Human Resource Management and Change Management - Example

Human Resource Management and Change Management The change management signifies defining and executing technologies and procedures to deal with adjustments in the environment of business and to gain from the changing opportunities. Each organization goes through the phase of change that can lead to uncertainty and stress. The main aim of this paper is to discuss the reasons for an organization to change. Companies that accept changes are admired and profitable. The internal and external drivers of change have been discussed. Stress has been given on the consequences which take place when organization fails to accept the change. It further discusses the reasons for resistance to change in terms of both organizational and individual resistance. Fear of unknown, lack of competence, low trust, change in status quo, and the reason for the transition is unknown are some of the causes for the individual resistance. The emphasis is given on the change management model also which explains that the companies which manage change in a better way emerge to thrive, whereas those who do not might resist surviving. Table of Contents Introduction 4 Critical Evaluation and Discussion 4 Reasons for an Organization to Change 4 Internal Forces for Change 5 External Forces for Change 5 Consequences to Organizations Which Fail to Change 6 Reasons for Resistance to Change 7 Individual Resistance 7 Organizational Resistance 7 Change Management Model 8 Conclusion 9 Reference List 10 Appendices 12 Appendix 1 12 Introduction Change management deal with the change or adjustment, both from the perspective of individual and from the viewpoint of an organization. It encompasses three dissimilar aspects including adjusting to change, managing change, and effecting adjustment or change (Soparnot, 2011). Implementing change is very important for an organization in order to be competitive and also for their sustainability. Transitions in an enterprise can be instigated from within the company or externally. The main issue is how the companies react to the changes which take place internally and externally (Learnskills, 2012). The change process discontinues the existing process, makes the essential modification to the existing process and then run the novel process. It is also considered as a trouble solving situation. Managing the amendments or changes in the enterprise requires a wide set of abilities or skills such as analytical skills, political skills, business skills, system skills, and people skills (Nilakant and Ramnarayan, 2006). The main purpose of the report is to recognize the reasons of change and the consequences for the organization which fail to change. It also aims at focusing on the reasons for the resistance to change in terms of organizational and individual resistance. Further, a change management model will be incorporated to describe how to manage the resistance to change. Critical Evaluation and Discussion Reasons for an Organization to Change Each organization goes through the phase of change that can lead to uncertainty and stress. To become successful, companies should embrace various types of adjustment. Companies must develop enhanced production technologies, execute new administrative structures, upgrade skills of employees, and generate new products. The drivers for modification or change arrive from both the external and internal environment. Effective supervisors understand that modification in the business environment is a continued process. The successful organizations are those that foresee and plan for modification or change. Thus, change management is concerned with long term survival of the organization (Myers, Hulks and Wiggins, 2012). Internal Forces for Change Changes in the expectations, behaviour and attitudes of employees: Vey few companies reward loyalty to their employees and in return, staffs are more inconsistent, shifting jobs more rapidly. In the period of economic boom, the bargaining power of skilled workers is stronger and therefore the managers have to modify the compensation package to hold their better employee (Child, 2015). New product development: The introduction of the new services and products necessitates changes in the marketing approaches and the nature of organizations’ production. New products might need improved automation of manufacture and production as well as new services might involve different methods of selling. Financial requirement and availability of funds: Changes in the services and goods will require extra cash flow and investment that an organization might not have. Therefore, organizations will require raising funds through share issues, loans or amalgamation with other companies (Barksdale and Lund, 2006). External Forces for Change Globalization: It brings considerable opportunities for an organization in terms of big markets as well as growth opportunities. International markets are converging, thereby providing companies the chance to produce the standardized products as well as to gain advantage from the economies of scale. However, the main challenges are the communication and human resource issues consisting of dissimilarities in the attitudes, skills, and requirements of the employees worldwide. New technologies: The construction of novel technologies has permitted growing downsizing and decentralization. As an outcome, the structures of organization have flattened necessitating staffs to grow new talents and take on additional responsibilities. The change in technologies affects all the