You are required to write a proposal for managing change.

Specifically, you are the HR Manager of EngCo. (The EngCo scenario is provided as Attachment 1 to this document. It is also the basis of Activities 6.2 and 6.3.)

Your firm is moving to an open plan work space and it’s your job to propose a way that this move can be done successfully for the firm and for the employees.

There are three particular issues you think are important, so your proposal will focus on:
• understanding the goals of change;
• incorporating employee voice into change; and
• protecting employee mental health during change.

Fortunately, you have already done some work on these issues so you have a head start.

You have your own views on how the move should be managed, but you know this will have to be backed up with theory and appropriate evidence if you are to convince the Executive and the employees that your approach is likely to be successful.

Structure/requirements

Your proposal will have five sections, each described in more detail below.

1. Proposal scope

In the section you will
• establish the overall objective of your proposal;
• explain the critical characteristics of the work, workforce, organisation and industry that must be considered to make the proposal work;
• explain any important constraints and opportunities related to the change;
• provide a very brief summary of the content of your proposal; and
• provide a brief summary of the overall thesis or argument that informs your entire proposal.

2. Understanding the goals of change

In this section you will
• establish what you think are the most appropriate goals and performance measures to evaluate whether your change approach is successful; and
• explain why they are appropriate.

NOTE: For Activity 6.2, you have already done some initial research and reflection to on why the firm’s Executive might want to move to open plan. You have also done some initial research and reflection on why employees might resist the change. This will give you some guidance as to the goals different groups seek to achieve, and appropriate measures of success. To complete this section, you should reflect on this work and the work of your peers and improve your work where required, ensuring it is supported by theory and relevant evidence.

NOTE: Please attach your contribution to Discussion Board 6.2 as an Appendix to this proposal.

3. Incorporating employee voice into change

In this section you will
• explain how you hope that capturing employee voice will help with the change;
• provide a sample employee voice survey (in the body of the proposal or as an Appendix);
• explain the source of the survey/survey items; and
• explain why you think they are appropriate for your purpose.

NOTE: For Activity 6.3, you have already (a) designed an employee voice survey, and (2) explained why you think the items in your survey will be useful in the context of this organisation, this workforce, and this particular change. To complete this section, you should reflect on this work and the work of your peers and improve your work where required, ensuring it is supported by theory and relevant evidence.

NOTE: Please attach your original contribution to Discussion Board 6.3 as an Appendix to this proposal.

4. Protecting employee mental health during change

In this section you will
• explain some of the risks to employee mental health of a major organizational change of this kind: and
• explain, with supporting evidence and examples, how you plan to minimize psychosocial hazards in this change process.

NOTE: For Activity 5.2, you proposed three ways in which the organization could seek to minimize detrimental effects on employees’ mental health during a major change program. You wrote about a similar organization, although not exactly the same. To complete this section, you should reflect on this work and the work of your peers, adapt and/or improve your work where required, ensuring it is supported by theory and relevant evidence.

NOTE: Please attach your original contribution to Discussion Board 5.2 as an Appendix to this proposal.

5. Principles informing the approach to change

In this section, you should provide your own professional view about how organizational change in
this particular scenario should be approached/managed.

NOTE: This section should NOT simply be a replication of someone else’s recommended change approach. It should reflect your own opinion, consistent with the work you have done in Sections 1-4, and supported by theory and relevant evidence.

Format: Simple report format.

Your report should be structured with the following headings:
1. Scope of this proposal
2. Understanding the goals of change
3. Incorporating employee voice into change
4. Protecting employee mental health during change
5. Principles informing the approach to change
References
Appendices (if any)

Word limit: 2,000 – 2,500 words
References and appendices are NOT included in the word limit. If you decide to keep the survey in the main body of the report, rather than in an Appendix, it still does not count in the word limit.

Depending on how you approach the proposal, the number of words in each section will vary.
However as a general guide, you might expect the following allocation:
Section 1: 300 words
Section 2: 400 words
Section 3: 400 words (excluding the survey)
Section 4: 400 words
Section 5: 500 words

Additional important information:
You must properly use and reference articles from at least five academic journals from the List of Excellent Journals provided in the Assessment section of the BB site. If you do not, the maximum penalty is 10% or 4 marks.
You must proper cite your sources using APA6 referencing style. If you do not, the maximum penalty is 10% or 4 marks.

ATTACHMENT 1
ENGCO
You are the HR Manager of a large, privately-owned engineering firm. The firm’s executive team has recently announced a plan to relocate the office from the present site in an industrial estate to a CBD location.
The people who will be relocated are:
• Chief Executive Officer
• Chief Operating Officer – Design
• Chief Operating Officer – Construction and Procurement
• Chief Financial Officer
• Manager Human Resources
• Manager Finance
• Manager Marketing
• Manager IT
• Division Team leaders x 11
• Design Engineers x 24
• Project Engineers x 33
• Engineering Officers x 27
• Support staff x 38
• Contract staff (eg. draughstpeople, CA– maximum 12 at any one time

At the current location, each of the managers, engineers and engineering officers has their own office. Some support staff members have their own office, others do not. Apart from two support staff members who work at reception, all others work in open plan space in the centre of the floor (the offices are around the walls of the buildings, with external windows). There are always a few ‘spare’ offices’. The contract staff, some of whom have been working with the firm for several years, have no allocated space. If they are not on site they have to find a place when they come in
to work. There are also two meeting rooms and a boardroom, for team and client meetings. A number of the employees have flexible working arrangements.

A number work part-time. Many divide their time between the office and project work-sites. As such, approximately 60% of the 114 available desks at the current office are occupied at any given time.

At the work space there may be some offices – that hasn’t been formally decided yet. Consideration is also being given to hot-desking or desk-sharing arrangements at the new premises. This would be require a significant investment in IT hardware and software, as well as in training and creation of new policies and procedures.

The bulk of the firm’s work is project-based, undertaken by project teams. The Executive are, therefore, also considering activity-based working arrangements in an open-plan office, in the belief that it will facilitate collaboration.