growing influence and values through which the organisation aims at creating values for the individuals in Canada. In this regard, through SWOT analysis, it is possible to evaluate the improvement in the company and review the strategic planning successfully.

Table 1: SWOT analysis

(Source: Created by Author)

As per the SWOT analysis, the strengths of the company are that they are dedicated and passionate towards the social communities who are interested in taking active part in rowing. The company is also efficient to support the community with quality services and safety and security where they are able to build strong relationship with the whole community. Additionally, partnership working, innovation and creativity are also beneficial for the company to support the sport activities and lead the services towards success. Encouraging innovation and creativity as well as enhancing excellence to grow everyday are effective for the RCA to achieve future success (RCA, 2019b). In addition to these, the company is proficient in partnership working where the workers found new opportunities to work with different communities across the globe. The major weakness for RCA is lack of promotional activities for which it may face problems in retaining more clients worldwide. The opportunities in the market are such as high preferences of adventurous sport among the athletes as well as growing interest of other sport man in rowing and environment in Canada with further retain more customers for the services of RCA to enjoy the place and get proper safety and efficient services to take active part in rowing.

As per the 7S strategic model, it is also possible to review the strategic planning of the RCA, there are 7 segments such as structure, system, style, staff, skills, and strategy.

As per the 7S model, organisational structure plays a crucial role in achieving success and implementing strategies for the benefits of the firm (Cook et al., 2015). In this regard, RCA has proper organisational structure as well as operational system through which they ensure excellence and quality service for the benefits of the social communities. Partnership with all the stakeholders is another strategy of the organisation through which it tries to manage the staff members and the stakeholders so that the managers and leader can lead the business towards achieving success. Sharing experience, providing proper training and development program as well as efficiency of the technical staff are effective to enhance skill and capabilities of the RCA which in turn helps to achieve future success. As per the strategy, RCA improves their capacity through expanding the number of quality of waterways and providing the facilities for the people who enjoy the aspects of sport, recruit and train the people to anticipate the growth of the sport. Additionally, the strategy of innovation and creativity as well as partnership working is effective to share experience and improve skill and capabilities to perform better in the market and gain high competitive advantage by retaining more customers worldwide (RCA, 2019c).

It is important for the organisation to develop learning environment where all the managers and leaders can provide suitable environment to the staff and other stakeholders to work collaboratively for achieving future success. The leadership in the organisation needs to be collaborative and transformative so that proper friendly atmosphere can be developed in the workplace where the staff members can cooperate with each other and interact positively. Adaptive leadership is necessary where the leaders try to empower the staff members in the decisions making practice and create values for them through providing monetary and non-monetary rewards. It has sustainable impacts on learning environment where the staff members can learn through each other’s knowledge and experience successfully (Lozano et al., 2015). Multi level team work needs to be developed for creating learning environment which is beneficial for the staff member to cooperate with each other’s and work as a partnership basis. This in turn provides a scope to the organisation to develop team work and collaborative working practice successfully.

In addition to these, the leaders and the mangers provide flexible working practice where the staff members can choose working hours and improve understanding between the leader and the staff. This is advantageous for RCA to develop learning environment through enhancing cooperation and communication. The leaders in this regard also needs to encourage employee’s creativity and motivate them through providing monetary and non-monetary rewards where the staff members can feel valued at working in the workplace. This effective for develop adaptive culture at the workplace where the leaders provide proper training and development program and enhance cooperation and communication so that the knowledge and skill of the staff members can be improved and they can perform better to achieve the pre-specified vision of the RCA. Hereby, organisational responsive culture is effective factors for enhancing the performance and ensures future success and in this regard, the leaders must focus on managing transparency and accountability, managing cultural diversity and providing flexibility as well as creating values for all the staff members to lead them towards achieving success through learning and development.

In order to monitor the changed strategic planning and implement proper strategies in the organisation, it is necessary to utilise proper model for change management. In this regard, Lewin’s model of change management is effective one in this context to monitor and evaluate the change in the RCA for better performance and achieving future success by fulfilling the vision of the RCA. As per the model, there are three stages which are unfreeze, change and refreeze through which it is easy to evaluate the change management procedure and accepting the change successfully by including all the staff members in the process of the organisation (Morin et al., 2016).

Under unfreezing, determining the needs for change, ensuring string support from the stakeholders and creating need for change are necessary for the RCA to accept the change and create proper mindset among the employees to lead the changes as per the strategic option. in this context, the leader and the managers of the RCA needs to communicate the vision and necessary for strategic change so that the staff members can understand the need for change and accept the change at the workplace. On the other hand, under the second stage of change, the leaders and the managers of RCA must focus on enhancing communication and empower the staff member in managing the changes so that it is possible to involve the people in the strategic planning. under the strategies of the RCA, enhancing partnership and innovation is necessary as well as there are other key performance indicators such as hiring efficient staff and athletes, improving training and providing quality service to be the best in the rowing in Canada. Through the change, it is possible to monitor and evaluate the strategic change in the organisation where the managers of RCA must communicate and empower the staff so that they can feel valued and fulfil their responsibilities efficiently. Under refreeze, creating adaptive culture, developing the ways to sustain the changes and providing support and training is necessary to celebrate the success for RCA. In this regard, for monitoring the progress, it is necessary to develop effective training program as well as develop creative culture through flexibility and encouragement for improving the performance of the individuals as a whole (RCA, 2019d).

