Uber Organization
Summary
The Uber Technologies Inc. has been one of the core investors in the sharing economy system. It has incorporated technology and transport/delivery to enhance convenience for both the drivers and the riders or individuals seeking to deliver. However, the company has faced many public relations (PR) scandals of late focusing on its leadership and policies towards its drivers. These issues have forced to company to implement crucial changes to its organizational culture to accommodate both the needs of the drivers to make a “proper” living and the need for the customers to get competitive pricing policies for the services offered. The company has also had to change its hierarchy leadership to include more women in a bid to meet the expectations of gender equality in the modern society. Shareholders that seek to maintain the bottom line as profitable as possible have mainly driven resistance to such changes. However, failure to change is not an option. This is because the market is dynamic and constantly changing. Therefore, strategic advantage in the market is drawn from the ability to adapt to the changes and utilizing such uncertainty and dynamism to the business bottom line and brand equity advantages.
Introduction
Uber Technologies Inc. is a network company specializing in the transportation networking. It primarily develops, operates, and markets the Uber mobile apps crucial in transportation and delivery services. The organization has its headquarters in San Francisco in the United States. The company is well known in the world, and it has started its operations in various cities. In fact, the firm has a presence in over 570 countries. Notably, Uber drivers often use their vehicles to operate with the company. However, drivers can still rent a car and work with the Uber Company (Glöss, 2016). Uber-Company has been an inventor in the sharing economy. Notably, the organization software app demands the drivers to obtain a smartphone to ensure efficiency in their work.
Changes Taking Place in the Organization
According to Lozano (2015), Uber Technologies Inc. is undergoing several changes in the market. This is because of the increasing popularity of the transport and delivery services it is offering. Additionally, the enterprise is also transforming to align with the specific needs and wants of the customers as well as the wellbeing of the Uber drivers. There is a need to strike a balance between the earnings of drivers and the need to ensure that the pricing policy of Uber is competitive in the market. For example, Lozano (2015) further argues that the company is seeking to ensure that it collects logbooks from the drivers after a short time, and they should bring the cars to the organization after a brief period for inspection and appraisal. Moreover, the Uber drivers are required to keep all fuel record for their cars. The company is doing further investigations on their drivers by collecting their IDs and comparing them with the file photo. In fact, if the ID profile and that in the file does not match the company closes the drivers account while carrying out appropriate investigations. The company wants to make sure that drivers working full time earn a living wage (Lozano, 2015). In this case, it intends to collect the location data of their customers even when they are not using the app. For instance, the organization wants to track the rider during first five minutes after the journey ends. At the same time, Uber is undergoing a significant cultural shift internally to reflect the standards and the public relations expectations in the society; for example, the company is seeking to have a new leadership system that will include more women and minorities.
What is driving the Changes?
According to Glöss, (2016), the company needed to make it easier for the drivers to get the required working environment. This explains why the firm wanted all the drivers to give their logbooks to the enterprise. The company wanted to ensure that their customers’ safety is guaranteed. The submission of the drivers’ IDs to the organization was to make sure that illegal business does not take place (Glöss, 2016). The blog post by a former engineer in the company giving details on the sexual harassment she went through working with Uber advocated for several changes to take place. She claimed that the human resource management in that organization ignored the issue. The New York Times exposed details on the growing culture of corruption and harassment; this has made Uber to consider making significant changes to their leadership structure and personnel. The tape that leaked to Bloomberg showing an argument between the CEO Travis Kalanick and a driver over cutting prices advocated for changes.
The Conflict that May Be Experienced When Trying to Make the Changes
According to Cummings (2014), the drivers might not be willing to submit their IDs to the company. The leaders in this organization might not be prepared to stop the harassment to their workers. Additionally, the employees resist change because they fear to lose their job or status in the organization after the modification. The drivers will not be willing to submit their logbooks to the company since they feel that their role is reduced. The managers who are affected by the changes feel that the changes are harmful to their place in the organization (Cummings, 2014). Many people including the stakeholders in the organization will resist change if there are no rewards given to those who comply with the changes. Some members resist change to protect their co-workers and to protect their interest. The mistrust between the people in the company makes them hesitate to accept the changes. The employees may fail to comply with the changes since they fear that they will fail to reach their requirements.
Change Management Model
ADKAR Model
This theory of change makes it possible for the management team to focus on the activities that are directly connected to what they want to achieve. According to Lozano (2015), people must get the results using a particular orderly fashion to maintain and implement the change for a long time. The model is useful to the managers of change as it helps them to find the different gaps in the process of management change. Additionally, the managers can provide adequate training to their workers (Lozano, 2015). The model would provide support to the Uber employees to go through the process of transition as the change management is taking place as well. Through this model, the resistance shown by the employees towards change is treated. Therefore, any employee in the Uber-organization who is resistance to change can get treatment thereby making change happen. Additionally, the model would introduce an efficient strategy for professional and personal improvements of workers during the modification.
The selected model is suitable in this context as it provides the ability for people to identify why the changes in the Uber-organization are delayed or why they are not working. In fact, with such an understanding then organization can implement other plans that would help them adapt to change. It helps people to break the transitions into parts so that they can realize where change might not be effective as planned. The model also provides a dimension of change to both people and the business. For instance, the case where CEO shouted at the Uber driver and decided to change his leadership this model would help him change too.
