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Examining Change Management Theories And Practices: Tesco Essay.

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Examining Change Management Theories And Practices: Tesco Essay.

The Approach That Tesco Takes to Change Management


In this report, we will investigate the many ideas, concepts, and techniques of change management that were covered during the course. Additionally, this paper seeks to investigate the change management that has taken place at Tesco in recent times in relation to structural changes, as well as the influence that these changes have had on the organization and on its internal and external stakeholders.  One definition of change management is the strategy and method by which a company defines and implements change within its internal and external operations. Change management may also be referred to as change management. The management of change focuses primarily on the larger impacts of change as well, paying attention to the manner in which people and organizations adapt to the new circumstances.


Tesco is an international supermarket, grocery store, and general goods retailer with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The company's mission is to provide customers with affordable, nutritious, and sustainable sustenance on a daily basis in order to assist them in enjoying a more tranquil way of life and a higher quality of life overall. The contingency method, in which managers make choices depending on the circumstances at hand rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach, has been followed by both the former CEO David Lewis and the current CEO Ken Murphy.

According to the findings of the research conducted by Burnes (2017), it has been shown that change has achieved both pervasiveness and persistence. It appeared as though the study was simply confirming what the majority of executives believe, which is that the degree, speed, influence, and particularly unpredictability of change are greater than they have ever been before. Furthermore, the study revealed that in order for a corporation to remain competitive, it will require "constant innovations" and "larger variations faster."

The year 2018 saw Tesco make an announcement on reforms that would streamline its operational structures in order to improve its competency and provide line managers with a clearer responsibility for the experience of their colleagues and customers.  As a result of these modifications, the positions of people manager and compliance manager will be eliminated from large shops and execution centers located in the Commonwealth of Nations. As is the case with all other Tesco stores, the position of Customer Experience Executive, which now exists in 226 stores, will also be eliminated. This will give line managers greater direct responsibility for customer service. The most important strategy that lies behind Tesco's change management planning is to see the responsibilities of people manager, client experience manager, and obedience manager being fully removed from the floor of the shops. By implementing this change management method, Tesco is transferring the majority of the responsibility for providing excellent customer service to the line managers. Additionally, the company is working to simplify the organizational structure and increase the efficiency of its operations.

One of the reasons why Tesco is working to simplify the organization's operational structure is because the company wants to maintain a high level of control over its business operations. The level of responsibility that line managers are expected to fulfill has been raised at Tesco. As part of the change management decision, the roles of people manager and compliance manager have been drawn out from large stores and execution centers in the United Kingdom. However, customer experience executives, who are currently employed in 226 stores, will also be eliminated. This will provide line managers with additional direct responsibility for customer service, which is consistent with all other Tesco shops.

Similar to the change management plan that Tesco has used, the company has prioritized the simplification of the operating structure. This will have a direct impact on the jobs of about 1700 people, which will be of assistance to Tesco in identifying other positions within the company wherever it is possible to do so. These modifications will result in the formation of 900 new jobs, each of which will have a greater range of duties. These roles will include People Associates, Learning Associates, and Colleague Relations Partners, and they will be distributed across several locations throughout distribution, shops, and execution facilities. 

Influence of the Alteration

As stated by the Chief Executive Officer of Tesco, these change management strategies will reduce difficulties and deliver a simpler and more supportive experience for customers and contemporaries alike. It is necessary for Tesco to undertake these adjustments, despite the fact that they are challenging, in order to protect their corporate structure and ensure that they remain competitive and prepared for the forthcoming seasons. Following the implementation of the decision, Tesco is committed to providing assistance to the workers who may be impacted by these changes in any manner that it can. Tesco is also making an effort to keep as many of the affected workers as possible in the new jobs that the firm is establishing as well as in the positions that are now open in the company.

