Communication and Education Plan

Discuss about the Small Business Performance for Business Strategy Method.

In the world of today a clear stream of communication is of the utmost importance. A clear and lucid stream of communication is mandatory in any organization to ensure a proper and perfect functioning of the organization. A company has its own set of rules and regulations that the employees of the organization need to follow. It ensures that all the rules and regulation are adhered and with a clear stream of communication, efficient working is achieved. In this report, the aim is to formulate and develop a communication plan and a education plan for an organization. It also develops the communication and education plan to promote the benefits of change to the organization. Its aim is to minimize loss and arrange activities to deliver the plan to all relevant groups and individuals of an organization. It discusses the process how the relevant groups and individuals can be consulted after the process of change is commenced. It also analyses the barriers to the change and develops a risk management and a mitigation plan for the company, Bounce Fitness. The report then uses a Gantt chart to include the plans and activities that are to be included for the plans to be implemented. It then discusses the strategies and the procedure of activation for embedding the changes. It then discusses the technique and the time of evaluation, review and modification of the plan if needed.

An organization always stands on two important supports: one is the clear communication stream amongst the employees and the management of the company and the understanding of the rules and regulations of the company (Bovee and Courtland 2012).

A successful communication plan is necessary in an organization to ensure that all the information is transformed and passed on to the employees and the management of the organization in an efficient manner. The communication strategy for Bounce Fitness, a company that deals with fitness and health products should enable the employees of the company to have a clear and lucid communication stream (Bouncefitness.com, 2017). The communication plan of Bounce Fitness must include the following stages:

Stage 1:  Identify the issues that need to be monitored in the company.

Stage 2: Develop a certain approach to deal with the issues.

Stage 3: Each issue has to be taken and has to be addressed.

Stage 4: Record the achievement achieved through the adoption of these steps (Stutely 2012).

Educational Plan

A company works on a set of rules and regulation which ensures a proper functioning of the company, which helps in achieving the desired profit outcomes and adds up to the revenue stock. The employees of a company must be educated about the dos and don’ts of the rules and regulation of the company in order to ensure a proper and efficient functioning of the organization. An educational plan in an organization should aim at educating the employees about the rules and regulations of the company and the process of adhering to the set of rules set by the management of the company. The education plan should also enlighten the employees about the details and the hierarchy of the company, the steps to grievance redressal and the details of the HR policy and maintaining decorum inside the office premises, all come under the purview of an education plan in an organization (Blackburn, Hart and Wainwright 2013).

The education plan of Bounce Fitness must include the following stages:

Introductory session with the employees where they must be informed about the company and its rules and regulations and the consequences that might fall upon the employees if they breach any code or rules of the company.

Next session should help the employees to learn about the hierarchy of the company.

The next session should inform the employees about the steps to grievance redressal.

The next session should inform the employees about the HR policy of the company and the steps to go about approaching any issue that they might face.

To implement these two plans, required officials of the company must be approached. For the communication plan, the management of the company as well as the individual team leaders of each department must be involved. However, for the educational plan, the Human Resources department of the company as well as the administrative department of the company must be approached.

Change is an essential element in any field. It is all the more important in an organizational and a business setting. Through the process of change, any sort of modification or alteration is embedded within an organization. Therefore, the procedure for embedding change in Bounce Fitness should be brought about through a communication and an educational plan. The employees of the company need to be educated about a process of change in the company that is essential to bring in a certain modification and alteration to the company. The communication plan should have the following stages:

Communication and Education Plan for Change

The management of the company must be made aware of the benefits, both long term and short term, to the company. The managers must become aware what benefits the changes will bring to the company.

The benefits should be discussed with the employees of the company in a hierarchal manner.

The process of change must be intimated to the required department and the required head of team that is involved in implementing the change into the organization.

The overall effect of change must be forecasted properly to each department of the company.

The educational plan to implement the change must be through the following stages:

The employees and the management of the company must be enlightened about the benefits that the change will bring to the company.

The employees of the company should be enlightened about the steps and the process through which the change can be implemented.

The change that has to be imbibed should come through specific departments and those departments must be educated about the procedure of implementing change.

To minimize loss, the techniques of achieving the maximum productivity and revenue have to be intensified (Hayes 2014).

