Employee’s Resistance and Organizational Change

Picture 1

Source; (Stoyka, 2019)

Introduction

Organizational change is that the movement of a business from one state of affairs to a different one. When the change of environment is to demand a change in the organization their processes, products, and people. Change is a must to keep continuously. It is very much difficult because people often resist it and different cultures can have different responses to the change. To better facilitate necessary changes, several steps require to be taken for a better transformation process

Change Factors

Company’s are not operating alone. They are open systems that change with their external environment. Also, they have an internal environment. Organization change happened due to internal and external environmental factors, and the following are outside factors to force the change. Picture 2

Picture 2

Source (Lumenlearning.com, 2017)

Employee Resistance

In every circumstance, change is something new for people. Even though change is deliberate to be a benefit for the organization or its employees, the employees’ behavior is not always for change. Resistance to change is the staff’s normal reaction to the change process. (Viorel, el, 2016). Many change efforts fail because employees resist change. It will create costs and breaks in the management process. So, management needs to consider peoples’ resistance in order to create a suitable change process.

‌People fear the undesired consequences so they resist to change. Every change produces new situations in the organization. The most common cause of employee resisting change is individual interest, misunderstanding of change implication, and tolerance. Cause of employee resistance. Picture3

Picture 3

Fear of Failure

Employees may have the willingness and want to learn new skills and implement change But they will feel fear that they don’t have the right knowledge and or abilities for it. So manages have to identify Staff abilities according to the proposed change. If Staff doesn’t have proper abilities change will be unsuccessfully implemented. First, need to train employees and build their trust and need to feel confutable applying the knowledge they acquired. Then they have the feeling that they have the right skills to transform processes. (Lumenlearning.com. 2017)

Mistrust and lack of confidence

The most important thing is employee trust in the management. When they trust and feel confident with the leader they are franker to change otherwise employees resist it. People are most of the time more likely to work with a leader who understands their needs or daily job problems

Emotional Response

The sentimental response of people has a strong impact on the employee’s rejection of organizational change. This occurred because people are reacting to anything that changes their working routine work pattern. So manages have to forecast these feelings of employees and understand unhappiness leads to failure to change. Manages have to explain to their people why this change is important and to stress, the output change is going to provide

Poor Communication

Communication is the key factor of the change process. If Staff has so many issues of information why change is important and what are the things going to improve the proposed change. They are going to refuse. The company needs to share information very clearly and poor communication creates doubts about change and changes outcomes.

Timeline

Time is an essential characteristic of change. Managers have to identify Urgency and the time of transition because if they try to speed it up where is not in an emergency situation employees may resist accepting the change and they think to change is not properly evaluated. Employees also need some period of time to understand the change.

Conclusion

Due to the competitive market company need to change because of internal and external factors. The change will be productive and cost-effective. Organizational change has a big impact on Control and individual employees. Change can be successful with a better understanding of people's behaviors and their active contributions. Proper employee motivation can allow positive organizational change.

References

Jones, J. (2016). Managing Organizational Change with an HR Department of One. [online] SHRM. Available at: https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/behavioral-competencies/relationship-management/pages/managing-organizational-change-with-an-hr-department-of-one.aspx [Accessed 5 Dec. 2021].

Kotter. (2021). The 8-Step Process for Leading Change | Dr. John Kotter. [online] Available at: https://www.kotterinc.com/8-step-process-for-leading-change/ [Accessed 5 Dec. 2021].

Lumenlearning.com. (2017). Forces of Change | Organizational Behavior and Human Relations. [online] Available at: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm-organizationalbehavior/chapter/forces-of-change/ [Accessed 5 Dec. 2021].

Stoyka, M. (2019). Struggling with Employee Resistance to Change? Matt Stoyka Has Some Tips. [online] Rackspace Technology. Available at: https://www.rackspace.com/en-au/solve/struggling-employee-resistance-change-matt-stoyka-has-some-tips [Accessed 8 Dec. 2021].

Shrm.org. (2021). JOSSO 2 by Atricore. [online] Available at: https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/toolkits/pages/managingorganizationalchange.aspx [Accessed 5 Dec. 2021].

Viorel Cornescu and Adam, R. (2016). Organizational Change — Managing Employees Resistance. [online] ResearchGate. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309745905_Organizational_Change_-_Managing_Employees_Resistance [Accessed 5 Dec. 2021].