This case study examines how to recognize the desire for change and harness that energy to build and steward the development and implementation of a Service Excellence Strategy that yields concrete results and sustains the momentum required for long term success.
When Hunter Harrison joined the recently-privatized Canadian National Railway (CNR) in 1998 as Chief Operating Officer, the company was generally acknowledged as one of the worst railroads in North America, highly indebted, perpetually in the red, and losing market share to the more efficient, flexible and newly deregulated U.S. railway and trucking industries.
Working in the telecommunications industry, people assume that we are ahead of the curve in terms of change initiatives and communication practises. But similar to other companies, we are challenged to come up with our own change management processes within our organization. Our industry is changing rapidly, and that means we need to change too. In this article, I will share how Cogeco developed a new change model quite quickly to respond rapidly and succinctly to the transformational trends in our industry.
Most experts would agree that communication is a vital ingredient in successful change initiatives, and there is much research to support this assertion. My own research revealed a very high correlation between change success and communications efforts (Pearson correlation r = 0.567, significant at the 0.01 level). Furthermore, it has also been shown that ineffective internal communication is a major contributor to the failure of change initiatives.
Dealing with resistance is tough work, but avoiding this work only makes change more difficult. When facing major change, management tends to view the new direction as an opportunity, while employees face the change with feelings of uncertainty, fear and disruption. Furthermore, most change leaders underestimate the amount of resistance they will face. However, as this case shows, external conditions, trust in the organization, and skillful handling of resistance can all contribute to lessening resistance and increasing support for a change initiative.
The following case offers an example of how the narrative frameworks of rescription and re-membering were used in a community college career coaching context – affording students the opportunity to practice with story-based approaches to career transition and change. In the broader perspective, the case offers a view into the human resource development practice of narrative career coaching – helping the next generation workforce imagine their career identities.
The idea of co-operation seems to be one that exists only in children’s books with no real place in the business world. However, to survive in the times that we live in the more successful organizations, and indeed nations, are embracing the values of co-operation. The study sought to determine the relevance of utilizing the tools of co-operation such as social dialogue in a dynamic setting.
This case study describes how a team of organizational development (OD) and human resource (HR) specialists worked as partners with the City of Ottawa’s operational and shared services leaders to change the way all City employees provide service excellence. Beverley Patwell (an external OD consultant), Donna Gray (Director, ServiceOttawa Department, City of Ottawa), and Steve …
Learn about an innovative change management initiative to bring e-government to Ontario. The case study details how the OPS built organizational capacity and engaged stakeholders and employees; as well as key factors for successful change.
The current operating environment, characterized by mandates to control costs, challenges organizations to find innovative ways to reward their employees. Motivational and compensation research indicates that money is not an employee’s primary motivation to work; firms, therefore, are turning to the practice of non-cash incentives such as incentive travel. This research examines the effectiveness of …
Non-cash Incentives: How Effective Are They in Canadian Organizations? Read More »
Attendance management programs are a new phenomenon among Canadian municipalities. As a result, much of what is known about creating an effective attendance management program at the municipal level comes from arbitral jurisprudence. Arbitral jurisprudence provides human resources practitioners with an excellent skeletal framework for creating an enforceable attendance management program; however, few operational details …
One of the most frequently asked questions in change management is how can we build genuine and inclusive support for change within our organization, and do it quickly? One answer to the dilemma of time versus wide participation is to use a large group whole systems change process. In this article, the author examines one …
A Tale of Two Future Searches: A Methodology for Large Group Change Planning Read More »
To maintain competitiveness, many companies are turning to cross-training so that employees are skilled in multiple jobs. This case study looks at a Peace River Pulp of Alberta, which provides a successful example of cross-training in practice.
This customer service case study looks at change at a large telecomm and telephone company in the process of being privatized.
This paper explores the adequacy of several theories advanced to account for the sexual division of labour – neoclassical, dual labour market, marxist feminist, and technologically determined – by comparing the historical processes by which the gender segregation developed in the hosiery and knit goods industry in Canada and Britain in the period 1890 to 1950. It argues that the sexual division of labor is formed within the shifting mutuality and antipathy of gender relations and the relations of production so that theories of sexual segregation must integrate rather than isolate class and gender based processes.
The long debated issue of gender bias in job evaluation systems has become even more important with the advent of pay equity legislation in Ontario. This statute requires the use of a gender-neutral job comparison system to identify and rectify wage discrimination in female-dominated jobs. Unfortunately, this legislation provides very little guidance as to what is meant by a gender-neutral job comparison system. This paper identifies the ingredients of a gender-neutral comparison system.