When organisations introduce change, it may be a reaction to competitive pressures, glocalisation, domestic and global financial markets, economic shocks, changing workforce demographics in the market, disruptive innovation, and also changes in industry standards, technology, legislative changes, internal needs amongst others. Organisational change can be perceived as a set of deliberate activities that move an organisation from its present state to a desired future state. Having the ability to drive and adapt to change management is also an essential skill of managers.
It is important that a change and the associated steps are carefully thought through before implementing it. Despite the pressure that is triggered within the organisation when the change process is initiated, a successful change reduces a lot of stress and negative consequences over an unsuccessful stage that does not go through. So, it is important that there is a good engagement process and the right selection of people and processes that should drive the change. A study by wall street journal shows that only one out of three organisational changes go through successfully and more than 45% of employees of organisations studied in the research shared that the change subsequently led to achieving better performance and work efficiency.
As shared above, change management goes through steps and involves the right people pushing the organisational towards the future while "renewing an organisation's direction, structure, and capabilities to serve the ever-changing needs of external and internal customers" as opined by Moran and Brightman. It is important to have employees on board and to realise to agree on the need and urgency of the change. Firstly, it is them who would drive and deploy the change, and secondly, to reduce chances and pressure of employee resistance to change. One of the common sources of problem with employees is that organisational lists all the positive features of a change, and somehow ignore the other side of change that are often picked up by employees- particularly the effect of a change at the operational level and on workplace culture.
A) The role of leaders and HR facilitating an organisational change
Therefore, both the parties – the organisational managers and the employees have important roles to play before and during the introduction of change. HR managers are responsible to provide a structured approach and guidance of the proposed change by helping to understand the nature and need of change, improving the dialogue between management and employee to preserve trust, pointing out and addressing risk factors, and at the same time providing resources to improve employee proficiency required for adapting to the change. A clear communication channel with key employees is essential, one-to-one being preferred over mass emails. Managers should be clear on what the change entails, the need for it, how specifically would the change affect an employee directly and their area of work. HR's role in establishing, facilitating, and maintaining a productive dialogue between management and employees is key.
Kotter's work on guiding change with vision is useful. His work illustrates the need for a vision behind the change that needs to be imaginable, desirable, feasible, focused, flexible and communicable. Providing a clear direction for change is easier said than done, and this brings out the effectiveness of leaders to share the vision with followers. Organisations pride themselves on having skilled and effective leaders who understands the change management process. Demonstrating the right leadership styles and traits, having the ability to make quick decisions, staying up-to-date with technological updates, having the right dynamics between the superior and subordinates, ability to negotiate and persuade followers' for the support on change.
Generally, managers tend to be quite reactive and defensive when employees put forward their concerns, ideas, or objections around the change. Having frequent conversations with the employees and to establish that the dialogues are coming from a place of trust goes a long way. Negotiation and influence play a big role in this period. Personal appeals and empathy in certain situations and conversations help in shaping such conversations that should be productive. For example, 'I need your help in this' or to appeal support from followers and gain support for change can be far more effective than following the hard line. In the end, the managers do need to make sure that the key employees stay and continue with post-change organisational activities that are future-facing.
B) Models of Organisational Change
here are works developed by different social scientists who show different approaches to introducing and managing organisational change. While some ways are more engaging, there are others who prefer to follow a hard line instead. Judson's Five Steps of change is quite useful and succinct with five steps involved in the change process: (1) analysing and planning a change, (2) effective communication of the same with the right set of stakeholders and plenty in ahead of time, (3) securing acceptance and support from the necessary players within the organisation, (4) taking the first steps of transition from the status quo to the new situation and guiding managers through the process, and (5) consolidating the changes in the renewed environment and continuing to follow-up to institutionalise the change.
Another approach developed by Cooperrider and Srivastva which is quite useful called Appreciative Inquiry (AI). This approach distinguishes among the stages of discovery, dream, design, and destiny. Unlike the other model by Judson, AI starts from a positive view of the proposed change and highlights the positive impacts to secure employee support from early on, A) The discovery stage illustrates the best practices that are shared and effective within the organisation (B) The dream stage involves employees to suggest ways that could improve certain things within the organisation (C) The destiny stage involved working together to make the 'dream' stage come true, whereby certain old practices are abandoned. The dream change, in this approach, can sound abstract but it largely involves not only the participation of employees but also at the same time supporting the realisation of the need to change. This stage needs facilitation so as to materialise the thought process of change and to start executing the proposed change with the stakeholders who are on board already. Resultantly, this approach already starts from a point of view whereby the change is perceived as an 'opportunity' rather than a threat.
An organisational change leads to a number of different outcomes at various levels. While leaders can work on developing a positive view of proposed change, or ensuring the employees have a mindset of openness to change, it is harder to secure a change commitment and unrealistic to expect a lack of resistance. While there are studies that evidence professionals with a high need for achievement may perceive change as an opportunity, on the other hand those who have a strong need for stability tend to resist changes as that jeopardises their current levels of assumptions, familiar routines that have become rituals, and environmental understanding. One might argue that organisations could consider making a series of incremental changes rather than a big one at one point in time to reduce risks of resistance and prolonged amount of time spent on persuading the stakeholders. Having said that, the nature of response and need for a change depends on the severity of the problems or factors that an organisation is facing in a particular period. e.g., if it is a financial factor that leads to firms going for mergers and acquisition, it may happen rather quickly, in contrast, if it is a systemic challenge that an organisation has identified and want to address, changes are introduced in steps because the solution also has to be systemic.