Organisational Structure - Managing Change

• Understand that the introduction of an information system will result in change – this must be managed.
• Eg.
  BT restructuring
  Supermarkets from 1970’s and nowadays
  
  Factors to consider when planning for change:
• Re-skilling employees
  This may mean an employee doing more tasks than they did previously, and having to use ICT
  A receptionist to a middle manager lucky enough to save his/her job in a reshuffle may find that they become a personal assistant to many managers requiring, significant ICT skills such as Outlook and email

• Attitudes of employees
  Change causes fear and resistance
  Fear they can’t do it
  Fear they are going to be phased out of a job as their job becomes more menial (eg. car workers being replaced by robots with operators)
  Centralised information means other departments can access information without needing to contact other departments directly
  Job regarding can restrict an employees ambitions
  Job satisfaction can be reduced and therefore their motivation
  Information systems often reduce the need for social interaction

• Organisational structure
  Better information across an organisation reduces the need for middle management and therefore flattens the structure
  An MIS makes it easy for strategic management to monitor operations more efficiently and effectively, resulting in better planning and spotting problems sooner
  Many decisions will be made automatically further reducing need for layers of staff (eg. automatic stock re-ordering)

• Employment pattern and conditions
  Many jobs may be lost through redundancy (eg. robots at car plant)
  Times of employment may change to shifts to maintain 24 hour working
  Teleworking may mean more people working from home

• Internal procedures
  The way things are done will change