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Consultancy report

Penna Plc

Table of content

Executive summary

Part 1 – Consultancy Report 1. Introduction ………………………………………………………………………………..2. Client Profile……………………………………………………………………………….

2.1. Core products/service………………………………………………………………....2.2. Clients organisational structure ………………………………………………………..2.3. Clients strategy………………………………………………………………………..

3. Cultural Change Process at Penna ……………………………………………………….…3.1. Mckinsey 7s model ……………………………………………………………………3.2. Kotter 8 steps of change model ……………. ………………………………………..

4. Lewin’s three step model – Suggesting Penna……………………………………………..5. Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………………Part 2 – Evidence Review 1. Value creation ………………………………………………………………………………2. Balance score card …………………………………………………………………………3. The strategy road map ……………………………………………………………………..4. Conclusion and Recommendations ………………………………………………………..Part 3 – Reflection Report 1. Learning and development …………………………………………………………………2. Challenges and environment ……………………………………………………………….3. Employability skills…………………………………………………………………………4. Personnel development …………………………………………………………………....

Part 1 – Consultancy Report (4000 words)

1. Introduction

This consultancy report is focused on the case of Penna Plc that is a HR solution providing

company based in UK and operating internationally. The basic purpose of this report is to

examine the cultural change issue that has been encountered by Penna in the wake of

globalization. The company management realized that their organizational culture is

mismatched with the ongoing changes in the labour market and they need to adopt cultural

change within their business practice to assure their survival in the highly competitive market

place. With the expansion of their services at international level there are essential need that

the Penna must have an adequate organizational structure that can help it in managing its

international activities and operations. Reckoning this need Penna decided to restructure its

organization and went through the phase of transition to completely implement the new

structure and organization culture however, in this process it has to face some critical issues

that indicate the need of having a proper model of change to be recommended to Penna

through which they can manage and implement all the future changes in better ways.

The report explicitly defines the organizational culture change process with the help of some

widely accepted and recognized models of organizational and cultural change. These models

have been employed to examine the approach of Penna to develop and implement the cultural

change strategies and policies. The McKinsey 7s model has been used for examining the

internal elements that have affected the process of change within the organization. With the

help of model, the report strives to find out the interconnectivity and interdependency of

various internal factors upon each other.

Kotter 8 step model of change is also used in the report to examine the process of cultural

change adopted by Penna and some weaknesses were identified in Penna practice of change

management. In order to assure better practice of change management, this consultancy

report suggests Penna to adopt the Lewin's three step change model as a roadmap for

managing change in future. The McKinsey and Kotter models are used to diagnose the

organizational elements related with the change process. With the help of these two models,

the cultural change at Penna has been explicitly reviewed. The entire effort has been taken

towards a logical conclusion by putting forward a proposed model of change to the

organization and concluding the discussion based on the issues and main elements identified

in company's cultural change process according to the models.

2. Client Profile

Penna Consulting company (Penna Plc) has been providing human resource consulting

services for several years. It provides wide range of solutions to the businesses and

individuals including executive search, recruitment process assistance, workforce training

and coaching, leadership skills development and other services. It operated across UK, Spain

and Ireland from its head quarter located in London. The company reported that during the

first quarter of fiscal year 2015, it generated profit around $136.2 million that was 22.3%

higher than the last year. It shows that the company has been gaining popularity and

professionals are widely availing their services for HR solutions. The company claims that it

has provide services to around 2000 organizations located in 70 countries across the world. It

caters the clients working in varied sectors who seek professional talent solutions.

2.1. Core products/service

Penna Plc has been providing wide range of services to its clients. Its services include:

Consultancy and recruitment solutions related with different HR areas

Creating effective links between employees and employers

Management of recruitment and assessment process of candidates

Executive search

Interim management

Coaching and training

Outplacement

Re-deployment

2.2. Clients organisational structure

(Source: Penna Plc Annual Report, 2014)

2.3. Clients strategy

The company has been providing wide array of HR solutions to its clients throughout the

employment lifecycle. It offers the clients services starting from the initial recruitment

activities to the assessment and till the career development training and coaching services.

