How to Create a Change Implementation Plan

Introduction 

Employee sales tracking is considerately an important process because it helps to document employee activity. Therefore, sales tracking has a great potential regarding the betterment of the workforce environment (Bekarian et al., 2006). Tracking sales is critical to business operations since it gives the company a vibrant culture of accountability, supports the business’ strategy and enhances the morale of employees. There are numerous approaches which an organization can use to determine and track its sales on an employee-employee basis. Usually, the data collected may feed the informational needs of the company in order to improve productivity and to motivate employees. According to Kashima, Matsumoto & Ishii, (2010) , organizations will usually pick the most suitable sales tracking system based on managerial preferences and the availability of resources. Through tracking sales, an employer is able to monitor job performance and further to encourage professionalism. This essay seeks to document the implementation of an already identified new method of tracking sales that will involve a significant change of process for the company’s sales associates. 

Point of Sale (POS) Systems as the Type of Change 

The point of sale (POS) systems is a tracking sales system that is well-suited for restaurants and retail businesses. This tracking sales system comprises a terminal in the form of a computer which is connected to a register, an optical scanner, a bar code reader and even a magnetic strip reader. The system has been established to have the ability to record business transactions efficiently and with maximum accuracy. In most instances, this tracking system is often connected to the internet to help process inserted information much quickly. According to Bekarian et al., (2006), the organization can also make a request for the inclusion of specific features to the system in such a manner as to suit the company demands, which in this case is the tracking of sales. All of the staff within the organization are responsible for the provision of information which is then fed into the system. The use of POS sales tracking allows the management to employ unique staff-identification mechanisms, used for logging transactional information. This, in turn, ensures the maintenance of proper records. Furthermore, users are able to monitor all the remuneration due to them as per their input in terms of working hours (Fallin et al., 2008) . 

Change Process Necessary to Implement the Plan 

Studies have highlighted the fact that, selecting a suitable POS system for implementation within any organization has always been a difficult task (Fallin et al., 2008). Advisably, firms ought to roll out acquired POS systems in phases. This change process is to be rolled out in phases, in which case the very first one will entail identifying suitable and appropriate software before the business can successfully transition to utilizing the intentioned system. Implementation of the POS system is a delicate matter whose effectiveness is highly determined by the proceedings as detailed below: 

First, the involvement of staff in the selection process. It is important to note that any successful implementation of POD starts long before the particular software has been chosen, therefore, there is the need to engage the entire workforce throughout the process of the selection that occasions the acquisition of a system (Kashima, Matsumoto & Ishii, 2010) . The management must be able to identify potential pain points for staffs throughout the operation. This pain points should then be applied to the creation of comprehensive need and requirement document that is to entail all features that the POS should desirably have, as per employee specifications. For example, when the complaint raised is a lack of effective communication from the primary server, then the system should integrate functionality so as to enhance effective cross-team communication. 

Secondly, make sure that the system comprises the following key capabilities; Sales reporting and analytics- which is to provide in-depth transparency of the company’s data, and inventory management which will definitely automate the most tedious manual inventories regarding counting and re-ordering. Furthermore, customer care should help when it comes to gathering valuable business information from clients. This enables the establishment of loyalty reward programs. Employee management is critical for tracking the working hours of employees, their adherence to schedules and also their levels of satisfaction relative to rewarding mechanisms available within the business. Check out tools that help improve accuracy at the checkout with auto-pricing. 

The third process involves training employees on how to utilize the system. Vendors play a role here by offering various options for training. According to Bekarian et al., (2006), the organization has to adopt policies that engage its staffs through POS demos and various training options. It is important to ensure that all of the employees involved are reliable and can dedicate their time to learning. 

Creation of procedures for mobile POS usage is the next critical step as far as implementation is concerned. This is especially essential whereby the organization wishes to use mobile devices to perform their POS operations like iPad POS systems. Initial best practice must be established and then explained to the staff as pertains the use of mobile POD devices (Kashima, Matsumoto & Ishii, 2010) . The guideline developed must be dynamic and flexible in order that it may respond to changing market forces. 

The last step is the establishment of security measures specifically for the implementation of the new POS system. This should be in terms of a credit card records and in accordance with customer history data. It is advisable that the company acquires a system believed to be EMV compliant and installs software to deter theft from employees (Fallin et al., 2008). 

Recommendation for Dealing with Resistance to the Change 

A departure from traditions associated with an organization such as the introduction of new POS is expected to attract massive resistance from employees amongst other stakeholders (Kashima, Matsumoto & Ishii, 2010) . The first step in dealing with resistance to change is to undertake change management right from the beginning. Resistance to change can easily be prevented if the management adopts and applies effective change management protocol. Change management helps deal with potential resistance and helps also in engaging staffs towards the change. The management must communicate effectively to all staff the need and inevitability of change. Secondly, it is important to anticipate change resistance from staffs. This will help the management to identify potential motivations for resistances so as to deal with them proactively. 

Thirdly, management must formally manage potential change resistance through preparing adequately for the change, effectively managing the change and reinforcing the change. According to Bekarian et al., (2006), to effectively manage the resistance to change, it is important to focus on potential symptoms, and this includes; voiced complaints, employee turnover and failure to adapt to the processes of change. The primary causes of resistance to change include; lack of proper awareness, fear of the unknown, lack of proper communication, lack of managerial commitment and rigidity of business cultures. Firstly, it is important to engage what is consider as the right people to manage the resistance such as senior leaders and even frontline supervisors. 

Conclusion 

Immediately the organization begins tracking sales using POS system by employees; the management will make use of the information obtained in a number of ways. For instance, employee shifts can be significantly adjusted through adding or even reducing the number of personnel. Therefore, POS system is suitable when it comes to motivating employees through introducing incentives which will help increase the productivity of employees. The organization will benefit from this tracking system by experiencing increased sales volume, reduce employee turnover and further eliminate potential workplace accidents. 

References 

Bekarian, N., Payne-Sturges, D., Edmondson, S., Chism, B., & Woodruff, T. J. (2006). Use of point-of-sale data to track usage patterns of residential pesticides: methodology development. Environmental Health , 5 (1), 1. 

Fallin, D. B., Clark, J. J., Tribbey, S. A., & Lynch, R. K. (2008). U.S. Patent No. 7,388,495 . Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. 

Kashima, T., Matsumoto, S., & Ishii, H. (2010). Recommendation method with rough sets in restaurant point of sales system. In Proceedings of the International MultiConference of Engineers and Computer Scientists (Vol. 3).