Page 4 - CIMA SCS Workbook August 2018 - Day 2 Suggested Solutions

SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS

Group resistance

A lot of people are likely to be affected by the same issue. The resistance to the proposal will
therefore be increased because of the fact that staff will recognise they all have the same
concerns and will therefore band together.

Culture

What is being proposed (the ending of printed newspapers) is a major change to the company’s
culture. FNG has been printing newspapers since the 1880s, and the culture in place today is the
result of many years of accepted working practice and tradition. It is difficult to persuade people
that all of this should end within a short space of time and be replaced with what will be seen as a
very new type of culture (the so-called structural inertia).

How to manage the resistance?

This is a major change programme for FNG, and use can be made of Lewin’s 3-step model to try to
effect the change as smoothly as possible.

The 3 steps in the programme are:

Unfreeze

The management team would need to prepare the business for change. This will include
identifying the possible difficulties that will be encountered and making a public announcement
about the intended change.

Identifying the causes of resistance mentioned above will hopefully help management see how to
deal with that resistance. For example, FNG should consult with the trades unions over the
reasons for the change and what the impact will be on staff numbers. If the union leaders can be
persuaded that there is no alternative, and that redundancies can be limited to an acceptable
minimum, they may recognise that the company has no choice and recommend the process to its
members.

Staff should be reassured that job cuts will only occur where absolutely necessary, and that any
compulsory redundancies will be accompanied with a generous severance package. In this way, it
may be that many people elect to take voluntary redundancy or early retirement, thereby
reducing the number of compulsory job losses.

For those who will need to learn new skills, reassurance should be given that full training will be
given in advance.

Overall, the unfreeze part of the process is shaking the business up and preparing it for what is to
come, hopefully resulting in as little resistance as possible.

Change

The next step of the process is to make the changes needed. This will involve closing the affected
titles, making the necessary redundancies and launching the digital titles. This is likely to take
some time, particularly given the number of titles in the FNG portfolio.

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