The British Airways Debacle

1. From the perspective of organizational development; there should be a planned, top-down, organizational-wide effort to increase the organizational effectiveness and health. On the other hand the wild cat strike happened because there was forced imposition. There was a unilateral decision taken to introduce swipe cards (Palmer, Dunford, & Akin, 2009). It was not thought out well because it was introduced at the beginning of the summer quarter, which is also at the start of the peak holiday season. From the perspective of sense making; the management needs to form an awareness of the key elements relevant to the situation. In addition, the management must form an understanding of the means in some bounded context, based on past experiences, training, education and cognitive capabilities. Finally making decisions by generating alternative response action to control the situation, identifying the objectives, constraints, and factors that influence the feasibility and desirability of each alternative. In BA the management did not form an awareness of key elements; they did not realize that the move was being interpreted to manipulate their working patterns. The management did not understand the importance of not introducing an unpopular system before the peak season. Finally, this was not a decision made by examining different alternatives and evaluating them properly. This was an ad hoc decision taken by the management without considering its consequences. From the point of view of change management; there strength of organizational dissatisfaction, vision for the future and possibility of immediate, tactical action must be stronger than the resistance within the organization. In case of BA, the resistance was greater than the organizational dissatisfaction with the present system, the vision for the future and the possibility of immediate, tactical action. The employees did not want the change, they felt that the swipe system would be used to manipulate their working patterns and shift hours (Palmer et al., 2009). From the perspective of contingency; the management is supposed to identify what can go wrong in the given situation. The contingency events were not identified by the BA management and it was not prepared with plans and strategies and approaches for staying away from contingencies, coping with or even exploiting the contingencies. The BA management had not planned for the event that the imposition of the swipe card would lead to rejection by workers of the swipe card and that the workers would go on a strike. From the point of view of process; it is necessary for the management to methodologically study the process of employee decision making, employee concerns about swipe cards and reason for rising absenteeism. In addition, the management did not study how the step to introduce swipe cards would be viewed as a prelude to shake up in the working hours. The management did not study the mood of the employees, the effect of lack of consultation, poor pay rates and dissatisfaction with the management.
2. From the perspective of organizational development; I will advise that the change should be well planned, the objectives of the change should be communicated clearly to the employees and they should be made a part of the decision. From the perspective of sense making; I would advise the management to understand the key elements and the context. Next I would recommend the management should generate alternatives and evaluate each option before making a decision. From the perspective of change management; I will recommend that BA management should first set a vision for the organization, then it must assess the dissatisfaction with the current system, next it must suggest tactical action that is acceptable to the employees and then suggest action. From the perspective of contingency; I would recommend that the BA officials should assess all the contingencies that are possible because of the change and should develop risk reduction strategies. From the perspective of process; I would recommend that the BA management should methodically study the process of employee decision making and evaluate the manner in which the management action will affect the process of decision making of BA management.
3. To understand the swipe card issue in the best possible manner it is useful to use different change perspectives because they view the incident from different theoretical stand points. In addition, using different perspectives focuses on different aspects of the problem and how it blew up, for instance, organizational development may show us that the introduction of swipe card was not properly planned, the objectives were not clearly communicated and the employees were not made a part of the decision making process. However, from the process perspective we understand that that the process of employee decision making needs to be studied and the effect of the decision on employees should be understood.
4. The broad conclusions that emerge from this analysis are that when BA wants to undertake a change, it must plan its change in advance, it must communicate the change clearly and make employees part of the decision that may affect them. BA should set a vision for the company and should assess the degree of dissatisfaction employees have with the present system. BA employee hare having a high rate of absenteeism which means there is low job satisfaction and low morale. The management did not understand the key issues before deciding to introduce the swipe card. Most important, the BA officials did not have an idea about the decision making process that will affect employees.

References
Palmer, I., Dunford, T., & Akin, G. (2009). Managing organizational change: A multiple perspectives approach (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: McGraw Hill.