8605-417 Managing and Implementing Change Within the Workplace

Unit Overview

8605-417 Managing and Implementing Change within the workplace is one of the main units within the ILM Level 4 modules that focuses on improving ability to manage change effectively within the organisation. The workplace experiences significant change that arises due to the changing external environment or need for the organisations to effectively adapt internally. Change is inevitable implying that leaders within the organisations must be always prepared to effectively handle and implement change within their areas of operation and responsibility.

This is a process that ensures the organisation is able to succeed and adapt to the disruptions that may arise within the change. The process of managing and implementing change requires the managers to be able to effectively conduct an organisational and environmental analysis to understand the areas that need to change and understand the capability of the people they are leading to effectively handle the change.

It also involves being able to effectively implement change and provide support to the organisation in the process. 8605-417 Managing and Implementing Change within the workplace is a unit with the aim and purpose of increasing ability and awareness on approaches to manage and implement change to ensure it is successful within the workplace hence improving the managerial performance of the leaders. The unit is taught in 24 hours of guided learning and contributes to 6 credit values in the completion of ILM Level 4 module.

Suitability of the Unit

All leaders must be able to effective implement and manage change in their areas of operation this involves being able to introduce new methods of handling activities in the areas of operation and supporting the people that are being led into effective adapting to the change. As such, 8605-417 Managing and Implementing Change within the workplace is highly applicable to different types of leaders within the organisation.

The unit is designed for middle level managers. This are group of leaders which are actively involved in making tactical decisions which adapt the organisation to different environments. As such, they are more suited to the unit since in the process of fulfilling their managerial roles, they have to handle different changing aspects within the organisation regularly. The unit however, is also suited to the executive management who make critical strategic decisions that align the organisation to the industry level change.

They must be able to understand the nature of change being experienced and the needs of the subjects before implementing the change. First-level managers and team leaders can also pursue the unit to help them build skills that will be useful in future career and professional engagements.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of the unit, the learners should be able to:

• Identify various reasons why organisations have to continually change

• conduct effective environmental and organisational analysis which identified the need for change within the organisation and in the learner’s area of responsibility

• Identify opportunities for change arising from environment and organisational analysis

• Determine the benefits and risks associated with the opportunity for change that has been identified in the organisation hence ensuring it is aligned to the organisational goals and objectives

• Develop an effective implementation plan for the change including an approach to evaluate and monitor the implementing the change and adaption of the people that the learner is leading in embracing the change

• Create new approaches of doing things based on the change that has been implemented within the workplace

Key Learning Areas

8605-417 Managing and Implementing Change within the workplace is a unit that focuses on building ability and skills for effectively handling people in the process of change and ensuring that the change is consistent with the policies and objectives of the organisation. It covers critical areas of learning that are related to this aspects. Some of the main areas that are covered include:

Understanding Reasons for Change

This area of learning focus on ensuring that the learner is able to understand the context of change. Ti introduced them to different environmental and organisational analysis tools such as PESTLE and SWOT analysis which build their ability to evaluate the need for change in the organisation and their specific cares of operation. The area of learning further helps to identify the types of change which are being experienced within the organisation.

There are different types of change that require different adaptability methods to ensure they are achieved the types of change could include developmental, transitional ad transformational change. The learner is guided in identifying the characteristics of each type and hence ensure that they are able to effectively overcome the challenges that may arise in the process of implementing each type of change within the organisation.

Managing Change

This area of learning is important in ensuring that the learner builds the ability to diagnose needs for change based on environmental and organisational analysis and identify the context within which the change is applied in the organisation. They are able also guided to build skills requires in assessing the risks and uncertainties associated with the change and create effective strategies to mitigate the risks.

Implementing change comes about with the need to use different models that have been established to support the decision makers within the organisation. In this case the system theory and process design models are effective tools that can guide the learners in the process of developing and implementing the desired change within the workplace. The Bridge’s transition model or other models of managing the people within the changing process are also introduced to the learners to ensure that their theoretical knowledge is significantly improved hence supporting their ability to effectively implement and manage change.

Evaluation

A written assessment is used to ensure that the learning goals and objectives are achieved. The learner is required to complete a 3000 words assessment where they provide responses to questions within the template that indicate their mastery of the theoretical information that has been taught within the unit.

They are also gauged to ensure they can implement the information in practical setting using case studies and simulated situations or supervised practice where the assessor examines the leaner in the practical organisational context to ensure they can apply the information learned in boosting their professional capabilities.