United parcel service started its business in the year 1907. Within few years of its inception the company became a well known name for providing courier and logistics solutions. UPS always has been a stable company with long term vision and planning. In the year 1994 company announced that there will be drastic changes in the old traditional operational processes. The changes will focus on improving quality, customer satisfaction and to reduce operational cost.
In present scenario continuous change has become a formula to get success and provide customer satisfaction. If company is using old technology or processes, it is very difficult to get competitive advantages which ultimately impact the customer satisfaction. United Parcel Service has made the entire plan which covers various aspects like vision, what all changes company wants to make, where company wants to see herself in the future etc. But it was not an easy task to implement those changes and transformation of existing processes.
We will use change model provided by Kurt Lewin to get a clear understanding of efforts made by United parcel Service in bringing change. The model suggests three phases to bring changes: Unfreezing, Moving and Refreezing.
Unfreezing first phase: Lewin said that in the first phase organization realize the need of change. Organization accepts the fact that old processes are no longer working and giving opportunity to competitors. UPS was working on low risk model with highly structured and controlled processes before the changes. The preferences were given to senior managers instead of performers. Company realized that the environment is changing and industry is becoming more information and service oriented. Time brought several changes like: socio-economic changes, political changes, advancement of technology, increased competition etc. increasing demands of customers made company to ponder over the idea of bringing changes to deal with existing competition and advance technology. UPS unfreezes its old processes and implemented effective measures to monitor customer satisfaction and eighteen quality processes.
Moving Second Phase: this phase discusses the planning and strategy to achieve the vision and goals identified in unfreezing phase. In this phase company analyzed all the steps needed to achieve the desired goals. UPS identified various tools like training programs, workshops, regular quality update, organization magazine and other tools to brought cultural as well as environmental changes. Company realized it very difficult to grow without a team of performers. Employees who are proactive, innovative, responsive and committed needed to be given priority hence company launched early retirement scheme. 4500 employees had chosen the scheme. Company also started to eradicate the middle level of management in order to establish a direct communication between senior management and customer service staff.
Refreezing Third Phase: this phase was about the processes which were required to introduce for acknowledging the work done by employees. Employees play a major role in bringing changes in any organization hence recognition and reward for their performance is imperative. It is not possible to bring permanent changes in employee behavior, organization culture and process without proper recognition and reward. It helps in motivating employee to keep good work going and maintaining the desired behavior along with corporate culture. UPS also introduced processes for employee empowerment and performance measurement. UPS understand the importance of informal communication and recognition hence management started organizing parties and ceremonies with a change in their behavior.
References
Lambert M. Surhone, Miriam T. Timpledon and Susan F. Marseken. (2010). United Parcel Service. Saarbrucken: VDM Verlag Dr. Mueller e.K.
Thomas G. Cummings and Christopher G. Worley. (2008). Organization development & change. Stamford, Connecticut: Cengage Learning.
