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Introduction

Eagle Air is a UK-based airline company that is currently going through a financial crisis and loss due to the sudden hit of the pandemic. This has caused a tremendous market drop and loss in revenue for Eagle Air. EA has a high salary structure and green technological development in their system which costs significantly high. Their pay scale is higher than any other airline in the market which increases employee trust and organisational performance. EA has been listed as a company in the stock market for eight years before it became a private company. This has gained Eagle Air market recognition. However, under the financial trouble, the management has decided to take two strategies: firstly, they aim to merge with Air Fast, a short-haul airline company and secondly, they want to merge with Proxima Alliance, a huge airline company in the global platform with long hauls. The partnership has multiple benefits for the company as it will globalise them and develop its brand power. However, with these changes, the terms and conditions with the employees will be changed as well and a few per cent of the employees will be eliminated for an uncertain time. This can create major trouble for Eagle Air in future, shaking their employee trust. This report highlights the key changes within the company, their manner of change, the effective change implementation process and recommendations for the strategic implementation of the changes through a PESTLE and SWOT analysis of Eagle Air, Nadler's Nature of change model, Kirkpatrick's reactions to change theory and Carnall's coping cycle.

Pestle and SWOT of Eagle Air

Concept of PESTLE and SWOT

PESTLE stands for political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental aspects of a business while SWOT is the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of Eagle Air or the market. There are several micro and macroeconomic factors that can largely impact the business environment. With PESTLE and SWOT analysis, the key opportunities, risks and success factors of a business or a company are analysed (AKMAN, 2020). Thus, these two are the environmental and internal scanning tools for a business. Invented by Francis Aguilar, PESTLE is an environmental scanning tool for a business (Berry, 2017). On the other hand, SWOT, originally known as SOFT (satisfactory, opportunity, fault, threat) analysis, has been modified by Weihrich in a matrix form of internal (strength and weaknesses) and external (opportunities and threats) factors (Put et al. 2020).

PESTLE on Eagle Air

Political: The political parties in the UK are at peace and support the airlines since the travel and tourism industry is one of the main sources of income for the country. Thus, Eagle Air (EA) gets confirmation and support from the local government while being a publicly-owned company and even after its privatisation.

Economic: The economic rise of the company is benchmarking while the rise of the financial position of the employees of Eagle Air is also influential. All of their cast and crew and ground staff are well pain in comparison to their competitive airlines (Burke & Litwin, 1992). They have a high demand and revenue structure due to their focus on green technologies. However, the economic situation has completely changed after the hit of the pandemic. During the pandemic, they have had a loss of £120, 000 a day, especially due to their salary structure.

Social: The social aspect of the business is highly promising before the pandemic. However, after the pandemic, the social demand for travelling has significantly decreased, resulting in a fall in revenue and profitability.

Technological: Eagle Air is technologically advanced as they are using green technologies that cost more than other airline technologies.

Legal: The key legal factors of Eagle Air are based on its standards and regulations. EA has a strong set of standards for their internal and external stakeholders that keep them at bay from any legal repercussions.

Environmental: One of the best aspects of EA is their environmental concern for which they invest a lot more to have green technologies for flying.

SWOT on Eagle Air

Strength: The key strength of Eagle Air is that they have high employee trust, organisational performance and employee retention policies. They have a strong marketing technique by making their company public and available in the stock market for eight long years. It increases the travel demand with EA.

Weaknesses: The current weaknesses after the pandemic includes low travel demand, inflation of fuel price and other aeroplane commodities such as food, drinks, toiletries and luxury products for the passengers. The company is going through severe losses after the pandemic which weakens its financial strength.

Opportunities: The use of green technologies and high-profile salaries for their employees is a great opportunity for them to stay intact in the market.

Threats: The increasing number of competitors who can provide luxurious flights at cheaper prices due to their strict salary structure and low-quality technologies can become a major threat to Eagle Air as they have a high load of demand in the market.

Nature of change displays Nadler's (1995) model

Eagle Air is going through a low of internal and external changes due to its financial loss during the pandemic. Currently, the target markets of EA include both long- and short-haul locations. With this technique, the business will further improve its pay structure to make it more cost-effective for its profitability during this economic downturn. In order to do this, the merger with Air Fast and Proxima Alliance will start the employee wage structure based on these two businesses. In the following, the incremental and transformational changes of Eagle Air are highlighted. As per the model of Nadler, these two changes can occur under different circumstances of a company.

Recreation: In this form of change, the change is recognised late and not pre-planned. In a moment of crisis where there is a lack of time and resources, recreation can occur (Chowdhury & Shil, 2022). The recreational change cannot be reversed and undone. It occurs in the desperate need for change. Nadler and Tushman identify the recreational change as the frame-breaking change instead of the frame-bending change. The frame is identified as the current or existing organisational system of the company (ZHU & JONES, 2014).

The merger with the two companies (one that focuses on short-haul and another on long-haul) provides EA with more cutting-edge facilities for the growth of Eagle Air. This is the recreational change of the company.