functions of business from production to marketing (J. Russell and L. Russell, 2006). Social and cultural change: Over time, the conduct, hopes, and attitudes of customer change. Increased migration changes the cultural and social mix of a nation. Combination of different religions and cultures presents new market prospects. Change in legislation: Changes in the government legislation lead to the changes in the functions of business. The regulations on safety and health, discrimination, and working hours have affected both the nature of workplace and the working conditions (Perkins and Arvinen-Muondo, 2013). Competition: In the extremely competitive markets, change and innovation instigated by one company will generate a reaction from the competition in order to protect the share of market. Each manufacturer tries to achieve competitive benefit over its competitor by repeatedly upgrading the features of product. Consequences to Organizations Which Fail to Change Decreased performance: Ineffective communication among the employees and managers places the workforce under a blur of stress and uncertainty, which results in decreased performance as well as an increase in rumours and gossips, and turnover. The ineffective communication causes staffs to go through dysfunctional stress, which lead to non-optimal performance of individual and personal health issue. Unnecessary creation of barriers and impediments: Rapid change leads to poor interpersonal skills or working relationship and accelerates the decline in employee’s performance through imposing stress in order to accomplish the desired results. The incapability to foster effectual working relationship segregates managers and supervisors from the familiar network of resources and knowledge. Failure to generate and nurture effectual working relationship unreasonably creates impediments and barriers towards getting things done (Clegg, Hardy and Nord, 2003). Challenging position of managers: Dynamic environment may cause an efficient manager to struggle some day because of the novel demands brought up by the rapid change. In the rapidly changing business environment, managers frequently find themselves in difficult situations due to changing job descriptions or roles. These amendments place managers in the challenging positions which they are unprepared to fulfil, thereby resulting in the deprived performance of supervisors and managers. Immobilize human resources: When managers are not good at delegating, they usually damage their capability to get works done through employees. Ineffective empowerment and delegation practices results in confusion as well as immobilize resources and staff, leading to poor performance (Longenecker, Neubert and Fink, 2007). Reasons for Resistance to Change Individual Resistance Fear of unknown: The most general cause for resistance is the fright of unknown. The employees are required to get ready for the change in the workplace. The less the people are acquainted with the transformation and its consequences on them, the more scared they become (Griffin and Moorhead, 2011). Reason for the change is unknown: If employees do not know the requirement for change then the managers could expect resistance with employees particularly from those who consider that current method of carrying out things works well. Lack of competence: Sometimes change in the organization requires changes in abilities and skills and employees think that they won’t be capable to formulate the change very well. Low trust: When employees do not deem that they can totally manage the transition there is the possibility of resistance. Change in the status quo: Resistance can take place from perception of transition that employee hold. Employees who consider that they will be not able to give their best after the change are improbable to present their entire support towards the organization (Bhatia, 2003). Organizational Resistance Limited focus of change: One can’t be change without having an effect on others. If management modifies the technological methods without concurrently changing the structure of company to match, the modification in technology may not probably be accepted. Group inertia: If individual employee wants to alter their conduct, the norms of group might act as a constriction. An individual member may be keen to accept modification in his work but if the norms of union dictate opposing any unilateral transition made by administration, the individual employee is expected to resist. Threat to establish power relationships: Any redeployment of the decision-making power can pressurize long-established authority relationships within the company. The introduction of self-managed or participative decision making work group is the type of change which is frequently seen as intimidating by managers and supervisors (Explorehr, 2015). Change Management Model The theory of change management is well-known in most of the organizations nowadays but how they handle change varies extremely depending on the environment of business, the people and the change involved. In 1950, Kurt Levin developed a model to become aware of the organizational change. Levin’s model is uncomplicated and easy-to-know framework for handling change (Liu, Akram and Bouguettaya, 2011). The model is discussed below: Unfreeze: The initial stage of the change entails preparing the company or organization to admit that transition is essential, which involves breaking the prevailing status quo. The main reason behind this is to develop a convincing message indicating why the prevailing way of