Case: Change in a union setting

You work for a telecommunication company in the service centre that takes incoming calls from customers. Customer calls include complaints, questions, and requests for changes to their phone plans.

You are the senior manager of the service centre which has 50 unionized employees. You have 3 first-line managers reporting directly to you with the unionized employees reporting to the first-line managers.

As a developmental opportunity, you are about to assign your 3 managers the responsibility for a change project with the objective of implementing a new work process for handling customer calls.

The change is not a particularly complex one in your opinion as it is an enhancement to the existing process. You believe that the seemingly straight forward nature of the change makes it ideal as a developmental opportunity for your managers who have not previously been on lead for a change project.

You are about to make some notes to yourself concerning what key points you want to discuss with your managers when you give them the assignment.

You are going to link your key points to the Kotter and Bridges concepts where possible. What are your top 5 points to make with your managers and why?