For change management, it is necessary for the RCA to enhance communication with all the stakeholders and in this regard, the managers and leaders need to implement information and Communication Technology (ICT) as well as utilise telephonic conversation and email for interacting with the senior management team and with other stakeholders of the business. Secondly proper resource allocation is necessary for adopting the change and in this regard, the mangers and leader of RCA needs to reallocate the financial resources as well as hire proficient staff, athletes and trainer to improve the knowledge and capabilities of the staff members and achieve future success through change management. Thirdly, it is necessary to develop suitable organisational culture for providing suitable workplace to the employee where the staff can feel valued and mange cultural diversity for working with partnership. In this regard, managing transparency and accountability as well as providing safety and security to the employees are important to manage the organisational culture where the managers can encourage the staff to adopt the change and achieve future success.

In order to implement the strategic recommendations for the RCA, it is necessary to improve engagement with all the employees, and managing resistance at the workplace. In this regard, improving the participation of the staff members in the organisation is beneficial where the managers and leader of RCA must focus on empowering the employees in the decisions making practice and improve their performance by enhancing participation in the organisation. Hereby, proper empowerment is beneficial for the managers of RCA to improve participation of the employees where they can perform better and manage the workplace with partnership working practice and enhancing communication. Managing resistance to change is also important in this regard where the leaders and the managers of RCA are playing crucial role in developing adaptive culture by providing cultural training and arranging group discussion and general meeting where the employees can interact with others and develop corporate relationship for working through cooperation and communication (RCA, 2019e). Hereby, it is necessary for the managers to improve trust and loyalty as well as communicate the necessities of managing change and adopting the strategic priorities which in turn helps the managers to develop strong teamwork at the workplace so that the employees can understand the reason for change priorities and accept the changed process positively to achieve future success. In this regard, for managing resistance to change the managers provide proper incentive and performance related pay to the staff embers of RCA so that they can feel valued and perform better by contributing with their full potential. Hereby, participation and involvement are necessary for the managers of RCA to sport change process and convince the employees for adopting the change for the benefits of the organisation as well as for them also as they can get proper incentive and other non-monetary rewards. Facilitating and supporting the employees as well as manipulation and co-option are also effective to adopt changes in the workplace of RCA where the strategic priorities can be achieved efficiently. Cultural training and encouraging the people for cooperation and positive interaction further motivate the employees to be collaborative and maximise their vision of the organisation through change management (RCA, 2019e).

Building resilience at the workplace of RCA is also necessary for the managers of the RCA in order to implement the above mentioned recommendations as well as manage the changes at the workplace. In order to build organisational resilience, it is necessary for the leader of RCA to develop corporate relation with all the staff members and enhance trust and loyalty so that they can retain the employee and other experts for long run. moreover, strengthen the workforce and promote supportive relationship is important where the leaders support the employees through providing personal and professional development planning, providing monetary rewards as well as managing flexibility and cooperation. This in turn helps to develop proper bonding among the employees, managers and other stakeholders where the strategy of partnership working can be maximised at the RCA (RCA, 2019e). Additionally, educating the people is necessary for building resilience and creating the mid set of accepting change at the workplace and in this regard the strategic planning so enhancing knowledge and capabilities as well as maximising excellence can also be fulfilled.

8. Conclusion

It can be concluded that, RCA needs to reshape the strategies for implementing the change and achieve future success by fulfilling its vision of being the leader in rowing in Canada. In order to accept the change management procedure at the workplace, the managers and the leaders of the RCA focus on enhancing communication and cooperation so that partnership working can be developed in which they are also efficient to work with different social communities across the globe with collaboration and building relationship with them. Providing proper support, training and development program as well as monetary and non-monetary rewards to the stakeholders are effective to build strong relationship and develop the mind set of adopting the changes at the workplace. The recommendations of technological advancement, improving capabilities of the staff for innovation and creativity as well as developing organisational culture for adopting the change are necessary for RCA to achieve future success and be the leader in rowing in Canada.

Reference List

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• RCA, 2019a. Who we are. [online] Available at: https://rowingcanada.org/who-we-are/ [Accessed 25 July 2019].
• RCA, 2019b. Governance. [online] Available at: https://rowingcanada.org/governance/ [Accessed 25 July 2019].
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