Each relevant groups and individuals must be approached to ask for some inputs to the process of change in the company. The administrative department and the Human Resources department must be consulted to proceed with the process of change. The administrative department must look into the stages of implementation of change into the company. The HR department must be in charge of prepping and helping the employees to accept and implement the changes. The administrative department must ask the required team heads for any feedback and suggestion regarding the implementation of change in the company. The concerned department must come and report to the HR head if any grievance regarding the implementation of change is to be reported (Cummings and Worley 2014).

As is the case with every company, there are certain barriers to the change in an organization. They are:

Lack of enthusiasm in the employees: The main barrier to the implementation of change is the lack of enthusiasm amongst the employees of the company.

Lack of efficient communication program: An effective communication planning is the most important aspect of implementing a change. Without it there cannot be any change that can be implemented in the company.

Complexity: The complexity present within an organization sometimes poses a great barrier to the implementation of change in a company

Input to the Change Process

A bad planning: Sometimes a faulty planning proves to be detrimental for implementing a change in the company.

A risk management and a mitigation plan can tackle all these barriers. The plan should take into consideration the risks and the ways to combat those risks to successfully implement the change in the organization. The employees should be made excited about the change by reiterating the benefits that the change will bring about. An efficient communication program should be in place to let the employees know about the change and its effect on the company as well as on them. The complexity within the organization that proves as a hindrance to the implementation of change must dealt with the cooperation of the administrative and the HR department. An efficient planning is essential to implement a change in the company.

Change in an organization has to be imbibed in a systematic and an organized manner. To implement the change, the Kotter model of change can be followed. It involves the following steps (Hrebiniak 2013):

Creating urgency: For any change to be successfully implemented, an urgency needs to be created. The entire company must want the change in order to have a successful implementation.

Forming a powerful coalition: A strong and powerful leadership and coalition is required to successfully implement a change.

Creating a vision for change: A vision for change is necessary to implement a change in an organization (Antonioli, Mancinelli and Mazzanti2013)

Communicating the vision: The vision has to be communicated to the required team and the management of the organization.

Removing obstacles: The hindrances to the implementation of the change have to be identified and removed.

Creating short-term goals: Short-term goals can be achieved easily and thus can be a great confidence booster to the employees as well as the management.

Building on the change: The process of change cannot be a short one. It is a long one and thus can be achieved only through a long and patient process.

Anchoring the changes in the corporate culture: The changes then have to imbibed in to the corporate culture of the company (Applebaum et al., 2012).

After implementing the change in an organization, an evaluation and review of the change becomes extremely necessary to monitor the success or the failure of the program of change. An evaluation of the change has to be done by the end of a year. A year of implementing a change into an organization needs to be monitored and reviewed after a year as only after a year can the changes are understood clearly. The review must include the monitoring of the effects of change in specific and required departments. The areas where some amount of modification is required, has to be identified and then implemented the required changes that need to be modified (Sadgrove2016).

References:

Antonioli, D., Mancinelli, S. and Mazzanti, M., 2013. Is environmental innovation embedded within high-performance organisational changes? The role of human resource management and complementarity in green business strategies. Research Policy, 42(4), pp.975-988.

Appelbaum, S.H., Habashy, S., Malo, J.L. and Shafiq, H., 2012. Back to the future: revisiting Kotter’s 1996 change model. Journal of Management Development, 31(8), pp.764-782.

Blackburn, R.A., Hart, M. and Wainwright, T., 2013. Small business performance: business, strategy and owner-manager characteristics. Journal of small business and enterprise development, 20(1), pp.8-27. 

Bouncefitness.com. (2017). Bounce Fitness. [online] Available at: https://www.bouncefitness.com/ [Accessed 10 Mar. 2017].

Bovee and Courtland, 2012. Business Communication Today, 10/e. Pearson Education India.

Cummings, T.G. and Worley, C.G., 2014. Organization development and change. Cengage learning.

Hayes, J., 2014. The theory and practice of change management. Palgrave Macmillan.

Hrebiniak, L.G., 2013. Making strategy work: Leading effective execution and change. FT Press. 

Sadgrove, K., 2016. The complete guide to business risk management. Routledge. 

Stutely, R., 2012. The definitive business plan: the fast track to intelligent planning for executives and entrepreneurs. Pearson UK.