Introduction: Challenges of Promoting Change in the Workplace
Change is an integral part of any company’s development. Without introducing crucial alterations to the firm’s design, an organization will cease to exist. Therefore, it is imperative to promote change in the workplace. The reasons for enhancing change include:
- quality management enhancement;
- customer communication improvement;
- teamwork promotion;
- successful conflict resolution;
- a better understanding of the market demand, etc.
However, the process is fraught with resistance from the personnel that may occur at a range of levels and in different domains of the company’s operations. Herein the significance of determining the strategies for managing these challenges lies.
Aim and Objectives: Determining the Tools for Successful Implementation of Change
At present, it is crucial to minimize the resistance toward change from the staff. The identification of the ultimate tool for reducing the pushback from the personnel is the key purpose of the paper. To attain this goal, one will have to meet the following objectives:
- studying the factors that contribute to the development and increase of resistance to change;
- identifying the located factors as either intrinsic (i.e., defined by the employees’ lack of security and other personal issues) or extrinsic (i.e., defined by the organizational environment);
- determining the strategies that lead to the best possible outcomes.
Literature Review: Change in the Workplace and How It Can Be Administered
Enhancing the staff’s performance through organizational change is a crucial step toward becoming competitive in the target market (Hayes 2014). The said objective is especially important for the companies that decide to compete in the realm of the global economy, where large corporations reign and were taking a specific niche is often very complicated (Altamony et al. 2016). Therefore, consistent quality improvement and, thus, frequent redesign of the performance management standards is a requirement (Hassan et al. 2013).
However, employees tend to take innovative performance management policies with a grain of salt. The reasons for the identified phenomenon typically range from the lack of enthusiasm to the basic fear of failure (Hayes 2014). Understanding by what factors the staff members are guided when refusing to accept the new performance management standards is imperative to overcome the problem.
As a rule, the strategies for managing the resistance from the staff are quite numerous. Typically, financial incentives are viewed as the primary tool for convincing the employees to accept the new performance management standards. While the identified device is admittedly easy to use in the context of any firm, it has its problems, the lack of opportunities for developing an emotional connection with the employees, and, therefore, increasing their loyalty levels being the key one. As a result, financial incentives are viewed as a necessary yet supplementary tool that needs to be coupled with a more powerful framework (Chalofsky 2014).
Furthermore, investing in the staff and providing them with the opportunity to acquire new knowledge and skills associated with the change in question can be deemed as essential strategies for fighting the resistance among the employees. As stressed above, the lack of security that the person experiences as soon as new and increased quality standards are introduced into the company’s design along with a rapid alteration of the performance management process affects the attitudes among the target population to a considerable degree. Thus, convincing the employees that they are valued by the company by providing them with opportunities for gaining new knowledge and skills often becomes the foundation for the successful implementation of the corporate change (Amegashie-Viglo 2014).
Furthermore, differentiating between cultural and structural inertia is typically viewed as an essential step in identifying the nature of the staff’s attitudes and, therefore, determining the appropriate strategy for addressing the issue (Chalofsky 2014).
While the structural inertia is dealt with by reconsidering the current approach to assigning tasks to employees, the cultural one is viewed as a much more complex issue that should be addressed by altering the current communication approach (Shaheen 2016). Introducing the communication framework that is based on feedback and its analysis, consistent dialogue, and multiculturalism is believed to have a positive effect on shaping the employees’ attitude toward the new performance management standards and other alterations. Therefore, resistance to change is considered to be inevitable in organizations. To deal with it successfully, managers must learn the nature of the staff’s refusal to accept the new policies.
Reference List
Altamont, H, Tarhini, A, Al-Salti, Z, Gharaibeh, AH & Elyas, T 2016, ‘The relationship between change management strategy and successful enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementations: a theoretical perspective’, International Journal of Business Management and Economic Research (IJBMER), vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 690-703. Web.
Amegashie-Viglo, S 2014, ‘Organisational change management of the transition of polytechnics in Ghana to universities of technology: a theoretical framework for managing transitional challenges’, Journal of Education and Practice, vol. 5, no. 25, pp. 93-99. Web.
Chalofsky, NF 2014, Handbook of human resource development, John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY. Web.
Hassan, MU, Shaukat, S, Nawaz, MS & Naz, S 2013, ‘Effects of innovation types on firm performance: an empirical study on Pakistan’s manufacturing sector’, Pakistan Journal of Commerce and Social Sciences, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 243-262. Web.
Hayes, J 2014, The theory and practice of change management, Palgrave McMillan, New York, NY. Web.
Shaheen, GM 2016, ‘Resistance to change in implementation of ERP projects’, Journal of Strategy and Performance Management, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 24-38. Web.