ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE

Consultancy Skill and Organisational Change

Consultancy Skill and Organisational Change

Introduction

British Airways (BA) has recently attempted to introduce a swipe card system for its employees. This was at a time when BA was reporting large financial losses, while still recovering from the effects of the Iraqi war, 9/11, SARS and competitive threats from budget airlines. In 2001, BA began implementing a restructuring system called the “Future Size and Shape Recovery Program”, including the implementation of the swipe card system. From the program's inception in 2001 until July of 2003, almost one in four jobs had been cut within the airline. Morale was poor, with staff noting such things as fear, mistrust of management, lack of transparencies, poor or no communication of changes or involvement in decision-making.

BA announced that ground staff would use the electronic swipe cards to check in and out of work five days prior to the proposed date for the implementation of the new system. There had been no fruitful discussion with the ground staff in relation to this new system. As a result of the announcement, and with staff feeling they had no other options, 250 check in staff held a wildcat strike, which lasted for 24 hours. Although the catalyst for this strike was the implementation of the new swipe card system, the case suggested that this change was merely the straw that broke the camel's back. The underlying tensions between management and staff had long been festering.

The initial impact of this strike lasted for three days with 60 flights grounded and 10,000 customers left stranded. BA later reported that this strike contributed to a loss of over 40 million pounds, a further loss of 100,000 customers and its public image being severely damaged. This case study will examine organisational change and through the theory, explore the reasons for BA's failed implementation of the swipe card system. The following discussion and analysis will examine how the actions of BA's management, including inadequate planning and a lack of communication, led to resistance from staff. The causes of resistance to change and other employee responses will also be examined.

Discussion and Analysis

It is evident from the case that the reason the introduction of the BA swipe card system was a failure was due to a myriad of poor practices by management. These included inadequate planning, lack of appropriate timing, a lack of understanding of psychology and morale of their staff, also a lack of communication with stakeholder. This led to fear, mistrust and resistance from the staff of BA. This section of the case analysis examines these issues.

Inadequate Planning

This section will cover the management planning aspect of both the case study and the theory and show the importance of the people aspect. While BA was planning the implementation of the swipe card system it had shown its largest ever-quarterly loss. As a reaction to this, BA abandoned talks about the system and decided to 'force' its implementation, even though it was grossly under prepared to do ...