Supporting The Middle Management Through Organizational Change: Case Company Ahlsell
Takalo, Minna (2023)
2023
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2023052915537
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2023052915537
Tiivistelmä
Change Management is a process that is needed in any organization that is going through changes. Change is inevitable to all, who with to keep up with the modern world and ensure their competitive advantage in their own market. Due to internationalization and free movement of workforce the number of employees from different cultural backgrounds is growing larger in Finland each year. The companies that have previously operated in only Finnish, need to broaden their scope when hiring new employees, and the variety of languages spoken in Finnish companies is getting more diverse.
There is another reason why companies have started or are planning to start hiring non-Finnish speaking employees, and that is the current employment mismatch that some industries are struggling with. There are a lot of open jobs and a lot of unemployed workers in Finland, but for some reason these two issues do not overrule each other. This problem can be clearly seen in some industries especially, and the logistic industry is one of them.
Our case company ran into this dilemma during the pandemic, when suddenly there was not enough Finnish-speaking qualified applicants for their open jobs in the warehouse/logistic centre. This made the top management start to consider hiring English-speaking staff to fill the gap. When a company culture has been speaking in their native language all their existence, switching into a multi-lingual work environment can be challenging, frightening, confusing and cause a lot of resentment among the staff.
The goal of this thesis was to find out how change has been managed in the case company in the past and how to best support the middle managers in the logistic centre through organizational change in the future, when the company will be moving towards a multicultural and -lingual work environment. This has been done through empirical qualitative research methods (interviews) and then thematically analysing the data. The data was collected in April 2023.
The findings suggested that there has been a lack of communication and education in the companies’ past change efforts. The middle management wants more information in a timely manner, more support through the change and a better aftercare when the change effort is completed. The multiculturalization itself was mostly considered to being a positive factor in the company culture, and the overall attitude towards the change was good. According to the findings, suggestions to the company are made in the end of this thesis. They include the possible use of Change Agents, using a proper Communication Plan through change, language workshops, implementing Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion (DEI) into their everyday work, education on DEI and implementing multi-lingual weekly meetings.
There is another reason why companies have started or are planning to start hiring non-Finnish speaking employees, and that is the current employment mismatch that some industries are struggling with. There are a lot of open jobs and a lot of unemployed workers in Finland, but for some reason these two issues do not overrule each other. This problem can be clearly seen in some industries especially, and the logistic industry is one of them.
Our case company ran into this dilemma during the pandemic, when suddenly there was not enough Finnish-speaking qualified applicants for their open jobs in the warehouse/logistic centre. This made the top management start to consider hiring English-speaking staff to fill the gap. When a company culture has been speaking in their native language all their existence, switching into a multi-lingual work environment can be challenging, frightening, confusing and cause a lot of resentment among the staff.
The goal of this thesis was to find out how change has been managed in the case company in the past and how to best support the middle managers in the logistic centre through organizational change in the future, when the company will be moving towards a multicultural and -lingual work environment. This has been done through empirical qualitative research methods (interviews) and then thematically analysing the data. The data was collected in April 2023.
The findings suggested that there has been a lack of communication and education in the companies’ past change efforts. The middle management wants more information in a timely manner, more support through the change and a better aftercare when the change effort is completed. The multiculturalization itself was mostly considered to being a positive factor in the company culture, and the overall attitude towards the change was good. According to the findings, suggestions to the company are made in the end of this thesis. They include the possible use of Change Agents, using a proper Communication Plan through change, language workshops, implementing Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion (DEI) into their everyday work, education on DEI and implementing multi-lingual weekly meetings.