What is the most effective way to reduce employees’ resistance to change

ЭФФЕКТИВНЫЕ МЕТОДИКИ СНИЖЕНИЯ СОПРОТИВЛЕНИЯ ПЕРСОНАЛА ПЕРЕМЕНАМ

Пак Дмитрий Сергеевич

студент, университет Ковентри, Великобритания , г. Ковентри

Abstract. The purpose of this paper is to examine the aspect of employees’ resistance to change and the most effective methods in order to diminish or overcome the presented challenge. There are a number of research works regarding the problem of personnel’s defiance to reforms, most of them highlight the key common instruments for combating the resistance to change. In this review paper, the key ways of overcoming the resistance in addition to the nature of that factor are going to be considered and analyzed.

Аннотация. Цель представленной работы - изучить аспект сопротивления сотрудников изменениям и наиболее эффективные методы, чтобы уменьшить или преодолеть сопротивление персонала реформам. Существует ряд исследовательских работ, посвященных проблеме неповиновения персонала реформам, в большинстве из них освещаются основные общие инструменты борьбы с сопротивлением переменам. В этой обзорной статье будут рассмотрены и проанализированы ключевые способы преодоления сопротивления в дополнение к природе данного фактора.

Keywords: resistance to change, the nature of defiance to reforms, strategies for reducing the resistance.

Ключевые слова: сопротивление переменам, природа неповиновения реформам, стратегии для уменьшения сопротивлением.

Introduction

Nowadays, most of the organizational processes within the business sectors all over the world are faced with the necessity of changes, in order to be relevant for the changing international and regional economic issues. The staff of companies is the main participant of the reformation processes within business organizations. Therefore, it is a common occurrence that some of the employees are resistant to change. Resistance to change is considered as a socially created fact which is based on the interrelation between people [21, c. 143].

A number of previous research works and articles were focused on the nature of management practice during the organizational reforms and the typical risks. The most popular topics include resistance to change, preparation for changes, the effectiveness from the point of leadership, degree of employee participation in changing processes, and the required competencies to successfully withstand the reform processes [2, c. 113].

Resistance to change is one of the key aspects of managing organizational change processes. The management team should understand and consider staff related aspects fore mostly, for the reason that the workforce is the main driver of reforms within the organization. Identifying the origins of employee’s reactions to change is a significant aspect of understanding the approach in which personnel actions may perform a role in overcoming organizational change and resistance [6, c. 27]. That is to say, the management team should implement all of the accessible tools, in order to mitigate possible negative outcomes to changes from the employees' perspective.

From my subjective point of view, possible strategies to reduce the effects of staff hostility towards organizational changes include effective preparation for changes, application of structured communication, methodical division of reforms into logical and understandable for employees stages, and implementation of competent stress management strategy.

At the expense of the fact that all of the approaches, which have been mentioned above are overly generalized, the purpose of this review paper is to estimate each of the methods with the purpose of determining the best way of reducing employees’ resistance to change.

Reasons for Resistance

A number of workers, even at the senior level, may come up short on the experience and inspiration to perceive the criticalness of change [7]. Ford, Ford, and D’Amelio suggested that employees’ opposition to change is the consequence of unfulfilled agreements and loss of confidence [8]. The authors suggested that companies that can deal with disturbed obligations quickly are less expected to face resistance [8]. At the later phases of reforms implementation, opposition to change and anxiety about job stability becomes less critical [7]. Numerous workers dread that will not be fortunate enough to secure their position, whereas others are just incapable and unwarranted to learn and evolve new skills [7]. 

On the other hand, fearless and unreadiness to changes are not the only sources for the opposition, due to in accordance with other researchers’ opinions behavioral and cognitive aspects are also contain the highly influential impact. For instance, Oreg characterized resistance to change as ‘a tridimensional (negative) attitude towards change, which includes affective, behavioral, and cognitive components’[14]. Oreg suggested that the emotional factor of this mindset is directly related to the pessimistic emotions, like anger, which employee expressed towards change, whereas the behavioral aspect of defiance to change comprises negative actions, or intentions to act, in response to change [14].

Kurt Lewin's theory

In 1951 the three-step change model theory was introduced by social and applied psychology scientist Kurt Lewin. The organizational change could be achieved by implementing the three-step strategy, which includes: unfreezing, move, and freezing [13]. The first step is unfreezing, which Kritsonis consider as changing the status quo or in other words changing the equilibrium state [10, c. 2].

The unfreezing stage comprises outlining the current state of the organization, demonstration of reforms’ directions to establish the awareness of employees about the importance of changes and their roles for it [13].

Lewin’s second step - move, could be considered as the process of shifting the target system to a new level of equilibrium [10, c. 2]. Moreover, it is the process of implementation of reforms with emphasizing individual behavior towards changes.

The third step of the theory is refreezing. The importance of that step is to be confident that reforms have been completed accurately, that is to say, that changes are sustained and stable. The necessity of the third step is defined by the high probability of «non-survival» of the reforms and employees’ revert to previous equilibrium(behavior). That is why the third step could be considered as an assimilation of new values into the companies’ organizational cultures [10, c. 2].

Aside from the theoretical background and approaches to reduce employee’s resistance to change. There are several concrete techniques of managerial actions to diminish the opposition to changes, which were mentioned above. These strategies include readiness to change, structured communication, logical division of reforms, and stress-management strategy. Let’s consider each of the approaches.