Tuning and adaption: Due to the anticipation of external aspects, the change of tuning occurs while adaptation takes place after the reaction of the external factors (Alhezzani, 2020). However, in this form of change, the change is generally incremental or gradual.

The external factors such as reducing the number of employees in the time of financial crisis, and decreasing their salary structure can be well predicted from their loss after the pandemic. However, the continuous and incremental changes that occurred in the company are related to their position and terms with their internal stakeholders. The merger will effectively change the company's regulations and give them the strategic process not only to cut their cost short but also to increase their service and market demand.

Re-orientation: Unlike tuning and adaptation, the change in the reorientation is discontinued after some time. The change due to the anticipation of external factors takes place. However, unlike incremental change, transformational change of this sort is discontinued due to the lack of demand (ZHU & JONES, 2014). However, the major changes in the form of the value, mission, vision, company profile and more are changed through the reorientation process that provides a complete transformation of the company (Ford & Ford, 1995).

Under this form of change, the company, though retaining its name, is changing their mission and value. Their current aim is to target both long-haul and short-haul destinations covering multiple locations such as Edinburgh, London, Paris, New York, Singapore, Sydney and Johannesburg. Under this system, the company will further enhance their salary structure to make it more cost-cutting for its profitability in this financial crisis. For this, the merger with Air Fast and Proxima Alliance will initiate the salary structure of the employees based on these two companies. With these changes, Eagle Air is going through a transformational change that will change and reshape its current market position in the airline industry.

Reactive or proactive case: With proactive change, the changes are implemented actively with tuning and reorientation. Eagle Air is aiming to avoid the potential future threat with their partnership with large companies and with their global expansion. However, in the reactive change, the changes are implemented or made after facing some threats and issues. Eagle Air has faced several financial challenges after the pandemic. Once these challenges and threats have occurred, they have implemented the changes. Therefore, their changes are highly reactive as well.

Employees' reaction to the change: theory is Kirkpatrick’s reactions to change and Carnall’s coping cycle

Eagle Air has taken the decision of cutting the employee salary abruptly without any prior negotiation. The terms and conditions with the employees are to be changed permanently which can make a disastrous impact on employee trust. Besides, they have also taken the decision to discharge and fire many employees without any prior notice. The pandemic has already increased the threat to life. At this stage, if employees get financial insecurity, it can have huge repercussions on their professional and personal lifestyle, changing the brand position of the company as well. There is a proper change implementation strategy that EA needs to follow. In his theory of change, Kirkpatrick highlights the steps to manage change strategically. At the initial stage, the requirements must be shaped properly. There should be proper motivation or aspiration for a change (Cahapay, 2021). The formulation of an uncertain strategy can make a positive impact on the situation. Besides, the company must properly investigate all possible feedback. The feedback of the employees, the top management of EA and the unions regarding their change in terms and conditions of employment has raised nothing but anger. The employees, when they come to know this, will also be enraged by the sudden change in the situation. However, as per the theory, one must create an ultimate result for successful change management. A schedule and plan for change implementation must also be made (Cahapay, 2021). In this case, the company must have strong opinions and a communication process with the employees regarding the change.

Kirkpatrick focuses on three elements of change management: empathy, participation and communication (Sahni, 2020). The change will never be beneficial for all. Therefore, those that have a negative impact due to the change, must be treated with empathy, strong communication and participation. People's reaction to change is different based on their position due to the change (Sahni, 2020). Thus, an empathetic attribute towards them can bring a positive response from them. For this, the management should put itself in the place of the employees which will have a negative impact due to the change implementation. In that process, it can well understand the struggles of the employees at their level. Therefore, the change can be modified with a more impactful process of change implementation. Besides, participation with the employees and effective communication can soften either response and attitude towards the change implementation. Therefore, Eagle Air should follow this process.

Besides, the Kotteler’s theory of 8-step change model is further impactful in assessing the employee reaction assessment with sudden change and implementation. Another theory regarding change management is Carnall’s coping cycle which was developed to analyse the reaction of the employees due to the change within an organisation. As per this model, there is five different behaviour:

Denial: Employees do not accept the change since they fear the unknown future (Ong et al. 2021).

Defence: Employees tend to defend their current job roles and positions since they are insecure about the positivity of the changes.

Discarding: They discard all the new possibilities due to uncertainty.

Adaptation: In this stage, they slowly start to adapt to the new changes and understand the need for the change. Eagle Air must work hard and be effectively communicative towards the employees to get to this stage.

Internalisation: In this final stage, the employees internalise the change and cope with the new things (Ong et al. 2021).