From Tesco's perspective, the primary objective of change management is to streamline the organization's existing operating structure in order to achieve the desired results. In light of this, Tesco is reducing the number of employment by around 1700, eliminating a variety of positions, and transferring the primary duty to the line manager. One of the most significant advantages of the simplified operational structure is that it enables a corporation to exercise control over the functioning of the firm in a manner that is both more effective and more efficient. In a straightforward organizational structure, there is no hesitation on the part of the workforces since their instructions come directly from the top, not from a division head or a mid-level executive, which a subordinate may challenge. Because there are no layers of administration that thoughts or requests need to climb before approval is granted, corporations are able to make choices more quickly when they have a structure that is straightforward. In addition, Tesco has shifted impacted individuals into new job roles and in places where the organization already has vacancies. This is in addition to the fact that the corporation has eliminated various jobs from its operational structures of the company and has transferred all of the key responsibility to the line managers.

Tesco has embraced the methodology of Kurt Lewin, which believes that in order for a firm to experience successful change, it must first relax the status quo, then move toward an expected end state, and then refreeze the new change in order to make it permanent. According to Burnes (2017), putting into practice the methodology of Kurt Lewin is not only relatively simple to carry out, but it also contributes to the motivation of long-term change and contributes to the development of momentum. Tesco also has conversations with its staff about a few operational adjustments that are being made to the way the firm is planned on moving forward. In order to inform their colleagues about their aim to simplify and lower the process and administrative responsibilities across all of their 153 Tesco metro stores, the company reveals and is honest about their strategy.

An organization's culture is comprised of a collection of many norms, goals, and practices that serve to direct and inform the activities of all members of the team. Imagine that it is a collection of individuals who come together to form the distinctive identity of your company. Culture is not built via press releases or policy credentials; rather, it is formed through behaviors that are dependable and honest. Culture may be an enormous facilitator of organizational change, despite the fact that it is difficult to change itself. This is true regardless of whether the change involves digitalization, faster product advancement, a systematic lowering of pricing, or an increase or reduction in job roles and responsibilities. Culture is defined as patterns of behavior that come together to produce a rigid pattern that allows for the transmission of ideas and descriptions from one generation to another, or from one group to another (Burnes, 2017). Even when they are finished, change initiatives are only implemented and sustained for around half of the duration. The company is protected from the changes in the environment by a robust culture, which also discusses with its standards the consistency that is necessary for the corporation to continue existing for a long time. These organizations are able to swiftly get used to the new differences, and they are able to locate the required force to combat within their own standards. Furthermore, culture is a dependent collection of norms and ways of behaving that are mutual in a society and that tend to maintain itself, often over extended periods of time. Culture is a term that has been used many times throughout history.

The emphasis that Tesco places on streamlining its operational structure

This change will have a huge influence on the culture of Tesco since it will result in the elimination of about 1700 job positions and the creation of 900 new job roles. This change will also have a substantial impact on the functioning and process of the organization. Due to the fact that this change management strategy of simplifying Tesco's operational structure would result in an increase in the amount of work strain placed on current customers as well as on line managers. During the process of streamlining their change management procedure, Tesco has also taken into consideration the fundamental components of cultures, which include artifacts, symbols, language, norms, and values. Language made it possible for people to communicate effectively with one another in social settings and has an impact on how people think about problems and ideas. Individualism, competition, and a commitment to the company's work ethics are the primary principles that set Tesco apart from its competitors.

The notion that companies are not rational entities in which everyone makes a commitment to and supports the achievement of the corporation's all-encompassing goals is strengthened by the social perspective on the life of organizations. That organizations frequently behave in an unreasonable manner, that their goals and purposes develop over a process of negotiation and influence, that they are a collection of contending and moving alliances of groups and individuals, and that serious decisions have less to do with the best interests of the corporations and more to do with the best interests of those who make the decisions (Burnes, 2017) are all points of contention on the power–politics viewpoint, which puts forward an identical opinion. Within the context of Tesco, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) has used their position and political influence to convince every other member of the board to concur with the idea of streamlining the operational structure of Tesco. Furthermore, CEO Ken Murphy has declared the decision to remove the 1900 workers from their job duties and relocate them to other jobs and vacancies that the firm has. This decision was made utilizing power and politics. As a result of this change management, the operational function and operation power have been transferred to the line manager. This has resulted in an increase in the line manager's responsibility and accountability, as he is now responsible for managing the responsibilities of the people partner, learning partner, and colleague relation partner, in addition to the administrative tasks that are assigned to colleagues.

