Introduction
Organizations are under tremendous pressure to change; these forces come from the competition, the market and consumers (Clardy, 2013). These pressures require more than just increasing work flow; change needs to be introduced. It is therefore important for organization to continually change if there were to grow or even remain in the competition. Burke & Church (1992), state that change has a great impact on organization, with results highly dependent on the management’s ability and skills to support the affected areas and employees. This is especially important because, the concept or idea of change has always been considered as dangerous by employees. However, it is an inevitable phenomenon as organizations must always change in order to survive. According to Bareil (2013), this resistance to change is regarding as one of the main reasons organizations fail to implement change. Change agents are used in order to mitigate the resistance that occurs in organizations. They are able to identity reasons why employees resist change, create and implement strategies to support the change. This paper is going to identify the several reasons why the employees at ABS Corporation may resist the change. Recommendations will be provided as to how resistance can be managed to ensure that the organization’s deliverables are attained.
Role of a change agent
The role of a change agent is to create a climate whereby change is accepted or at the very least tolerated, by
Resistance to change is an expected reaction of human nature. We are not accustomed to change, as it is possible to lead to failure; however, there are also ways to manage the resistance within the company.
As a result, Zwick (2002, p. 542) has noted that implementing change programmes in organisations that realise positive outcomes remain problematic for many organisations in the 21st century. Ayodeji & Oyesola (2011, p. 235) have postulated that organisational change is a dynamic process, which when taken poorly contribute to employee resistance to it, and eventually leads to failure of the whole process. 3|Page Organisation Behaviour; MGTS 1601; Individual Essay; Employee resistance to change Yuanli Zhang 43401163 Employees resist changes when they occur in the organisations for several reasons. Many organisations when they introduce changes are likely to stick to the ‘top-down organisational change’ process (Awasthy, Chandrasekaran & Gupta, 2011, pp.
Bemmels and Reshef (1991) understand it as any employee actions attempting to stop or delay change. Obviously being viewed as adversarial and detrimental, resistance to change has gained a negative connotation (Waddell and Sohal, 1998) that allegedly confounded the problem of effecting change by promulgating a dichotomous thinking of labour versus management (Dent and Goldberg, 1999). Recently, an appreciation of resistance to change from a more pluralistic employee-centred perspective and its role in organizational change (Waddell and Sohal, 1998) has lead to the resistance to change interpretation from a psychological point of view (Conner, 1998), as a natural outcome of people 's internal defence mechanism (Bovey and Hede, 2001), or background conversations among employees that constitute the constructed reality (Ford, Ford, & McNamara, 2002). Paterson and Hartel (2000) interpreted resistance to change as a people 's cognition and affect or the perceived organizational justice done, while Rousseau (1989), McLean Parks and Kidder (1994) find it significantly related with the violation of the employment psychological contract. Resistance to change may be categorized into three groups of factors (Mabin, Forgeson & Green, 2001): organizational, group and individual. Organizational factors are caused by threats presented by unknown or unwelcome organizational structure and process change and threats induced by the environment inside or outside of the organization.
Even though organizational change can be a valid solution to many problems commonly experienced in the current structure of an organization. One of the primary challenges all organizations incur during implementation is change resistance. This would imply that the plan for change should consider issues associated with resistance in order to eliminate or reduce the associated risk factors. An article featured by the Harvard business review by Rosabeth Moss Kanter (2012) identified the most common (10) reasons change is met with resistance:
When change is about to occur within an organization, it is important for resistance of change to be confronted prior to the change happening. Leaders have to take the initiative to understand and analyze the various types of resistance that may occur from the change (Eisold,
Resistance to change is one of the biggest barriers that organizations face in their efforts to implement organizational change. This greatly hampers the uptake of new technologies, new ways of doing work and even progress of organizations. Reviewing on this, the British Journal of
This paper has a clear aim at creating a framework for companies, showing the preeminent method of handling resistance to change. A thorough literature study revealed two distinctive perspectives, with different strategies, advantages and disadvantages. The traditional perspective takes a more negative stance towards resistance to organizational change. There is a clear focus on reducing or even eliminating resistance. More recently, a new and more positive view emerged, stating that resistance is useful and therefore needs to be
Personal impact and fear of change are not the only causes of resistance by individuals during a change to business practices. The lack of respect and negative attitudes can also lead to employees resisting business change. If an employee lacks respect or has a negative attitude towards a person or department leading the change, then there are more likely to oppose the new ideas being implemented. Poor communication greatly impacts individuals’ accepted to new practices in a company. Typically if an employee is given new behaviors to adopt, but is given no reason, then that employee may reject the change. Upper management must effectively relate the value, need and benefit of the change to help get employees on board with new changes. The lack of individual input can also lead to resistance. Some individuals feel the need to be included in new ideas. When employees are not asked to be involved in changes, they may lack the vision of importance or will to change. A heavier workload can also cause opposition among employees. Employees may not embrace more systems and requirements needed
To identify the key elements of the resistanceto change described in this situation, one may make use of the six Change Approaches of Kotter and Schlesinger.[1]The model prevents, minimizes or descreases resistance to change in organizations. According to Kotter and Schlesinger (1979), there are four reasons that why people resist change, three of which are applicable to this case:
According to S. McShane author of Organizational Behavior, many organizational behavior scholars, suggest that employee resistance represents symptoms of underlying restraining forces and should be removed. Employees may be concerned about the consequences of change, like how the new conditions can take away their power and status. Others may be worried about the process of change itself, which can the effort required to break old habits and learn the new skills. The listed main reasons are listed as: direct cost, saving face, fear of the unknown, breaking routines, incongruent organizational systems, and team dynamics. Brief examination of these reasons follows; with direct
The point that I’m trying to make is that men will adapt to our ever changing environments if they sense that those changes are crucial, urgent, and does not threaten their current position (which they feel are safe and secure). People don’t resist changes because they dislike those changes. People resist changes because they’ve encountered previous experiences of change that are unpleasant or have negative effects on their interests. People resist changes, because they are unsure of the outcome that those changes will bring. People resist changes because they are comfortable with the current organizational culture and feel that the new changes would jeopardize their job security. Now that we know why people resist changes—we need to find a way to diagnose certain signs and how we can manage these resistance. Every Organization will have different groups that will react differently to change. By learning proper ways to diagnose we can handle the situation with care and ease. Essentially, when we talk about resisting changes, we need to start from the very beginning, when those changes first started to have a clearer diagnose.
Understanding human behavior is vital in the organization in which I work. I work as a supply sergeant for a military police unit, the 233D Military Police Company. The managers and leaders in this organization face many challenges. Throughout the last ten weeks we have gained a plethora of knowledge from the text book, ORGB, by Debra Nelson and James Quick in regards to human behavior in organizations, formal and informal organizations, organizational commitment, influential tactic, goal setting, leadership style, conflict management style, empowerment, performance appraisal, and change management, and several other subjects regarding organizations, management, and anything or one that may affect it.
Change is part of every organization and is required in order to compete with today’s competitive business environment. Acceptance, implementation of a change can be challenging and painful process. Change within an organization can cause tense situation which can be disturbing to the employees. Under such circumstances, employees have low morale, and demonstrate resistance to change. Change can fail, not because it’s worth failure but because how well that change is accepted by the people who are most affected by it. Resistance is anything that slows and stops the movement from happening. In business terminology, a resistance can be defined as a dysfunctional behavior triggered by an emotional or belief
Many companies emphasize a culture of continuous improvement. While never being satisfied with the status quo can drive
After the initial project’s insights are starting to be used, what are the most appropriate means to measure how those changes are diffused through the organization?