After knowing that the salary of the employees will be suddenly decreased without any formal notice, some power might revolt. Therefore, the management must present and share the financial details of the company. If the financial loss of the company continues in this manner, the company will go bankrupt soon and will have to shut down forcefully, ending all of their source of financial security abruptly. However, in implementing these two strategies and making these changes, the company can further develop in the global platform by increasing opportunities for the employees in future. Besides, those that are to be temporarily terminated from the company will soon rejoin them after the financial development. With this process, the anger can be controlled by the management. Besides, the employees might feel safe that they are growing globally and increasing opportunities for the future. In this process, the employees will have high hopes that they are still getting high payments from many of the other employees in this field. Thus Eagle Air can provide a comparison chart of their current salary structure with another company in the market that has a lower pay scale. In this process, the positive aspects of the new changes are more focused on by the entire team.

Lewin's force field analysis (1951) and Kotter's 8-step model (1996) analysis on Eagle Air

Kurt Lewin has developed a simple and fortified organisational change management process with the Force Field Analysis tool. The key driving forces for change management, as per this model, are a new form of leadership, new market opportunities, high competition in the marketplace, increasing demand, internal pressure, high incentives, legal and regulatory factors, public interests and so on (Ramos, Enteria & Norona, 2021). On the other hand, the key restraining forces include fear of an uncertain future, fear of getting out of the comfort zone, fear of change, past experiences with change, authoritative bureaucratic structure, employees' unions, and so on. In Eagle Air, the key resistors to change are fear of an uncertain future, fear of getting out of the comfort zone, fear of change, past experiences with change and so on. With impactful leadership and strong communication, these resistors are successfully mitigated.

 

Table 1: resistant and driving factors of Lewin’s force field analysis

 

There should be a proper balance between these two factors based on effective communication.

Besides, as per Kotter's 8-step model, the following steps must be implemented by EA for change implementation:

 

Creating a sense of urgency: EA must communicate the current issues and financial losses of the company that lead to complete catastrophe for all. The urgent need to implement these strategies must be conveyed to the employees for their benefit.

Putting Together a Guiding Coalition: The right choice of skilful people must be made through this stage. The guiding team that will help to manage the change must be selected by EA with proper care.

 Developing Vision and Strategies: The stories and vision must be well developed to strengthen the current need for changes.

Proper communication: The entire team will be handled with care by proper communicative strategies, as theory is Kirkpatrick's reactions to change also a highlight.

Removal of barriers: All the factors that hinder the process of change must be removed strategically by EA. for example, if an employee or a manager is completely against this change, must be removed from the discussion.

Short-term goals: Eagle Air must develop short-term goals for change and showcase evidence of success in these goals.

Build on the change: The change must be enhanced with each and every accomplishment. For example, in future, the pay scale of the employees must be developed to see a rise in revenue.

To stick with the change: To make the change permanent and incremental is highly required.

Based on these two theories, EA must have an effective change management strategy. Some power may rebel after learning that the employees' pay would be abruptly reduced without formal notification. As a result, the management is required to disclose and present the company's financial information. If Eagle Air's financial losses continue in this way, it will soon declare bankruptcy and be forced to shut down, abruptly eliminating all of its sources of income. However, by putting these two methods into practice and making these adjustments, the business will have more future employment prospects, which will help it grow on a worldwide scale. Additionally, people who will be temporarily let go by the organisation will quickly return once the financial situation improves. The management of rage is possible through this technique. Additionally, the fact that they are expanding internationally and have more opportunities in the future may make the employees feel secure. The workers will enter this process with high expectations that they will continue to receive high pay from many of the other workers in this industry. As a result, the business can offer a comparison chart between its current pay scale and that of a competitor in the market. The entire team is concentrating more during this process on the advantageous aspects of the new changes.

 

Why is Change Management Important?

Change is constant, and understanding how to manage it is essential for various reasons:

1. Organizational Efficiency: Effective change management ensures a smooth transition when implementing new processes, technology, or strategies, minimizing disruptions.

2. Employee Engagement: Properly managed change can boost employee morale, reduce resistance, and enhance engagement during transitions.

3. Strategic Alignment: Change management helps align organizational goals with execution, increasing the likelihood of achieving desired outcomes.

4. Risk Mitigation: It minimizes the risks associated with change, helping organizations avoid costly mistakes and setbacks.

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1. Expertise: The team at Best Assignment Experts comprises experienced professionals with a deep understanding of change management. They can provide valuable insights and assistance on various aspects of this field.
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Conclusion

Due to the abrupt pandemic impact, Eagle Air, a UK-based airline firm, is currently experiencing a financial problem and loss. Due to this, the company has seen a severe market decline and revenue loss. EA has a high compensation structure and has invested heavily in developing green technology for its system. Since they are paid more than any other airlines on the market, this boosts employee loyalty and organisational effectiveness. However, as a result of these mergers, some people may lose their jobs for an undetermined period of time and the terms and conditions with the employees will also change. This could cause the business serious problems down the road and undermine employee confidence. The management should put themselves in the position of the employees who will suffer as a result of the implementation of the change. It can clearly comprehend the problems of the employees at their level because of that process. As a result, the change can be modified with a more effective change implementation process. Additionally, involvement from the workforce and effective communication can moderate reactions and attitudes toward the implementation of change. Eagle Air should therefore adhere to this procedure.