Furthermore, politics may play such a significant part in change management that it and resistance to change allow a portion of a person to provide a change proposal prior to the beginning of the change process. Politics and self-centeredness typically dictate how individuals feel about changes to their job or the work that they manage (Burnes, 2017). This is because politics encourages people to be self-centered.

The most significant obstacle that Tesco has presented to the organization in the process of executing the change management strategy of simplifying the operational structure is the fact that it has placed around 1700 jobs in jeopardy in order to carry out the change inside the organization. The primary objective of the reform that was being implemented was to eliminate the management positions of compliance manager and people manager at the company's large stores and execution centers. In this particular moment in time, Tesco has encountered resistance to change, which has been characterized by the dispositional opposition that Tesco has encountered. "a person's propensity to resist or evade making variations, to diminish change generally, and to discover change aversive across a variety of backgrounds and types of change" is what is meant by the term "dispositional resistance to change." Similarly, some of the upper levels of workers are also opposing change because they believe that their approach to streamlining the operational structure was flawed (Burnes, 2017). This is contributing to the issue of resistance to change.

During the process of making the change, Tesco has not yet created a plan for how they would supply employment roles to the individuals who will be impacted by the change in streamlining the operational structure. As a result of the implementation, Tesco is experiencing difficulties in re-providing the employment function. Tesco has made the announcement that they will be creating new roles and also placing some people in vacant positions at Tesco. However, the most significant challenges are regarding the fact that the number of people who will be affected by the decision is approximately 1700, and Tesco is only able to create 700 positions within the organization, which has had an effect on the jobs of a great number of people.

The corporate sector must to consistently advance and adjust in order to deal with a wide range of challenges, which may include variations in technology, the rise of new rivals, alterations in legislation, procedures, or fundamental economic trends. Should you fail to do so, it might result in inaction or, even worse, disappointment. The following are some suggestions that Tesco may choose to use in order to better enhance their change management and its overall effectiveness:

  • The first thing that has to be done in order to make improvements is for Tesco and its leaders to make a strategy for getting the organization ready for the upgrade. For a company to successfully implement and implement change, it is necessary for the company to be structured together in terms of both its culture and its logistics. Before beginning an investigation into logistics, it is recommended that cultural training and education be completed first. While the planning stage is in progress, the manager and the leader are paying close attention to assisting the workforce in recognizing and comprehending the need for change. 
  • After the company has determined that it is prepared to implement change, the executives should devise a comprehensive and precise strategy for implementing the change. Tesco need to be required to make preparations prior to putting the change into effect. Tesco is now in a position to make plans for rearranging the work roles for those who have been affected.
  • The managers and leaders of Tesco are required to have a discussion with the Human Resources and Management department about the ways in which they may supply work opportunities in various departments of Tesco around all of the shops where the change has been implemented, as well as to the locations where some of the stores have been affected.

Final Thoughts

In this research, an investigation on the implementation of organizational change at Tesco, namely the structural change in the operational environment, was carried out. Following the conclusion of this paper, the benefits and drawbacks of organizational reform have been discussed. The company is able to simplify its processes, enhance its working culture, and improve the way it produces and offers goods and services to the particular client it is aiming to attract via the implementation of organizational reform. One of the issues that the company encountered was a lack of planning and preparation for the change that was being implemented inside the business.

References 

Burnes, B. (2017). Managing Change. 7th ed. Pearson: UK

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