Penna has been working with global partners to assure that it completely understands the

ongoing changes in the international labour market and the changing requirements of the

human resource management practice. It provides update talent solutions to the clients that

perfectly match with their requirement because all the services at Penna are supported by

their international level research and collaborative work. Its international and contemporary

approach allows it creating value for its clients who eventually became able to attain

differentiation and competitive edge in the market place. The client of Penna are spread over

all sectors from retailers to supermarkets, manufacturers and high tech firms and the

experience of dealing with diversified clienteles has bestowed it experience and understand

about the unique requirement of different industries. Eventually, it becomes able to provide

refined consultancy services to the clients with whom they create value and take their

businesses to the next level with the help of significant HR support and development. Penna

has also worked for various organizations in helping them to restructure their working

structure and HR strategies. It has successfully assisted the companies in planning, designing

and executing the change within their HR systems and organizational structures and

eventually it has become a trust worthy name in the UK as well as international corporate

sphere. Penna is followed in CSR principle of keeping all its stakeholders together by

assuring the interest of each group

3. Cultural Change Process at Penna

The urge for cultural change at Penna was realized in early 2000s. Till 2003, Penna was

conducting its global HR services while focusing on its four core businesses that were

regarded as it’s built around solio (White, Browning & Bajer, 2014). It was managing its all

activities as a big business however, it decided to make four divisions by changing its

organizational structure so that the activities of one business could be managed and kept

separated with the other. The company divided its functions into 4 main divisions that include

‘career development, redeployment, outplacement and senior director” (Penna, 2016).

Due to this division, there was high wave of demotivation among the employees and the

internal political badly affected the culture of the organization. The divide in the profits

according to the divisions also spread discomfort among the stakeholders. Eventually the

management decides to carry out a cultural change process through which the change in the

organisational structure could be well integrated and the desired results from the change

could be attained. Various phases of the cultural change, challenges and issues related with it

have been examined below with the help of some change models

3.1. Mckinsey 7s model

During the 1980s, developers of MBWA-- "Management by Walking Around" Robert H.

Waterman, Jr. and Tom Peters proposed a management model that identified certain elements

related with the change within the organizations. The McKinsey 7S Framework provided the

companies a strategic vision to understand the dynamics of change process. The seven

elements names as 7s identified in the model include “structure, strategy, systems, skills,

style, staff and shared values”. These are the internal elements of an organization that tend to

affect the change process. According to the model the businesses are required to pay attention

towards these 7s in order to assure the smooth flow and proper management of their change

plan. The developers of the model believe that if any organization seeks successful

implementation and management of change it is imperative that is must arrange for aligned

these 7c in a way that they mutually reinforce the change process and support all the activities

related with change. In this way, the model provides a framework that the companies could

follow in order to improve their performance as well as maintain it during various types of

changes that are usually implements within organizations. The model could also be used to

access the progress and strategy of any company at the time of change because these seven

elements would be examined to see how the management has prepared the internal

organization for the change (John, 2014).

(Duff, 2014)

Analysis of Penna Case According to the model

According to McKinsey’s change model, it is imperative that the management of Penna align

and mutually reinforce all the above stated seven elements within their change practice.

While looking at the case of change implement at Penna Plc, it is found that the structure of

the company is actually the main change happened to the company.

Structure: In order to bring change within the organization, Penna decided to divide its

organizational structure in four different divisions based on their function so the element of

structure was the first thing that was changed and aligned by the Panna management. The

older structure does not separate the workers, profits and client according to these four main

areas (White, Browning & Bajer, 2014).

Strategy: In order to assure the smooth flow of change, the Company adopted the strategy of

developing a customer centric culture that focuses on the values, qualities and behaviours and

for the integration of these values and culture, the management makes the use of HR polices

and their major tool and reinforced their strategy through their HR cycle. However, this was

the step taken by the company after it realized that the change is causing resistance among the

employees and they need to adopt any policy to support the change.

System: Once, Penna decided to handle the change with a straight and strict policy, the

management decided to maintain a dictatorial system for the penetration of its culture by

adopted a relentless vigilance approach. all the employees were informed that the small

deviations from the decided culture could result in confusion so they are all required to

completely follow the company culture that has no place for deviations. Moreover a zero

tolerance policy was adopted to make the system strongly implemented (White, Browning &

Bajer, 2014).

Shared values: The management decided to share values under four major heads including

accountability, collaboration, support and inspiration. These values were reflected throughout

the business activities and the HR functions like recruitment, promotion and compensation

were also managed by keeping these values are guiding principles (Penna, 2016).

Skills: Penna UK demonstrated the skills of having complete control over the situation. They

clearly told all their stakeholders that ‘no stone would be left unturned’ means that there was

no chance that someone can continue with their older practice and with this skill the company

finally became able to implement the change up to the full extent.

Style: The style of the management remained somewhat authoritative during the initial stage

of change because it implements the change without gaining the confidence of the employees

however, after witnessing the resistance they changed their style and then the management

designed some specific policies and strongly implemented them giving employees no option

to deviate from these.