Readiness to change

The origin of readiness is based on Lewin’s three-step change theory with the focus on the unfreezing stage, on which individuals need to change the current ways of working. The main responsibility lies with the management team, due to the fact that they should provide convincing arguments that the current state is no longer accountable or acceptable if the organization wants to remain successfully functioning to probably regain previous success [18, c. 171].

Kotter and Schlesinger (1979) proposed one concept of establishing readiness, likewise of managing the reform process [9]. Their complex strategy includes six methods: education and communication, facilitation and support, participation and involvement, explicit and implicit coercion. From my point of view, the highlighted methods are highly valuable, however, there are overly generalized, and each of the steps should be considered as a separate strategy.

Communication

Communication is a necessary aspect of every business for informing the staff about organizational values and goals. The communication process could be considered as an interrelation between the management team and employees.

Communication is highly important especially during the time of reforms, by informing employees, leadership team conveys the plan of change implementation to all of the staff pithing the organization. It is very crucial because employees should know the course of action and understand their role in these processes [20].

The main aim of communication is to establish a positive response from the employees’ side, that is why communication should be effectively implemented during all of the reform stages. There is a strong connection with Lewin’s three-step change model theory. Communication as a management strategy to implement the change process is expressed in the unfreeze phase of Lewin’s theory [3].  Lewin’s three-stage change model theory could be a useful guide for managers to reduce intricacy during the implementation of the reforms. That is to say, some concepts of theory could be implemented to reduce the employees’ resistance to change [4].

The absence of an effective communication strategy could lead to difficulties for the leadership team that pursues the goal of increasing staff awareness of the change mechanisms. Effective communication is a basis for the structured implementation of reforms [1].

At the beginning of any changes within the organization, vulnerability because of the absence of information in regards to the reform procedures and predetermined results can be more strained for employees in comparison with practical aspects of change [16]. The prompt and competent provision of the necessary information in regards to the forthcoming reforms reduce the anxiety feeling of employees [12]. Therefore, employees who receive suitable and functional information from the management team will tend to estimate the reforms in positive key, as well as to be flexible and open for cooperation.

Moreover, the feeling of anxiety is not the only source of resistance. That is to say, some of the staff just have a pessimistic and denial attitude towards any type of changes. In that case, communication, specifically in the case of change processes, is seen as a great approach to reduce the negative attitude of employees towards any changes related to the current work settings [12]. The participation of staff in organizational changes provides the opportunity to the leadership team to gain more data in regards to employee perspectives over some company’s issues [11].

In addition, Ridder (2004) suggested that organizational communication pursues two main goals [15]. The first goal is to inform all of the employees about their responsibilities, and policy related to the organization. The second goal is to establish a close inner society within the company. The main division between two goals is that communication could be considered as a mean to provide information and as a mean to create a corporate essence, as the part of a company’s inner culture.

During the reform processes leadership team is usually forced to apply all of the available resources and knowledge. Hence with the already built corporate culture and employees’ awareness of their intentions, it is less challenging to overcome the transformation process, and structured and effective communication is the best tool to do this.

Logical Division of Reforms

Another problem that could occur during the change implementation is the difference in conceptualization. That is to say, the employee and management team can perceive reforms application in different ways, this misunderstanding could be the source of resistance.

Thomas and Hardy (2011) pointed out that resistance occurs in the situation related to asymmetrical power relations, which consequently leads to misinterpretation of organizational issues, in our case reformation, by different individuals [19]. The solution is to structurize and logically divide into stages the application of changes.

Through organizing reforms in coherent manner, the leadership team provides the awareness of employees of how the system should operate in changing conditions, as well as provide support for staff and reduce possible opposition to reforms.

Stress Management strategy

Any changes whether related to the personal or working life of individual is typically encountered by stress because for some people it is difficult to adapt to new conditions. That is why any organization that pursues the maintaining of appropriate state of psychological and physical welfare of its staff needs to have an effective organizational policy to prevent employees' stress occurrence [5].

Stress management strategy is directly related to the occupational self-efficacy (OSE). OSE is an essential individual resource that prevents job-related stress. It is positively connected with personal self-esteem, job resources, like support from supervisors, and job satisfaction and commitment [17, c. 491].

In the time of changes, the pressure on employees is particularly high, in such condition, the employee behavior towards not only reforms but also other psychological aspects related to OSE tends to be pessimistic and negative. That is why a competent stress-management strategy is extremely valuable for the general individual attitude with respect to all of the organizational issues. If the leadership team wants to successfully and less difficult pass through the phase of the change and not face negative consequences in the future connected with employees’ behavior, efficient and complex stress management strategy should be implemented to provide support for staff and reduce stress.

Conclusion

Resistance to change is a highly important issue for today’s business society. The leadership team needs to comprehensively evaluate the current situation from their perspective and more crucially from the outlook of employees. In this review paper, we have studied and assessed the points of view of certain researchers about the strategies of overcoming the hostility of staff towards reforms. The possible ways include preparation for changes, establishing structured communication, the division of reforms in logical consistency, implementation of the effective stress-management strategy.

In my opinion, methodical and structural communication practice is the best way to reduce employees’ resistance to change. It is argued by the facts that via effective communication leadership team establishes the general awareness of employees about the current organizational state, the staff is informed about the overall course of action and the way of how changes need to be executed. In addition, employees perceive the connection with the management team and the support from them, and managers could obtain relevant information about their workers' attitude towards the processes within the organization. Based on the presented arguments, structured communication is the best way to reduce employees’ resistance to change.