carrying out things cannot persist. This is simple to frame when the company is facing declining sales, low customer satisfaction, and poor financial outcomes. This indicates that things need to change to give better results. To prepare the company successfully, the managers are require to begin at its core i.e. they are required to challenge the values, behaviours, attitudes, and beliefs that currently describe it. The initial stage of the transition process is generally most complicated and stressful. By giving stress to the company to reconsider its core, the managers can efficiently create a catastrophe which in turn could build a strong stimulus to look for a novel equilibrium (Sharma, 2006). Change: After the ambiguity formed in the unfreeze phase, the change/transition phase is where the employees begin to determine their uncertainty as well as seek new methods to carry out things. Individuals begin to consider and operate in ways which support the novel direction. The shift from unfreeze to transition does not occur overnight. People take some time to adopt the new path and contribute proactively in change. To acknowledge the change as well as contribute towards making the transition/change successful, employees are required to recognize how the transition will benefit them (Sharma, 2006). Refreeze: When the transitions are taking correct shape and employee have embraced the novel methods of working, the company is prepared to refreeze. The signs of refreeze are consistent job depiction and a stable chart of organization. The refreeze phase also requires helping the organization or the employees institutionalize or internalize the changes. With a novel sense of steadiness, staffs feel comfortable and confident with the novel method of working (Sharma, 2006) (See Appendix 1). Therefore it is recommended that every organization should apply change management because it will help to bring into line the prevailing resources within the company. By applying the change management, the company can respond quickly to the customer demands and also the efficiency and effectiveness of organization is improved. By applying the change management, the organization will also get a way to foresee challenges and react to these in a better way. Conclusion Organizational change transformation and management have become enduring features of every business landscape. To meet the challenges, organizations have turn out to be more refined in the finest practices for the organizational change/transition management. Change management offers a competitive benefit, allowing companies to effectively and quickly implement change in order to meet the market needs. The objective of the paper is to recognize the cause for an organization to change in terms of both the external and internal forces. Ineffective communication results in decreased performance of employees. It further discusses the reasons for resistance to transition in terms of both organizational and individual resistance. Fear of unknown, lack of competence, low trust, change in status quo, and the reason for the transition is unknown are some of the reasons for the individual resistance. The change management model explains that the companies which manage change well emerge to thrive, whereas those do not might resist surviving. Reference List Barksdale, S. and Lund, T., 2006. 10 Steps to successful strategic planning. United States of America: American Society for Training and Development. Bhatia, S.K., 2003. Management of change and organization development: Innovative approaches and strategies. New Delhi: Deep & Deep Publication. Child, J., 2015. Organization: Contemporary Principles and Practices. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Clegg, S.R., Hardy, C. and Nord, W.R., 2003. Handbook of organizations studies. London: SAGE Publications. Explorehr., 2015. Individual and Organizational Resistance. [online] Available at: http://www.explorehr.org/articles/Organization_Analysis/Individual_and_Organizational_Resistance.html. > [Accessed 31 Jan 2015]. Griffin, R. and Moorhead, G., 2011. Organizational behaviour. United States of America: Cengage Learning. Learnskills., 2012. Importance of change management in an organization. [online] Available at: < https://learnskills.org/wordpress/importance-of-change-management-in-an-organisation/10/2008> [Accessed 30 Jan 2015]. Liu, X., Akram, S. and Bouguettaya, A., 2011. Change Management for Semantic Web Services. New York: Springer Science & Business Media. Longenecker, C.O., Neubert, M.J. and Fink, L.S., 2007. Causes nad consequences of managerial failure in rapidly changing organizations. [pdf] Available at: < http://www.twominutedrill.org/pdf/bh-vol50.pdf> [Accessed 30 Jan 2015]. Myers, P., Hulks, S. and Wiggins, L., 2012. Organizational Change: Perspective on Theory and Practice. United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. Nilakant, V. and Ramnarayan, S., 2006. Change Management: Altering mindsets in a global context. California: SAGE Publication. Perkins, S. and Arvinen-Muondo, R., 2013. Organizational Behaviour. United Kingdom: Kogan Page Publisher. Russell, J.L. and Russell, L., 2006. Change Basics. United States of America: American Society for Training and Development. Sharma, R.R., 2006. Change Management. New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill. Soparnot, R., 2011. The concept of organizational change capacity. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 24(5), pp.640-645. Appendices Appendix 1 Change Management Model (Source: Sharma, 2006) Read More