Staff: The staff resisted towards the change in the beginning because it was not aligned with

the change in the beginning however, as the management rethinks its policies, it became able

to align the staff with the change policies. It shows that the alignment of the staff is essential

for the successful alignment of change.

3.2. Kotter’s 8 step Change Model

Kotter presented his 8 step model of change management in this international bestseller

book Leading Change that was published in 1996. It has widely been regarded as one of the

most influential and useful contribution to the management literature. The model proposed

that there are eight basic steps that must be followed to assure the success of change process.

the model not only helps in managing and implementing change but it also serves as a base

for examining the change practice carried out by any organization. The eight steps proposed

in this model are as under:

Establishing a Sense of Urgency and awareness regarding the need for change

Creating a Coalition that can guide the organization throughout the change process

Developing a clear Vision and Strategy for better demonstration of change

Communicating the Change Vision with all the stakeholders

Empowering Employees for Broad-Based Action

Generating some Short-Term Wins for the employees

Consolidating Gains and Producing More Change to continue the process

Anchoring some Approaches within the existing Culture (Kotter, 1996)

The book in which this model was presented as given the award of "Top 25 Most Influential

Business Management Books" in 2011 by the TIME magazine that shows the importance of

this model to understand the organizational behavior at the time of change (Carolyn & Keller,

2009)

(Kotter, 1995)

Analysis of Penna Case According to the model

If we analyse the case of Penna according to the change model proposed by Kotter it is found

that the three early stages related with the creating of climate for change were not initially

followed by the management of Penna. The management decided to restructure the

organization into four divisions without aligning the workers and eventually initially there

was resistance from the employees. The management didn’t gained the confidence of the

stakeholders before finally dividing the company neither they demonstrate a clear vision

related with change to its people. However, after overlooking this initial phase, the resistance

from the employees created awareness among the company and they altered their approach

and policy towards the management of this matter. Eventually the management adopted the

policy of engaging the people and enabling the organization to implement change (White,

Browning & Bajer, 2014). For this purpose, they communicate their vision across all levels of

the organization and regain the confidence of the employees through the recognition steps.

The last phases related with the implementation and sustaining for change were also strictly

followed by Penna UK. It built on the change and makes it mandatory for all the employees

to remain stick towards the change. In this way, the management followed the various steps

of the Kotter managing change model and eventually succeeded to manage and implement

the change with the help of effective strategies and policies. After the initial negligence

towards the change management principles, the management of Penna UK realized that they

could not implement change and get desired results out of it until and unless they will take a

systematic approach towards the implementation of change.

Identification of Problem Area

The analysis of Penna by applying two different models of change reveals that Penna has

made some mistakes during the process of implementing change in their organization. Hence,

it is found imperative that the company must be proposed with an adequate model. The

management could adopt that model to make sure that all the interventions related with the

change support the objective of management regarding change and eventually Penna will be

able to successfully complete the implementation and execution of change. Based on the

identification of this problem, the report proposed a change management below to Penna with

the intention of assisting them in better management of change.

3.3. Lewin’s three step model – Suggesting Action Plan for the Penna

Kurt Lewin was basically a social scientist and physiologist who is also referred as the father

of modern social psychology. He uses to have keen eye and deep understanding of the change

process that occurs with the organizations operating in the society. He realized that the

companies often fail to successfully implement the change because they do not understand

the steps involved in the change process. In order to make the process simple and

understandable, he suggested there are three steps that are needed to be taken for effective

management of change. These three steps include unfreezing the organization, implementing

the change, and refreezing the organization. He suggests that during the first step of the

change process, the management basically have to communicate with the stakeholders to

unfreeze them and convince them that the change is actually mandatory in the situation. They

are also required to show people potential benefits of change to build their positive

perceptions regarding the change process. After making sure that all the stakeholders

understand the need for change and they are ready to accept it, the management needs to

move towards the next step that is the implementation of change. During this process, the

leadership competencies count a lot and the management has to adopt the positive

reinforcement policy to reflect the benefits of change. According to the model, the last step

of change is refreezing during which the management has to assure that the changed

implemented will last for long and the employees will not get back to their previous cultures.

They have to take strategies and actions to support and reinforce the change to make it

permanent allows the employees to understand that now they have to follow the changed

culture and have nothing to do with the old one.

Lewin model has been regarded very useful in understanding, proposing and examining the

change process because it is very simple but comprehensive. It tells the organizations how

they have to prepare the background for change, how the change has to be executed and what

the importance of making change permanent is. This is the beauty of Lewin’s model: it is

simple consisting of three steps.

