Evolutionary change management in the BPO industry

In today’s dynamic world, change is not just a fact of life, but essential for survival. A major challenge is reducing the potential for friction and resistance to change by ensuring all employees understand why change is important to the company’s future (Walkme, 2020). Ignoring the need for change can be far more threatening than the change itself. Due to covid 19, new organizational developments and priorities happen so quickly. With organizational change strategies, companies can avoid stagnation while minimizing disruption. The author of this article works in an emerging company in the BPO sector. Therefore, in this article, the frequent styles that the author has witnessed will be discussed.

Changes in any organization can happen at the following levels.

1.     Strategic change (proactive)

2.     Service change (proactive/reactive)

3.     Operational change

Planned (Proactive) change

The changes induced by the internal forces as a perception to effectively meet the anticipated and potential organizational environmental changes are known as “proactive changes” (Prabhu, 2014). Planned change is often implemented with the aim of improving the ways of business operates or achieving pre-defined goals. For example, If a company finds that the existing department structure may be a burden for the employees and the team is overwhelmed with the workload, then, the organization may think of a department restructure so that employees can be happy with what they do.

Unplanned (Reactive) Change

The change that is undertaken in response to a specific problem that is not anticipated and is outside the organisation’s control is known as “reactive change” (Editorial, 2021). For example,

due to the sudden power cuts that were happening in the country due to the dollar crisis in Sri Lanka the said organization immediately created a business contingency plan so that the employees could go to the office and work. Vacant locations with internet facilities and electricity were rented out immediately and the tutors who are in Colombo were required to come to those locations and deliver the sessions as usual.  This situation can be identified as an unplanned (reactive) change.

The other changes that happen in an organization can be considered as operational changes because they aid the organization to run its operations smoothly (Prabhu, 2014). Few examples are mentioned below.

1.     Transformational change

2.     Structural change

3.     People-centric change

4.     Process and procedural change

Transformational change

Transformational change refers to a dramatic evolution of some basic structure of the business itself including its strategy, culture, organization, physical structure, supply chain, or processes. The need for transformational change is often triggered by a major external factor, such as a new competitor or acquisition (Daly, 2021). As an employee in an emerging company in the BPO sector, the writer experienced this change type because the company transformed from a physical workforce to a virtual workforce because of Covid 19.

Structural change

Structural changes are those changes made to the organization’s structure that might stem from internal or external factors are typically affect how the company runs. These changes include things such as the organization’s hierarchy, chain of command, management systems, job structure and administrative procedures. Structural changes can be categorized into two sections named Horizontal changes and vertical changes.

Ex: A new department being introduced to the organization hierarchy

Adopting an evolutionary approach to change management will result in better result in terms of cost, quality and time. Implementing change management using frameworks with the right balance of strong processes can support organizations to achieve success.

References

Daly, C. (2021) How to manage transformational change in your organization, ThoughtExchange. Available at: https://thoughtexchange.com/blog/how-to-manage-transformational-change-in-your-organization/#:~:text=Transformational%20change%20is%20a%20type,an%20organization's%20environment%20or%20technology. (Accessed: December 2, 2022).

Editorial, I. (2021) https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/reactive-change-management, Indeed.com. Available at: https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/reactive-change-management (Accessed: November 28, 2022).

Prabhu, P. (2014) Evolutionary Change Management, CMCrossroads. Available at: https://www.cmcrossroads.com/article/evolutionary-change-management (Accessed: November 30, 2022). 

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