Better Communication and Input
1. Strategies and Motivators Employed for Decreasing Resistance and Making Changes more Acceptable to Workers
Resistance to changes is one of the most natural reactions for the employees as soon as they are being asked for changes. It could be quite uncomfortable and could even require better methods of doing and thinking (Carnall 2018). The employees have serious trouble while developing the vision of the organization after change management within their work life. These types of changes could eventually produces uncertainty and anxiety and hence they might lose the sense of security. The expectations of the organizational management play one of the major roles in the employee resistance. The changes with the positive spirit and beliefs that the employees wish to cooperate with the significant changes (Cummings, Bridgman and Brown 2016). There are few distinct strategies and motivators that could be employed to decrease resistance and made changes more acceptable to the workers. These subsequent strategies are as follows:
i) Better Communication and Input: The first and the foremost significant strategy for the proper decrease or eradication of resistance for the employees is better communication and input. The employee input affects the procedure of implementing the changes within the management level and hence issues are kept at first priority. The complete direction for these cases subsequently comes from the organizational senior leadership who have solicited feedbacks from the reporting staffs (Hayes 2018). The employees should be communicated periodically to know their point of views regarding such changes in the organization and how they are reacting with the changes. When their ideas and ideologies would be undertaken, it is evident that these employees would be happier and would even feel demotivated. Hence, resistance issue would be resolved.
ii) Offering of Resources: The next effective as well as efficient strategy for decreasing such issue is by simply offering several resources. Since the organizational employees often feel insecure due to the sudden changes in the organization, offering of resources would be extremely effective for them (Altamony et al. 2016). Moreover, providing those with training class, equipment as well as any other resource would even motivate them eventually and they wold readily accept the changes. Furthermore, they would even feel encouraged while working and would understand the importance of their work place effectively and efficiently.
iii) Employee Participation: The third important and noteworthy strategy or motivator for the decrease of employee resistance for changes in any organization is employee participation. The employees should be given the chance to have significant input for the major changes. It is extremely different from the simple allowing them for having the open forum and providing proper feedbacks (Doppelt 2017). The process is extremely proactive and hence the employees would be allowed for eventually and subsequently influencing the changes with creative approaches, brainstorming and implementation of new ideas.
iv) Timing: The fourth important strategy for this type of issue of resistance is timing. Each and every employee should be provided with the core opportunity of talking regarding the input providing. They have stronger impact on these changes and hence change management is important for them (Van der Voet and Vermeeren 2017). When major changes are introduced within the company, the employees might take up some time to get adjusted with the changes and the issues would be resolved.
Offering of Resources
2. Role of Leader or Change Agent in Change Management Effort
Leaders or change agents are responsible for bringing major changes within any particular organization. The importance to adopt the changes for the employees is highly required for the improvement and betterment of the company (Pugh 2016). When the leaders or the change agents will be unsuccessful for the fulfilment of their expectation, it is evident that the respective teams would be confused as well as unmotivated. Hence, the business would suffer significantly. Major skills are required for communicating and execution of the change management and thus when they fail in doing so, and the teams have difficult time in enacting the profound or lasting changes (Ali and Lai 2016). As soon as the role of change management is being fulfilled by the leaders, the respective change management is being applied sustainably and efficiently and the subsequent expectation of the partners, clients, partners and staffs are being met easily and promptly.
The roles of the leader or the change agent for effectively executing the change management are as follows:
i) Clarification of Vision and Effective Communication: The first and the foremost role of the leader for change management in the company is the significant clarification of mission and vision of that specific company. The role of the leadership eventually needs that the leader would help the people for buying into their vision and hence this kind of communication requires to occur periodically under every circumstance (Engert, Rauter and Baumgartner 2016). This would be effective for the day to day issues as well as serious change programs. Moreover, the selected methods of communication of the audience should be leveraged for ensuring receptiveness. For this purpose of clarification in vision and mission and presence of effective and efficient communication in the teams, the respective team members would be able to know about the importance of change management and there would be no issues present.
