Employee Participation And Its Effect On Employees

A key factor of an organization is its employees. Human resource professionals are facing problems in retaining employees for long period in attaining organization growth and success. HR professionals are in search of secrets on ‘what’ and ‘how’ to make employees commit themselves to their work and organization mentally, physically and emotionally in achieving long term goals. ‘Engaged” is the term, used when employees dedicate themselves mentally, physically and emotionally to their work and organization in achieving long term goals. Engaged employees are assets to an organization.

Some many organizational change efforts fail to reach their intention, but the high-ranking sponsors often blame the disappointment on the employees and manager struggle to change at times. They really don’t know how difficult it is to lead and implement change effectively (Robbins, 2011). A good change does require good people skills. Employees resist change because employees can be very unsure about the loss of status or job security within the organization. This would mean the employees and there manager as well as their peers will resist technological changes. The employees will also endure fear of failure that could cause employees to doubt their ability to do the job/ or their duty. Those type of change employees are resisting because the employees are too worried about learning the new requirements. Peer pressure can be endured as well for employees when the employees start to resist change to protect their co-worker, and so will the manager to protect their work group. The human resources roles are planning and implementation, planning would be evaluation of

The more active the participants are in the planning, the less resistance there will be later (Sullivan & Decker). If staff does not trust leadership, does not share the organization's vision, does not buy into the reason for change, and aren't included in the planning, there will be no successful change, regardless of how brilliant the strategy (Goman, 2000). How people react to change is important to understand. Change takes an emotional toll on people, some more than others. It is important not to underestimate that toll and understand who will have a harder time adapting to change. Fear of change has many roots. Those roots can be a lack of trust, fear of failure, fear of loss of income or a belief that the change is unnecessary (Sullivan & Decker). By understanding the reason for the resistance a manager can help the employee overcome his or her fear and become a supporter of the change. The last two steps are to provide feedback mechanisms to keep everyone informed of the progress of change and evaluate the effectiveness of change (Sullivan & Decker). People need to be kept informed of the change process to minimize anxiety. Sometimes there are unexpected consequences to the change, and it is important to have a system in place for those consequences to be discussed and if needed more changes made in order to accommodate those consequences.

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

For most, resistance to change inevitable, for some it is their personality and others it is fear of the unknown. Organizational structure may change through downsizing, outsourcing, acquisitions, or mergers. In this paper, I will be examining resistance to change during a merger and how to manage this type of stressful and many times unclear change in an organization. There are three key strategies for managing resistance to change; communication, participation, and empathy and support. Throughout this paper I will discuss the three strategies above as well as some other contributing factors to change in an organization.

However according to the researches organizations must be careful in choosing the type of the employee involvement. In order to choose the right type of employee involvement in the process of change organizations should pay attention to the criteria’s as follows; roles, skills, resource, commitment, outputs, and data (Vidal, 2007). Furthermore the author argues that choosing the right type of employee involvement effects positively in the process of change, commitment and also reduces cost. Whereas choosing the wrong employee involvement type will negative impact in time planning, solutions, and also in financial resources.

However, participation is not a tool. Management cannot simply ask the various parties involved in change to participate. In order for this to work, there already needs to be an existing culture of respect and consideration towards employees’ opinions and towards the workers themselves as people. Studies show that in companies where employees are encouraged to discuss their problems and offer their opinions to management and are given the opportunity to measure their performance, the risk of resistance to change is significantly lower. If management decides to deploy participation just in times of change, as a way of getting people to accept it, then the employees will doubt the honesty and good intentions behind this initiative. Thus,

After thoroughly researching and understanding the cause of a problem, organizations can subsequently decide on a plan to resolve the issue. To effectively implement the plan and new change, it is important for organizations to take the necessary steps to combat resistance to change. This can be accomplished through accurately timing the change and communicating throughout the process. Merrell (2012) stated that “setting clear measurable goals up front will help an organization head in the right direction, use resources efficiently, make corrections along the way and assess whether the change program achieved what is set out to do” (p. 21). Moreover, by providing employees with training and incentives, the entire problem solving process will encourage a smooth transition. Through training individuals on the new policies and procedures of the change, employee can become directly involved with the change, thereby giving them the knowledge and skills they need to adapt. In addition, providing both monetary and nonmonetary incentives, organizations can reduce resistance and motivate individuals to help in the organization success throughout the change process. Thus, by properly analyzing problems and correctly implementing solutions, organizations can effectively change to address the needs of the company.

The first factor to consider for motivating change deals with whether the organisation is facing some obvious need for change, such as increasing competition; pressure on prices; changing customer needs / expectations; advances in technology; reductions in external funding; or regulatory changes. The actual change does not occur until the force for change exceeds that of the force resisting the change. People who may not necessarily lose from the change still contribute to the force resisting change. People inherently resist change because change causes uncertainty and ambiguity. Through good management these uncertainties and ambiguities will be removed and the resistance to change will not be as great.

Change is inevitable in business life, those who can manage it well will be beneficial from the change, as Mr. M Beer (2003) stated. However, resistance, as an obstacle of the process of change, can hold back the development of managerial change (David Foote, 2001). Bhutan(1995) claimed that it is important to understand one’s state of mind in order to make them accept the change. To figure out the possible reasons why people tend to resist when it comes to make some changes. According to De Jag er (2001) , most people are reluctant to change resulting from their suspicions and fear to the new challenges. Resistance can also occur when change goes against their habits or values ( Robbins & Sanghai, 2006). Kotellnikov (2001) stated that employees could resist because they have an inadequate understanding of the purpose and meaning of change. To achieve maximum benefits from change, managers must try to minimise resistance behavior first ( Coetsee ,1999).

To achieve effective change, change managers should encourage employees ' participation as much as possible. It should be brought into people management culture in the company. The current crop of employees would be well suited with Leaders who are more apt at transformational styles of leadership. Poor employee relations history can be countered through and improved people process that will look into treating individual employees in a more personal level. The management planning to implement change should consider the effect of the change on employees as well as their resistance and reaction on it. An explanation for what is behind the change by management should be taken into account and should be motivated and explained.At the same time, inability to adapt to innovation and change can be mended through technological advancement.

to lose something of value, a misunderstanding of the change and its implications, a belief that the change does not

In many cases, resistance to change is viewed and analyzed from the managerial perspective (Schultz & Schultz, 2004). From the managerial point of view, resistance to change is considered as a cause to the delay in the achievement of the organization’s strategic goals. Hence managers are aware of the effects of the resistance to change, such as wastage of time. As a result, change projects are introduced earlier than the actual time, so that by the time the management can mobilize consensus on the proposed change, the ideal time for the commencement of the project is fulfilled. Hayes (2002) outlines other ways of managing change, such as coercion, manipulation and dialogue with the employees. At this point, it is also necessary to realize that change is not only a property of the employees but also an aspect common with the middle level managers. According to Folger and Skarlicki (1999), such managers are reprimanded, transferred to given higher positions in order to allow the change process to take its course. In some cases, employees who resist change were sacked such as shown below.

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.

This research paper is an attempt to better understand why some processes in the XYZ organization are stagnant as well as identifying key factors that keep the organization from moving forward at all times. More specifically, are stagnant processes a result of employees actually resisting change or are the processes stagnant because of management’s perceived perception of change and resistance? In addition, the research will focus on understanding key reasons why some people resist change and others do not. Further, it will explore to understand management’s role and the need for management to individually analyze their own attitudes and beliefs prior to the on-boarding of others. Last, it is an attempt to convince others that not everyone is resistant to change and in order to continuously improve, change is necessary for the continuous growth and development of the organization.