Apply System Thinking to Impact Organizational Change
People in the organization use system thinking to identify their personal values in the body. They can provide appropriate solutions to the problems facing the company. For instance, the CEO of the Uber-organization after identifying the problem he caused by shouting at the driver promised to change his leadership (Glöss, 2016). The managers can use the system to develop the strategies that the organization can use to implement change and avoid resistance. Therefore, the use of system thinking is improving the way employees, and the managers comply with the changes. System thinking acts as a tool that helps people to understand the current situation of the organization. System thinking will help people trust each other in the organization and therefore ready for a change.
Strategies and Innovations that can Implement Change
Resistance is often present among the employees when changes are applied in an organization. The resistance occurs because of workers fear that they might lose their jobs because of these changes. Therefore, the managers in that institution should come up with strategies to enable change to take maximum effect. Firstly, the organization should ensure that there are transparency and effective communication. Therefore, it is important for Uber managers to communicate the reasons for the change to their employees. In this case, the managers should make the workers aware of the process needed to make these changes (Lozano, 2015). As the staffs understand why these changes are taking place, there is a higher chance they will agree with the application of the changes and the benefits in them. Secondly, the employees should be provided with education and training to understand and adapt to the changes in the workplace. Thirdly, is the provision of personal counseling to the employees who feel affected by the changes?
Role of Communication in an Organization
The company should have a transparency and effective communication. It is through communication that the managers can explain the reasons for the change to their workers. Communication helps an organization to identify dangers that can be because of change before they have implemented the change (Cummings, 2014). Through discussion, the managers can discover risk during the planning process. Communication helps the stakeholders to understand the benefits of change and the impact these changes has on their role. Additionally, communication makes the employees to be involved in change to make the transition successful.
Ways to Motivate Stakeholders
The organization can motivate the stakeholders to accept the changes by implementing these transitions in small steps. In fact, by doing so, the stakeholders will adapt to the changes successfully. The Uber organization can choose to fire the employees who were engaged in various reported problems. Thereby, making the stakeholders feel secure while working with the team. The team can reward the stakeholders who are already supporting the transitions (Cameron, 2015). By doing so, the organization will be motivating other stakeholders to be in support of these changes. Communication with the stakeholders should be carried out during the transition to help them understand the reasons and the benefits of these transitions.
Training Required for Successful Implementation of Change
The workers should be trained on how to adapt to the changes in the organization to reach the goals set. The employee should be given training on how to apply the changes made in the organization. Training should be provided to the members to help them understand the reason behind the changes and the benefits they bring to them (Cummings, 2014). They should also get assistance on how they can overcome the fear of change. The affected workers get support from those implementing change to accept the changes made. Training helps to improve the success of an organization change. Moreover, it promotes employee engagement in the change process.
Strategies for Sustaining Organizational Change
The managers should make sure that they always communicate the need for change to the workforce. In fact, information about change should be transmitted continuously to help the workers maintain their stand on the change that happened. The managers should get people involved early and often; this will be crucial in helping the workers to understand the benefits of the change (Lewis, 2016). The managers should understand the nature of resistance to make the participants willing to sustain the changes made. Create opportunities for smaller but meaningful change that helps to win more allies and lessen the resistance rate. Providing support to the employees throughout the change effort and allow workers to talk with people who have encountered such changes.
How Stakeholders are Involved in Organizational Change
The stakeholders are informed of the changes before they take place in the organization. Therefore, they are given a chance to make some suggestions on the change. The stakeholders should only agree to the changes that they believe will benefit them and the business at large. Therefore, in case the changes cause more harm to the organization the stakeholders will be held responsible (Cameron, 2015). The stakeholders should avoid any resistance to the evolution by trying to protect their co-workers. In fact, they should accept any changes that are supposed to solve the issue facing the management despite them affecting their group members.
Recommendations: How to Measure the Success of Organizational Change
The organization should set its expectation that way they can compare their success to their expectations. The organization can measure its success by focusing on the metrics that their leaders value. The company should have an agreement on what data to be tracked and by whom. Therefore, it should include the tracking responsibilities in individuals’ objectives. In fact, this will increase the possibility that they will be tracked and reward the people for doing so (Lewis, 2016). The leaders should review the organization results to which those results will be measured. The management should gather subjective response from the people working with the transitions. These reactions will assist describe benefits, and the lessons learned. The tracked results should be used to support the firm cases for future enterprises. The management should communicate the outcomes to the whole business. This helps increase the involvement of people and helps them to learn from mistakes.
References
Cameron, E., & Green, M. (2015). Making sense of change management: a complete guide to the models, tools and techniques of organizational change. Kogan Page Publishers.
Cummings, T. G., & Worley, C. G. (2014). Organization development and change. Cengage learning.
Glöss, M., McGregor, M., & Brown, B. (2016, May). Designing for labour: Uber and the on-demand mobile workforce. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1632-1643). ACM.
Lewis, S., Passmore, J., & Cantore, S. (2016). Appreciative inquiry for change management: Using AI to facilitate organizational development. Kogan Page Publishers.
Lozano, R., Ceulemans, K., & Seatter, C. S. (2015). Teaching organisational change management for sustainability: designing and delivering a course at the University of Leeds to better prepare future sustainability change agents. Journal of Cleaner Production, 106, 205-215.
Innovative Writers 