Organizational change presents a new and difficult challenge for leaders. Change creates a higher level of uncertainty for employees. During organizational change, employees face new pressures, priorities, and often new work roles. Symptoms of declining employee trust include anxiety, rising cynicism, declining confidence, satisfaction and loyalty. Employees who feel threatened, insecure or vulnerable can grow inhibited and reluctant to make decisions or take risks. Leaders may find employees “staying under the radar”, willing to contribute nothing rather than risk doing wrong.
Change management research has largely ignored the effects of organizational change history in shaping employee trust. A history of poor change management result in a loss of faith and low levels of trust in the organization (Bordia, Jimmieson & Irmer, 2007). Employees may have developed skepticism about an organization’s ability to manage change based on experiences of poor change management. Lack of trust in the organization often leads to unwillingness on the part of the employees to place themselves at risk to the actions of the organization. Employee pessimism about change can create a lack of openness toward an organization’s change efforts. Low employee trust is linked to lower job satisfaction, intention to leave, and finally exit from the organization.
Employees accept change more readily in a trusting, supportive environment. Subordinates are more willing to take risks and experience with new ways of doing things in a psychologically safe environment. During organization change, employees become hungrier than ever for information and answers. Standard communication channels, habits and routines may not work as well as usual. Se...
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...recognize development of trust within an organization is both an opportunity and ongoing challenge. Trust creates the groundwork for effective communication, employee motivation, and retention. Trusting relationships lead to synergy, interdependence, and respect.
References
Bordia, P., Restubog, S., Jimmieson, N., & Irmer, B. (2007, August). Haunted by the Past: Effects of Poor Change Management History on Employee Attitudes and Turnover. Academy of Management Proceedings, Retrieved March 15, 2009, from Business Source Premier database.
Garand, D., & Glaser, J. (2009, January). Leadership Integrity. Leadership Excellence, pp. 13, 13. Retrieved April 19, 2009, from Business source Premier database.
Tragash, H. (2006, June). Rebuilding Trust. Leadership Excellence, 23(6), 17-18. Retrieved April 19, 2009, from Business Source Premier database.
Employee readiness for change is a mindset and can be defined as the “beliefs, attitudes and intentions regarding the extent to which changes are needed and organizational capacity to successfully undertake those changes” (Armenakis, Harris & Mossholder, 1993, p. 681). Readiness is important because the state of employee readiness to adopt change affects organization success in implementation and return on the investment of change efforts. Employee readiness to change includes employee confidence that the people leading the change have to expertise to lead it, a belief that the change is necessary, alignment around the urgency for change and the extent to which employees feel capable of adapting to change (Armenkais & Fredenberger, 1997). Middle managers play a critical role in operationalizing change initiatives by aligning their business unit with senior executive change initiatives (Balogun & Johnson, 2004). Senior management relies on middle managers as communicators of organization decisions and as implementation leaders who possess technical knowledge and functional skills to lead change (Guth and MacMillan, 1986). As such middle managers are the “lynchpins of organizational change, acting as intermediaries between top management and the front line” (Luscher & Lewis, 2009, p. 221) making sense of the change and disseminating that meaning to followers so that they can align their actions and behaviors accordingly.
Trust and shared vision unify the facets of interpersonal resources leaders, direct or guide as employees, navigate through the structured network of relationships that encompasses the cooperative relationship of shared vision, shared values, and mutual goals (Frisina & Frisina, 2011; Li, 2005; McLeod & Young, 2005; Rodríguez-Campos, 2007). Faithfulness and dependability of purpose, move the organization forward from an expected ideal state or big picture whereas the behavior of the leadership becomes the forecaster of organizational performance (Frisina & Frisina, 2011; McLeod & Young, 2005; Rodríguez-Campos, 2007). Reemphasizing Frisina and Frisina (2011) quote, “Whenever performance does not match potential, there is a gap between how we are actually performing and what we could be achieving with the appropriate level of influential leadership and personal motivation” (p. 27).
Change usually comes with resistance in any workplace because change disrupts the employees’ sense of safety and control (Lewis, 2012). Kurt Lewin (1951) created a three step process for assisting employees with organizational Change (Lewis, 2012). The three stages are Unfreeze, Change and Refreeze. These are the steps to a smooth transition for change within organizations. Further, these steps are not possible without good communication from upper Management through line staff. Communication was consistently listed as an issue in surveys conducted by the department.
Change affects more than just a program or a process within an organization, change affects employees, collecting data on employee’s readiness and willingness to accept a change will help leaders know if the organization is socially ready for change (Cole, Harris, and Bernerth, 2006). A change might be positive for an organization but if the employees who will be affect by the change are lost in the process then it could create a greater issue than not making the change. Leadership needs to communicate and inspire the employees to be positive toward the change, seeking to enhance their job satisfaction not make changes that will increase their desire to leave. This data is best collected early in the change initiative allowing leadership to properly cast the vision while addressing concerns. This requires leadership to create platforms for employees to engage in the change initiative freely (Ford, 2006). Employee attitudes can be measured through these dialogues providing leadership with necessary measureable data (Hughes, 2007).
