Introduction
Business strategies can be more or less effective with regard to different phases of change. These phases concern the process of change in a certain organization in terms of stages which the company falls into at the moment. It is necessary to take into account health care as a specific organization that has the same difficulties with personnel and developing capacity to perform new tasks as other types of organizations. The current report contains a discussion of changes that occurred because of the integration of two hospitals SJHC and LHSC. As it was important to provide the staff of both separate organizations with possible motivation and awareness of change as well as the staff of the integrated organization in terms of leadership, status, and facilities readiness, two change managers were engaged in the process of integrating two health care organizations.
Three Phases of the Strategic Change
Phase one. The first stage of the process of change presupposes that the managerial staff or certain team which deals directly with the process of change should make the employees aware of the necessity of change in terms of evaluation of the situation in the company, thinking about some possible solutions and readiness to accept the changes. It is important that employees are ready to perform new tasks and even move to another place having a different status. Some obstacles can appear on the way during the first phase of the change process; limited capacity to understand the necessity of change and lack of knowledge required to introduce the change in certain areas of the organization or in the whole company.
Phase two. The second phase presupposes that the genuine agreement on the changes provided in the company is signed and no further difficulties can influence the basic plan of change implied for the organization. The most obvious difficulties which occur in the second phase of the process of change are displacement of the problem, the resistance of employees to accept the change, and the lack of supporting factors. These difficulties occur when the staff of the company is not ready to accept changes and perform new tasks that would facilitate the process of change.
Phase three. The third phase of the change process presupposes the reinforcement and recycling of efforts, functions, and tasks performed in order to introduce the change effectively and keep its effect. The new tasks can be performed effectively within the process of change. The essence of the third phase concerns the improvements and development of further strategies necessary to maintain successive changes involved after the basic ones. New directions and new strategies are presented during the third stage. It is necessary to take into account the success of two previous phases in the change process which can lead to the failure of the change in the organization. The case of integration of two hospitals SJHC and LHSC experienced great difficulties during the third phase of the change process for the first two phases had failed because of the agreement that allowed the staff members to move back to their previous position within one year term.
The case of SJHC and LHSC reveals some peculiarities which can be encountered in the organizations involved in the area of health care and treatment. The change managers have faced the problem of differences between two organizations that were supposed to be integrated. The differences concerned the employees that were close to retirement and were not ready to accept any kind of changes because of their unstable position; these obstacles appeared in the first two phases of the change process. Another concern was that some staff members had a definite status that could change after the integration of two organizations. The whole structure of leadership and hierarchy was to be changed which could not be accepted by some staff members. The difficulties were encountered in the third phase of the change strategy because the first two phases were not successful and employees did not realize the necessity of accepting changes.
The second phase of the process of change could be successful if the first one was a success; the failure in one causes difficulties and problems in others. Another difficulty that was encountered by the change managers was that the agreement which was supposed to be a genuine one and could provide support for the required changes presupposed that employees could move to one organization and move back within one year if they did not like the work there. The most common problem encountered by the staff members did not concern the conditions of work, it was rather about the conditions of self-maintenance and usual things that people do. The second stage was not successful because of this particular agreement which did not let the change managers introduce the necessity of changes and changes as they were into the operation of two organizations because they could not control the reaction of employees that could move back any time. The coalition-building and negotiations were impossible under the pressure of breakup.
Recommendations
The company could be a success in providing changes in order to integrate two organizations. Though there were some minor difficulties experienced by the change managers in terms of behavioral resistance, inadequate training, and experience, poor readiness to accept changes, the changes could have been introduced because the staff members were ready to face changes and could overcome certain difficulties related to the status, position, and the concept of moving to a new place. The coalition-building was impossible without the fundamental awareness of people of the necessity of changes. The agreement introduced to facilitate the change process appeared to be inappropriate with regard to inadequate behavior of staff members; the agreement presupposed that employees from one organization could move to another with little commitments and move back in the one-year term if they felt the necessity to do that.
The agreement influenced the change process and the progress of changes that have been already introduced. The employees were ready to accept the changes, though the agreement made everything more complicated than it could. The primary meaning of the agreement was to loosen tension and show the employees that the changes can be accepted or refuted and that the decision should not be immediate. This position, on the contrary, has slackened the pace and influenced the decision of employees. Instead of providing changes, the organizations had to consider the problem of the agreement.
Conclusion
When the changes are introduced in order to share experience and to improve the services provided by the companies under the change, it is necessary to use the three-phase approach which considers all difficulties encountered by change managers and different strategies which can be taken in order to solve certain problems. When change managers fail to inform employees properly about the necessity of change, this can lead to failures in the further phases of change; as you can see, lack of understanding can cause successive problems.