Chapter 5 What Changes-and What Doesn 161 EXERCISE T 5.1 The Nampak Story his is

Question

Chapter 5 What Changes-and What Doesn 161 EXERCISE T 5.1 The Nampak Story his is a story of successful organizational culture change. How can we explain this suc- cess? As you read this story, consider the following questions: 1. Which dimensions of the 7-S framework, described in chapter 4, did Eric Collins his senior management colleagues focus on in order to change Nampaks Cuu Reminder: The "hard" dimensions are strategy, structure, and systems. The dimensions include staff, skills, style, and shared values, or superordinate goals. LO 5.4 2. Which dimensions of the 7-S framework were not affected? 3. Where does this culture change initiative belong on the "depth" scale in figure 5.1 between shallow and deep change? In your judgemen across the seven factors of that framework have produced deeper results, and how? t, would a different emphasis change, with better Context Nampak was a South African-owned bottle and plastics manufacturer with 600 factory worke rs and 80 managers in the United Kingdom. A typical manufacturing company, it focused on costs, investing in machinery and processes rather than people. Labor costs were low, and the company had been very successful. In 2007, the newly appointed managing director Eric Collins realized that the company had driven efficiencies as far as it could using traditional approaches. He decided to add value through people. Problem Although the company was successful, the organizational culture was poor. People were treated badly and morale was low. The blame culture spread to customers. Complaints at one site reached 25 a month, which was damaging for a company that relied on three key customers. Apart from hiring, firing, and discipline, Nampak had no estab- lished human resource management policies and practices. In a staff satisfaction survey in 2007, 80 percent said that they would not recommend Nampak to friends and family as a place to work. Looking at the survey results, the new HR director, Cathie Wright- Smith, concluded, "There was everything wrong with this business that you can think of." There were also problems with the executive board, who were status-conscious and all the accustomed to having a high degree of control, with only a dozen people making key decisions Solution Collins met customers to get their critical feedback on the company. But when was shocked. The level of dissatisfaction was high, and the anger was directed at hi he met his own employees in "Challenge Collins" sessions, to hear their grievances in person, he m. to However, Collins wanted to give staff the opportunity to vent their frustrations, and

Explanation / Answer

1. Collins and his senior management focussed on the following aspects of 7S framework.

The soft skills dimension like staff, skills, shared values,style. Since the company was already doing good on the hard dimensions, it was important to look into the people issues and HR processes.

2. Overall company strategy, structure were not affected. The company decided to look into the softer aspects of things.

3. It is a deep change since it impacts the employee morale. Employees are the most important assets of an organization and can make or break the company. For the sucess of a company it is important employees are motivated and giving their best efforts. Culture of an organization runs deep into everything remotely associated with the company and it detremines how customers would view this company. A company which does not care for its employees will not have a good image outside which finally impacts the company balance sheet.

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