Editorial

Citation

Nolan, S. (2013), "Editorial", Strategic HR Review, Vol. 12 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/shr.2013.37212eaa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Strategic HR Review, Volume 12, Issue 5

This month’s issue of Strategic HR Review focuses on change management. With change an inevitable and ongoing process, and often consisting of a major transformation, it places pressure on the HR function. People and change are intertwined in a complex relationship that requires careful HR planning and, as our authors demonstrate, each organization requires its own particular HR strategy to deal with its specific change program.

In “Culture change enables ambitious growth at Nelsons”, Simon Rickatson describes how a long established and traditional organization used a development program to achieve culture change in order to meet its ambitious production and revenue targets. The development program, delivered by a third party supplier, was designed to take managers from being custodians of a traditional brand towards leadership of a fast moving and global organization taking advantage of export opportunities. It equipped them with the skills and confidence to be leaders of change and to overcome the discomfort that often comes with rapid and wide ranging change programs. Their role was to engage and excite their people about the change and what it meant for them. Support continued after the development program, with monthly coaching and ongoing telephone support to help managers address real-life challenges. The program has seen a shift in culture, with improved teamwork and leadership as well as increased productivity and record outputs with minimum disruption. The author shows that if you have a good team of staff prepared to lead as much as manage change, implementing major initiatives can become relatively easy.

“HR team achieves large scale start-up at GEOAmey” is a case study from Katy Fox that shows how the HR function was responsible for mobilizing a workforce of 3,000 at a new joint venture organization within just five months in order to fulfill a major contract of transporting prisoners. The HR team itself was newly formed and consisted of HR professionals from the parent companies and outside specialists. With little time to focus on its own team dynamics, it managed to deal with complicated regulations associated with transferring employees from three separate organizations to the new venture, create a shared identity among the employees and build trust in an environment that involved relocations, redundancies and major change. There were also practical challenges around staff vetting, payroll, IT systems, communications and uniforms. The team held 90 roadshows in just 30 days, organized 3,000 one-to-ones, ran a major training program to meet the stringent requirements of the security sensitive contract, and held HR surgeries to give employees the opportunity to air their concerns and input to the process. The hard work and motivation of the HR team paid off and the transformation proceeded without employee tribunals and resulted in meeting the contract’s strict Service Level Agreement.

In “Employee engagement welcomes the dawn of an empowerment culture”, Gary Cattermole, Jaime Johnson and Karen Roberts examine the role of employee engagement in cultural change. This case study focuses on the Royal Society of Chemistry and how it has used employee engagement and associated measurement mechanisms to achieve cultural change. Its first transformation was towards a culture of performance, using engagement as a means of achieving optimum output from its people. A bespoke survey was used to analyze the main drivers for engagement and motivation, creating a starting point from which the organization worked closely with employees to develop new initiatives to further drive engagement. Ongoing measurement shows that the initiatives were a success and the RSC benefited from an engaged and enthusiastic team. As a result, in 2012, it decided to make a further transformation and create an empowerment culture that would further engage employees by giving them more autonomy over their working lives. Engagement and cultural change have become closely aligned at the organization and in the same period it has been achieving increased productivity and market share.

“Communities of practice and organizational learning: case study of a global IT solutions company”, by Satyendra Pandey and Andrew Dutta, investigates the role of communities of practice in organizational learning and change. It combines a theoretical overview, which establishes the role that communities of practice (CoPs) play in knowledge transfer and development within an organizational social structure, with a practical case study examining the operational requirements of CoPs in practice. The latter highlighted several criteria for establishing CoPs as a route to organizational learning, including the need to develop shared meaning from the outset, the importance of establishing clear objectives that community members understand and share, and engaging in knowledge building that will develop a pool of individuals with wider skill sets (soft and hard skills). Culture, management support and technical infrastructure are vital for transferring these skills and knowledge throughout the organization.

“Implementing electronic health records: implications for HR professionals” by Robert A. Boswell focuses on a specific transition in the healthcare sector. It analyzes a case study of a medical organization moving to an electronic health records (EHR) system. This is particularly relevant in the US where there are incentives to encourage take up of EHR. Despite being specific to the medical sector, the study also offers insight to other organizations moving from a paper-based to an electronic system. According to the case study research, employee behavior would appear to be showing resistance to the transition, which placed HR at the heart of the process in terms of motivating and developing employees. The author uses the research to identify the four key behaviors that define successful EHR implementation – support, managing, training and collaboration. He goes on to explore the strategies for implementation and to drill down to specific areas that help make the transition smooth. The overall message is that HR professionals should tailor change initiatives involving EHR implementation to employee readiness.

Sarah NolanE-mail: sarahnolanshr@emeraldinsight.com