(Hughes, 2006)

How the model can help Penna to get desired results from the change process

The above analysis of Penna shows that the management was initially not aware of the fact

that there are certain elements that need to be aligned with the change before the

implementation of change. This was the reason the management of Penna has to face some

serious issues resulting from the implementation of change. The retention rate of the

employees became very low at Penna whereas there was decline recoded in the revenues of

the company after the restructuring. It implies that the change was not properly managed due

to which several issues arouse. In this regard, the report recommends to Penna that for

implementation change they could better do complete homework and specifically give due

importance to the strategies and steps that needs to be taken in the pre-change phase.

The model of change proposed by Lewin appears to be an appropriate choice for the

management because it guides the organizations to make effective policies throughout

various phases of change as explained below

Unfreezing: This is the first stage of the model proposed by Lewin for effective management

of change process. This is the area that requires the attention of the Penna management at

most because the change implemented by Penna was failed to get desired results in the early

phase mainly due to the fact that the management didn’t paid attention towards making the

employees ready for the change. The model proposed that in the unfreezing phase, the

management has to communicate with the employees to make them completely aware and

well informed about the change and the potential outcomes of the change that can affect the

organization and the employees as whole. The information sharing is very important because

when the employees are completely aware of the pros and cons of the change they would

become able to make their minds for facing the changing situation. Whenever Penna will

implement any change in the future, it is suggested that it must unfreeze the organization by

making people aware and open towards the change.

Change: During this phase the change is finally implemented and the organization went

through the transition phase. In this phase the change has to be reinforced positively and for

this purpose the management has to make effective use of leadership skills. The higher

management has to become part of the change by acting as the role model for the employees.

The attitude of the management counts a lot during this stage. If Penna will adopt the

authoritative style like it earlier did, it could be expected that again it will face resistance

from the employees. Hence, the management of Penna is suggested to make best use of

leadership competencies and implement change with positivity. Consistency is also

necessarily present in the business activities of the management to clearly reflect that the

change has to stay there for a long time and it is necessary that all the employees must

become aligned with the change.

Refreeze: Once the change is implemented, Penna has to assure that the employees won’t get

back to the older culture. The zero tolerance policy and relentless vigilance strategy adopted

by Penna proved to be successful earlier also and whenever it will implement any other

change, it would be a better choice that Penna will adopt same strict policy to keep the

employees engaged with the change and eliminate the possibilities that the employees will go

back to the old culture. Once Penna would become able to follow these three steps carefully

and completely it would become possible for it to implement the change successfully and get

the best results from the change as desired and expected by the management.

4. Conclusion

The consultancy report presented a detailed overview of the business and strategies of the

client i.e. Penna UK. The report reviews the change implemented by the management of

Penna in early 2000s by dividing the organization in four divisions. This change has been

examined using Kotter 8 stage model and the McKinsey’s 7s model and there were some

weak areas found in the strategy of Penna UK due to which it also has to face some problems

soon after the change was implemented. It has been found that Penna gave attention to the

measures that were suggested in these models during and after the implementation of change

but the planning and alignment required before the implementation of change were not

emphasized by Penna that eventually caused it harm in terms of high turnover rate of the

employees, internal political turmoil, dissatisfaction among the employees and decline in the

revenues. Based on this analysis it is recommended that Penna needs to adopt a systematic

approach towards the change and for this they can make use of an appropriate change model

and focus all their attention towards managing their activities according to the elements or

phased identified in the model. Lewin’s three phase model of change appears to be a suitable

choice for Penna and the report suggests that for implementing any change, Penna has to

assure that all its strategies and planning is equally concentrating on all the three phases;

unfreezing, change and refreezing. It is expected that any change implemented by Penna in

coming days would generate positive outcomes right from the beginning if it will carefully

follow these stages and eventually the company would be able to stand as example of

adequate change management practice.

Part 3 – Reflection Report

1. Learning and development

The process of the preparation of this consultancy report provided me significant

opportunities of learning and development of my skills and knowledge related with the

subject matter. I become able to understand the practical implications of the theories and

concepts to the real business world. Prior to the completion of this consultancy report, I want

not able to apply various models and theories to any real case along with identification of the

weak areas but as I conducted this work, I learnt how to identify the weak areas within the

business practice of the organization by examining it through some models. The three models

of change used in this consultancy report are very important and commonly used to explain

the business change process and when I used these models to explain the particular case of

Penna Plc, I became able to classify the activities that the businesses have to carry on during

each particular stage. In short, my learning was enhanced throughout the process of the

preparation of this report and I also became able to develop my searching and analytical skills

by applying the learned concepts into the business case of Penna Plc. The consultancy report

allowed me taking the role of a consultant and reviewing the entire issue from the perspective

of a professional who provides consultancy service to the business professional. It is an

important development within my personality and learning experience that is expected to

benefit me a lot in my future life.