ii) Staying Connected with the Employees: The second important and noteworthy role of the leader or change agent within the respective change management is staying connected with the employees or team members. There is a difficult time when the organizational vision as well as enlisting of support. The employees could either be transparent or direct and it is required to be approached to them on time (Stephan et al. 2016). With a better connection with the employees, the initiatives of change management could be aligned with the subsequent people capabilities. Hence, the issues related to change management would be easily resolved without any complexity.
iii) Being Transparent and Accountable: Another significant and vital role of change agent or leader for the purpose of change management is being transparent as well as accountable with the employees. Being accountable eventually fosters the significant commitment as well as desire for fixing the problems and yielding major results (Petrou, Demerouti and Schaufeli 2018). Moreover, to be accountable refers to the fact that a proper assessment is being done for the changes occurred and an openness to the performance is being embraced. The leaders even check for each and every aspect of the respective company like process, employee, management and culture for ensuring an optimal function in the team.
Employee Participation
3. Assessment of Senior Management Team for Verifying Change Management Strategies are Successful
The organizational senior management team is responsible for the verification of any kind of strategy in the specific organization. The change management strategy is the significant plan for checking the procedure of being anything innovative and different. The major methods by which the organization could easily address the changes are noted with the change management strategy. The major goal of the establishment of the formalized strategy is ensuring that each and every negative effect on the change would be reduced (Foss and Saebi 2017). For checking the effectiveness of the change management strategy, the respective senior management team of the company should create a distinct plan for the purpose of recognition of their requirement of change and the procedure of approval of changes. Moreover, there is a significant procedure of change implementation in the business as well as the procedure of monitoring the changes for ensuring that the desired effect is being obtained by them in this case.
There are several problems or issues with the change management in any company. The most significant problems with this change management are personnel work load like insufficient pre work and post work, attitude of personnel, emergency changes and the level of compliance understanding. This type of change management strategy is usually verified with the help of senior management teams of the organization (Ali and Lai 2016). The verification of the change management is done with the help of a validation process. There are three distinct strategies within the validation process and these three steps are as follows:
i) Improvement of Process: The first and the most significant step of the validation process of change management strategy is the significant improvement of processes. The business comprises of several operations or processes and these operations help to define the overall activity of the organization without any type of complexity. The entire organizational system is solely dependent on the business operations and if there is any type of change within the company, the business operations are also affected. If the business operations are not being managed or improved, there is always a high chance that the new changes would not be accepted by them and the business could be a failure (Pugh 2016). The resources are also wasted if the operations are not being executed and the changes are not accepted by the respective organizational members and customers.
ii) Minimization of Variation: The second important and significant strategy of the validation process of change management strategy is the minimization of variation. Although, changes are required within the business, excessive changes or variations could lead to the failure of the entire change management strategy (Hayes 2018). The quantity of variations hence should be checked and only those variations should be included that have higher chances of producing efficiency in the business.
iii) Checking Effectiveness of the Strategy: Another significant and noteworthy method for verifying the success rate of the change management strategy is by checking the effectiveness. Few of the changes should be implemented in the beginning for testing and if they work properly, then the other changes should be implemented in the business.
References
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Altamony, H., Al-Salti, Z., Gharaibeh, A. and 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, 7(4), pp.690-703.
Carnall, C., 2018. Managing change. Routledge.
Cummings, S., Bridgman, T. and Brown, K.G., 2016. Unfreezing change as three steps: Rethinking Kurt Lewin’s legacy for change management. human relations, 69(1), pp.33-60.
Doppelt, B., 2017. Leading change toward sustainability: A change-management guide for business, government and civil society. Routledge.
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Petrou, P., Demerouti, E. and Schaufeli, W.B., 2018. Crafting the change: The role of employee job crafting behaviors for successful organizational change. Journal of Management, 44(5), pp.1766-1792.
Pugh, L., 2016. Change management in information services. Routledge.
Stephan, U., Patterson, M., Kelly, C. and Mair, J., 2016. Organizations driving positive social change: A review and an integrative framework of change processes. Journal of Management, 42(5), pp.1250-1281.
Van der Voet, J., and Vermeeren, B. 2017. Change management in hard times: can change management mitigate the negative relationship between cutbacks and the organizational commitment and work engagement of public sector employees?. The American Review of Public Administration, 47(2), 230-252.