Change in an organization, especially a growing organization like the one I currently work for is expected. This change can cause stress which can lead to job insecurity among employees. This is something I am currently dealing with. Our company is quickly growing and adapting
Perhaps the biggest challenge in managing change within the organization is employee resistance to the change. (2) Keith R. Dutton, M.S. an instructor of organizational development manager at Illinois State University says “Change usually brings about the “10/80/10” rule: 10% of employees will actively embrace the change, 80% will be fence-sitters, and 10% will actively fight it. Your job is to recognize this and understand it. The 10% against the change will have the influence and ability to negatively infect the 80%. As such, you need to focus your efforts on influencing the negative 10%”
More than half of organizational change, however, has ended in failure. The primary reason is not a lack of capacity of the staff or the resource shortage of the enterprise , but the resistance to organizational change. In fact, resistance to change is inevitable as a primary element of change management.
A question that arises is why do employees resist change. People would rather stick with the status quo than adjusting to the change. It is important to understand why change is so hard to deal with to begin with so managers can get the gist of how to keep employers motivated. First, employers tend to resist change because they think it is going to conflict with their self-interests. Change can increase the employee 's workload and in return, there can be a loss of power, prestige, pay, or benefits. Employees avoid this type of change because they want to avoid loss. Second, employees have a lack of understanding and trust. They often do not trust the purpose behind a change. Employees second-guess the changes, whether they benefit or lose from it. Third is uncertainty. Uncertainty is the fear of not knowing about what is going to happen in the future. Employees find changes threatening because they do not know if the change is going to affect them in the end. Fourth is different assessment 's and goals. Employees see changes more differently than managers do. Managers may see changes as a good thing for the company, but employees think otherwise. Employees would rather stick to the same routine and to
This single act can be the basic building blocks of establishing trust and loyalty between leaders and followers. Though simple at first, establishing long term trust and loyalty is something that must grow with each passing day. Without trust and loyalty, leaders and followers can project the image of working against one another. In the absence of trust, professional relationships can erode to an unrepairable workplace conflict (Dyer, 2017). Some of these conflicts can become so burdensome and toxic that the only course of action is removing the problem and its contributing factors.
Individuals when faced with any major change will be inevitably resistant and will want to preserve the status quo, especially if they think their status or security within the organization is in danger (Bolognese, 2010). Folger and Skarlicki believe that organizational change produces skepticism in employees which make it problematic and possibly even impossible to contrive improvements within the organization (as cited in Bolognese, 2010) Therefore, management must understand, accept and make an effort to work with resistance, since it can undermine even the most well-conceived change efforts (Bolognese, 2010). Furthermore, Coetsee states for organizations to achieve the maximum benefits from change they must effectively create and maintain a climate and culture that does not support resistance and rewards acceptance and support ( as cited in Bolognese, 2010).
Unfortunately, most change managers may feel reluctant in sharing information with employees as they fear the unexpected events that may occur and threaten outcomes. Change managers are also apprehensive in communicating as they are scared their competitions be on alert or employees may leave due to fear. Hayes (2014), advises change managers to develop a communication strategy in order to better communication with employees. He identifies steps to take in order to create a communication
Like many organizations, over the last decade, external factors have accelerated the rate of organizational change. “The workplace is characterized by the frequent organizational change that accompanies business growth, innovation, globalization, complex regulations, competition, and evolving consumer tastes” (Cullen, Edwards, Casper, & Gue, 2014, p.269). However, a growing body of research on organizational change has shifted the focus from the antecedents for organizational to the antecedents of failed change and the challenges leader’s face with change planning, practices, and implementation and the role of employee behaviors, well-being and the overall affected trust and ethics as organizational behaviors impact employee’s adaptability
One of the effective cause of trust to employees performance is that it reduces their job stress.Employees must learn how to shift their way of thinking from kick ass to compasion, from suspicion to trust , from being dumb to a learning environment.In short employees likes to work in an environment where they feel as an intergral and an imporatant part of the organization in further it’s mission and vission.A management who has trust and repsect to each employees opinions will naturally make the workplace less stressful.The research found out that when an employee is more flexible it can lead to job satisfaction and less stress and also a greater productivity.But this flexibility of worker requires trust to boost their workforce.Employees working in a organization with a customer focused purpose tended to trust their managers more , believe that they will be rewarded and recognized approprietly, have a higher morale, experience less stress and believe that their organization supported creativity.When employees feel that they are guided and trusted by each other this will boost there performance and they will feel less stress.If employees has no trust to each other they will sense fear that they must put their guard-up at other employees that they will back stab them, beacuse of this sensation that other employees feel it will cause stress and pressure.Laborers always compete to each other it may sound good but it’s not ,competing to each other will cause job stress and
Organisational change can cause stress for employees at all levels of an organisation, one of the main causes of increased employee stress during organisational change is employees’ perception of organisational change as a threat; many employees feel that there may be a threat to their job security, their status, or their ability to achieve if the conditions of their work are altered (Dahl, 2011). Employees may face changes in their written contracts and also in their implicit psychological contracts during organisational change, the change to these unwritten contracts can result in increased stress due to feelings of anger or betrayal by employees as they feel that they no longer know what to expect from their employer (Robinson & Rousseau, 1994). In addition, if employees do not feel that the organisation acts in a fair and just way they are more likely to
There are many aspects in change leadership and people’s fear is one of them. Working as team member in a company takes a long time to adapt to other team members and work productively. Those employees who cannot accept changes fast and adapt to new team members may have troubles to work effectively and may be causing stagnation of other workers and a...