Introduction
HCL technologies is a leading information technology company in India .In 2005, the company launched a massive new strategy. This strategy termed as ‘Employee first, customer second’ revolutionalised the way the company conducted its business. The major objectives of this strategy was to create an employee’s organization with unique aspects, create accountability and transparency in the organization, create an organization that was drive inverted and finally foster a value based culture. This particular case study aims to describe the different aspects involved in this program, the program’s impact and effects on the engagement patterns of the employee, innovation, customer experience and financial performance.
There were various internal and external forces that called for change at HCL. The major external force for change was the change in clients wants. The clients no longer wanted a service provide who was undifferentiated but instead preferred an company that was able to provide service of end to end and this was to be from a partner who was long term oriented. Among the internal forces that accentuated change at HCL included changes in, organization’s culture change, proactive assumption, leadership and learning.
Vineet Nayar, the vice president of HCL technologies transformation can be compared to Lewin change model in complementary terms. Just like Lewin’s assumptions about change, the change at HCL required behaviour and attitude reinforcement as well as the provision of motivation for change.
In comparison to the models of change suggested by Kotter, Nayar borrowed a lot of concepts from this model although he reconfigured his to only four unlike the eight of Kotter. At that time, the organization was actually in a couple of behaviour and organizational experiments. However, Nayar expected the benefits of the innovation to outweigh the risks and he therefore proceeded with the project. The four stages that HCL technologies went through included: creation of the need for change; creation of a culture compatible to change; building of an efficient change through the inversion of the pyramid of the organization and finally, the transfer change responsibility.
There were various target change elements within the systems change model that were affected by the changes at HCL. For, example, the changes were able to significantly alter the goals of the organization. The organization could now dream even bigger that it could even conceive before. Another target element of change that was affected was the people. For example, there was the placement of more emphasis on the employees and their behaviour was consequently altered. The methods of conducting activities in the organization were also significant altered or changed.
The transformation proposal by Nayar was treated with a lot of suspicion, skepticism and opposition when it was first introduced. There was resistance from the employee’s about6 the viability of such a huge transformation. To overcome this resistance, Nayar sat down with all the employees and communicated directly with them. There was the general communication of transparency, flexibility and trust to eliminate any form of skepticism that had earlier led to resistance. Apart from just talking to the employees, Nayar together with the company’s management actually listened to the employees grievances and a consensus was reached at the end. In this situation, there is no other conceivable method that this issue could have been approached. It said that the best way this reach a consensus is through talking and this is what Nayar exactly did with the change resistors.
There are a couple of things that can be learnt about organizational change from this case study. The first thing is that organization change is a process that requires a lot of articulation and coordination since it is associated with a lot of complexity. One must first of all be able to convince others why organizational change is necessary before embarking on the change process itself. In addition, one must create an effective organizational culture and structure that will accommodate the change once it is adopted.
References
Kreitner, R., & Kinicki, A. (2013). Organizational behavior (10th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
Mullins, L. J. (2007). Management and organizational behaviour. London: PitmanSubba, R. P. (2010). Organizational behaviour. Mumbai [India: Himalaya Pub. House.