2. Challenges and environment

There were some challenges that I encountered during the preparation of this consultancy

report. The core challenge was the collection of independent information required for the

preparation of the consultancy report. Since Penna Plc is not a large scale organization there

is not ample secondary data available about the company at various resources. There were no

professional reviews about the company available from any independent source. And

basically I have to rely on the information acquired from the company website and annual

report. When the information is collected from the inside sources only, there are more

chances of have biased information because the company’s annual reports or the websites

usually contain the information telling about the positive side of the organization and its

management capabilities and it is not generally found that the weaknesses or failure of any

business are also discussed by them in their reports or website. Hence, I had to be really

analytical while studying their report and the case study about the change process that over

yen year ago and eventually I became able to point out some problematic areas within their

management practice. The environment at the company is overall very helpful and supportive

whenever the company was contacted to get any data or information however; getting

information about the weakness was really a challenge.

3. Employability skills

I believe that the consultancy report is an effective way of practicing the analytical work that

is commonly done by the business professionals during their routine work of preparing

various reports. The report has been prepared by taking up the position of a consultant of a

company and by assuming that role I am required to present a consultancy report to the

company. After completing this task, I believe that whenever in my career, I will came across

the opportunity to propose actual consultancy report and recommendation, the learning

gained during this work will certainly help me and I am sure that my employability skills are

considerable improved and enhanced by taking up this project.

My potential employers will find me as a confidant person able to handle the situation

requiring analysis and research. They will view me as a candidate equipped with the skills

and capability of applying their knowledge and theoretical information to the real business

world. The employers would see me as a person knowing how to analyse various business

situation and identify the strength and weaknesses of the companies to propose solutions to

them. My overall employability skills have experienced upgrading of a level after this project

and I find myself in better position to apply for any job related with the business analysis etc.

My research skills are also improved because I have conducted detailed research across the

available secondary sources of information to acquire maximum volume of information about

the company, the change process it went through, its policies and strategies to handle that

change and the outcome of their change management practice.

4. Personnel development

Every project bestows learning and personal development opportunities to the individuals and

groups that take part in it. This consultancy report was an individual project that I completed

using my individual potentials and skills. Since, all the tasks were supposed to be complete

performed by myself from the search of information to the analysis and final compiling of

report, I realized that I learnt to take up the responsibilities.

The assignment is very important for the completion of the course and it was really important

for me to understand the requirements of the assignment and meet all of them to assure that

the final outcome meet the criteria. In the group work, usually all the members are

responsible for the progress of the work so there is usually less pressure on each individual

but in this project, I was aware that there will be no contribution from someone else and I am

sole responsible for performing all the tasks adequately. This sense of responsibility added to

me personal development because I learnt to sense the responsibility and learn how to

perform varied types of task for the completion of a single project. This experience

significantly added to me personal development as I turned out to be more responsible

student. In addition my researching skills are also nurtured because I go through vast volume

of information to collect the useful material for the report. There is too much information

available online related with different change management models and I have to choose the

appropriate one that fits best to the case of Penna. Hence I go through all the models and

selected two models for conducting the analysis and one for proposing strategy to Penna.

This exercised improved my searching as well as analytical skills and I became able to

examine situations with the help of appropriate models.

Part 2 – Evidence Review (2000 words) LEFT

1. Value creation

2. Balance score card

3. The strategy road map

4. Conclusion and Recommendations

References

Carolyn, A. & Keller, S. (2009). "The Irrational Side of Change Management". The

McKinsey Quarterly. McKinsey & Company

Duff, M. (2014). The Firm: The Story of McKinsey and Its Secret Influence on American

Business. London: Simon and Schuster

Hughes, M. (2006). Change Management: A Critical Perspective. Chartered Institute of

Personnel and Development. London: Routledge

John, H. (2014). The Theory and Practice of Change Management. London: Palgrave

MacMillian

Kotter, J. (1995) Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail: Harvard Business

Review. Pp.59-67

Penna (2016). About Us. [Online] Available at http://www.penna.com/about

Penna Annual Report (2014). Annual Report. [Online] Available at

http://www.penna.com/docs/default-source/financial-reports/Penna-Report-and-

Accounts-2014.pdf

White, B., Browning, G., Bajer, J. (2014) "Is culture change a fad? Driving business results at

Penna, ten years on", Strategic HR Review, Vol. 13 Iss: 3, pp.123 - 126