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Organizational change and how it effects the employees
Organizational change and how it effects the employees
Organizational change and how it effects the employees
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April 6, 2010
HR Assignment #3 ethical’s/org. change
In today’s global economy, competition is ferocious and only the strongest organizations survive, while the weak perish. HR serves a valuable function in this Darwinian “survival of the fittest” cooperate world by providing valuable information on an organization’s internal competencies. Managers then create a coherent corporate strategy that devises ways for the corporation to compete within its chosen domain, based in part on the information gathered by HR. Often corporate strategies change for example; sometimes organizations decide that strategically, a merger or an acquisition is the best course of action. A Corporation could also pursue a strategic alliance or joint venture resulting often in outsourcing or offshoring work to other locations. Other times a company can simply decide to trim its workforce to reduce costs when times are bad or perhaps to make more money when times are good. An organization can commit numeral changes that can cause individual employees to go through stress over their job security, inevitably raising the question to whether or not organizations are ethically responsible in protecting employees from such stress. The answer is simply no; organizations should not ethically responsibly to protect employees from the stress of organizational change because it is not relevant or practical for an organization to do so.
Protecting employees from the stress of organizational change is not relevant to the organization. Organizations must change and adapt to be able to survive; the ones that are capable of changing quickly are the organizations that are going to prosper. Ensuring employees that their jobs are safe is not the purgative of an organiz...
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Organizations should not be held ethically responsible for the stress on employees caused by organizational change because it is not relevant to the organizations primary objective is not practical to implement and there is no viable, more ethically sound alternative. It is true that increasingly the world demands more socially responsible organizations but many of the “ethically correct” things an organization is expected to do come from organizational theories such as human resource management theory, which remains an academic idea and not one that is implemented in the real world often. As such, organizations like to appear ethically/socially responsible but many fundamentally are not because they either choose not to get ahead i.e. wall mart or cannot live up to such high standards based on human desires and not reality of the situation at hand.
Holly Nowak’s take on how HR professionals have the ability to influence their company's ethics and play a leading role in development is 100% correct. HR professions have the resources to mold and shape an ethical workplace culture because their involvement in hiring, training and evaluating employees allows them to influence their organizations at many levels. Currently, in my role as a Resident Director, I’ve had to make many ethical decisions. My decisions aren't surrounding money but instead students well-being. It’s important to know how my decisions might affect the individual and the community. So from an HR standpoint making sure you hire individuals or train individuals to think and realized what's wrong and right in situations is
Virtuous actions and ethical dysfunctionality are two topics selected from scholarly articles focusing on ethics in organizations. The two articles focus on the workplace and explore the interactions between employees. This essay will explore these relationships and how each compares and differs as reflected in the two journals.
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).
The importance of Human Resource management is associated with the beginning of mankind. As the knowledge of survival had begun including safety, health, hunting and gathering, tribal leaders passed on the knowledge to their youth. However more advanced HRM functions were developed as early as 1000 B.C and 2000 B.C. Since the modern management theory took over, the working environment was transformed into a more friendly and safe work place. The workers were termed as most valuable resources. While some companies took the human side of employment seriously, there were others who did not find it mandatory. Hence they faced huge labor unions and factory shut downs (Henning, 2001).
Whether an organization consists of five or 25,000 employees, human resources management is vital to the success of the organization. HR is important to all managers because it provides managers with the resources – the employees – necessary to produce the work for the managers and the organization. Beyond this role, HR is capable of becoming a strong strategic partner when it comes to “establishing the overall direction and objectives of key areas of human resource management in order to ensure that they not only are consistent with but also support the achievement of business goals.” (Massey, 1994, p. 27)
Changing Roles. Traditionally, HR has been an administrative position-processing paperwork, benefits, hiring and firing, and compensation. However, recently HRM has moved from a traditional to a strategic role, the emphasis is on catering to the needs of consumers and workers. Before, HR was seen as the enemy and employees believed that HR’s main purpose was to protect management. Now, the position requires HRM to be more people oriented and protect their human capitol, the staff. In addition, human resource management has to be business savvy and think of themselves as strategic partners in the 21st century.
Ulrich, D., Younger, J., and Brockbank, W. 2008. “The twenty-first century HR organization.” Human Resource Management, 47, pp.829-850.
One of the biggest challenges managers face in motivating employees is the ability to meet their safety needs. Because of the weak economy and high
What can be done to manage and/or apply preventative measures to prevent stress in the workplace?
“Hr is shifting from focusing on the organisation of the business to focusing on the business of the organisation” (Zulmohd 2011). David Ulrich points out four distinctive roles of HR which makes the organisation most effective and produce competitive advantage. He planned to change the structure of HR function and build HR around roles. The four key HR roles identified by Ulrich, one HR business partner/strategic partner – aligning HR and business strategy which plays an important role in setting strategic direction. It builds strategic relationship with clients and strategically manages the development of the workforce. The second key role is administrative expert which creates and must deliver effective HR processes made to tailor business needs. It also involves managing people and HR related costs. To continue to the third key role, change agent which understands the organisations culture, and takes the responsibility to communicate those changes internally and gain its employees trust. The final key role identified by Ulrich is employee advocate which is a core in HR role represents employees and helps to improve their experience, protect employees’ interests and confirm strategic initiatives are well balanced. Employee advocates must also “ensure fair, ethical and equitable people processes and practices.” “David Ulrich’s HR Model is about defining the HR roles and
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
In the future, employing organizations will face a wide range of issues and challenges in meeting their workforce requirements. These periods of difficulties generally will center around the effects of external environmental influences on the organization and the manner in which it manages ongoing issues. Many of these external factors filter down and influences an organizations roles and responsibilities for talent scarcity, changing products or services, shifting demographic composition and their consumer preferences, etc.
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
In Today’s world, the composition and how work is done has massively changed and is still continuing to change. Work is now more complex, more team base, depends greatly on technological and social skills and lastly more mobile and does not depend on geography. Companies are also opting for ways to help their employees perform their duties effectively so that huge profits are realized in the long term .The changes in the workplaces include Reduction in the structure of the hierarchy ,breakdown in the organization boundaries , improved and better management tactics and perspectives and lastly better workplace condition and health to the employees. (Frank Ackerman, Neva R. Goodwin, Laurie Dougherty, Kevin Gallagher, 2001)