Change Management and Employees’ Role in It

Introduction

Organizational change is a structured process that creates the roadmap for growth. The growth and development of an organization centers on the correlation between the objectives and the processes involved. When the need for organizational changes arises, managers must focus on employees, who are the agents of change. The research will study the impact of the inclusion of employees in decision-making during the management of change. The study of the management of change will focus on the inclusion of employees and the decisions taken by the employees during change management to analyze the value of the impact of change. The decision-making process during an organizational change requires careful implementation. The management can achieve success when decisions refer to other agents of change. The impact of change in an organization will influence the growth of the organization. It will strengthen its market sales and boost productivity.

The positive influences of organizational change motivate most organizations to implement change. Thus, the value of the impact of employee’s inclusion in the management of change in an organization is significant. The assessment of an organizational change is measured by the successful implementation. Thus, the model used for this evaluation comprises the inclusion of employees and decision-making by employees. These concepts influence the value of the impact of change.

Integrated Approach to Change

Model for change

The concepts will be analyzed in the literature review. Each of the concepts will be evaluated based on the research questions in the literature review. The analysis will be used to provide an evaluation of change management at Steele Enterprises. The impact of an organizational change can be productive when

• The changes create positive impact on the organizational structure.
• Communication between the management and the employees is cordial.
• Employees accept, and adapt to the change in the organization without resistance.
• The change provides increases the growth index of the organization.

The employees are the primary obstacles to organizational change and they determine the extent of success or failure of the change. Managers try to manage the effect of change instead of actualizing the change in the organization. The obstacles of the change cause this. Employee’s inclusion can reduce the obstacles to organizational change. The model seeks to address the impact of employee’s inclusion in the management of change. To understand this evaluation, the author will investigate the variables surrounding the inclusion of employees in decision-making during organizational change (Olson & Tetrick 2006).

An impact evaluation of employee’s inclusion in decision-making during the management of change at Steele Enterprises requires a review of the following questions:

• What are the feelings, attitudes, and perceptions of employees towards change?
• What are the consequences of employee inclusion in decision-making on change projects?
• How can the employees’ feelings, attitudes, and perceptions be useful in managing change in the organization?

These questions are extracted from the first concept model used in the introduction of this project. The questions will be reviewed using past literatures, to understand the concepts and the relationships between each concept. Organizational change in this context is a temporal, transformative, or continuous change. Thus, organizational change is a minor or continuous change, which influences an employee’s action. The change depends on the stakeholder’s plan towards the organization.

Feelings, attitudes, and perceptions of employees towards change

Feelings can be described as the sense of touch or understanding towards a particular thing. The feelings of employees during organizational change influence the success of the process. Managers must consider several factors that could influence or change the feelings of an employee towards an organizational change. The factors can be categorized into six dimensions.

1. The feeling of loss of control or job routine by the employees,
2. The uncertainty surrounding the change process during organizational change,
3. Power change during management change,
4. Change in work schedules during organizational change,
5. Speculative or complete loss of authority by the employee during organizational change, and
6. Misinformation and misunderstandings about the organizational change,

The six dimensions stated above influences the employee’s feelings towards organizational change (Clulow, Gerstman & Barry 2005). The uncertainty during organizational change influences a resistance towards change. When the employee has ill feelings about the organizational change, he or she will develop an attitude towards the organizational change. Although, managers execute the plan at different time, rumors of the change will circulate prior to the organizational change. For example, the employees can resist the news of the arrival of a team of analyst to verify a particular organization. Word of mouth will be used to convey the resistance message to the entire staff (Armstrong-Stassen 2008).

A number of scholars have conducted extensive studies to define an attitude, even though some definitions are common among researchers. An attitude entails a mental or neural state of readiness, which is often organized through an individual’s experience and skills. Based on his definition, it is clear that an attitude has an influence on an individual’s behavior, which exerts pressure on the decision-making mechanism as regards to the response to all sorts of objects, situations, and events that are related to it. The behavior in this case is influenced by an individual’s experience, temperament, and orientation to the world. An attitude is mainly related to the behavior of an individual hence an attitude is a complexity of things that psychologists refer to as personality while other social scientists term it as ways of life, morals, behaviors, and incentives that guide and inspire an individual as far as executing a certain duty is concerned. In the places of work, it is common to come across statements, such as, ‘she has a positive attitude towards work or she has a negative attitude towards work’. The debate on attitudes centers on the emotions and behaviors of employees. Therefore, an attitude plays a critical role in the understanding of situations in the places of work, as well as employee reaction towards work (Goodman & Truss 2005). To understand the influence of attitudes on productivity of work, scholars of management have designed a model, popularly referred to as the tri-component model, which explain what an attitude entails. Based on the model, an attitude includes the approach of an individual, the opinion, and actions. In some instances, an attitude might simply be an enduring evaluation of another person, an event, or an object (Armstrong-Stassen 2005).

Report on Integrated Approach to Change with Other Areas

Review of available data reveals that cognitive dissonance could perhaps be employed effectively in studying attitudes. Alfred Adler researched on individual’s feelings and attitudes, which led to the development of a theory concerning individual psychology. The theory postulates that an individual’s attitude towards the surrounding plays an important role regarding behavior (Goltz & Hietapelto 2007). The theorist underscored the fact that an individual’s opinion, mind-set, and actions are transactions that are determined by an individual’s internal and external environment.

Based in this reality, it is factual that an attitude is purely influenced by the social environment. In the same way, the social environment is influenced by the attitude, meaning that the two are closely related. The interactions between the social world or the social environment and attitudes might result to conflicts on the behavior of an individual. This type of conflict is what Adler referred to as cognitive dissonance, which is an inconsistence that comes about because of interactions between attitudes and the social environment. Allport and Adler carried out several studies on the relationship between attitudes and the social environment. Such studies show that an individual would be forced to reduce the dissonance/conflict in case the inconsistency tends to be uncomfortable.

For instance, if worker A likes workers B and C while worker B does not like worker C, this shows an inconsistency hence worker A will be forced to deal with this contradiction. In this regard, worker A has at least three options, one of them being trying to change the perception and the views of worker while the second entails changing his or her owns feelings regarding one of the coworkers (Oreg 2006).

Each employee is saddled with the responsibility of implementing the organizational change. Thus, an employee’s attitude can limit the process of change. The communication gap in the organization can hinder the process of change. Employee’s exclusion from decision-making during organization change will cause resistance and it is influenced by the employee’s dislike for the change. The entire staff determines the successful implementation of an organizational change. The employee’s uncertainty in the new plan may affect his or her compliance with the change (Piderit 2009).

Effective communication will reduce the negative thoughts on the management change and thus, influence a positive attitude. From the review of literature, it is eminent that organizations are expected to improve their chances of enhancing employee support in order to incorporate all employees into change programs. Based on this, they are expected to come up with change initiatives that are all-inclusive, comprehensive, and attainable (Paulsen, Callan & Jimmesion 2005). Studies focus on attitudinal constructs, which represent the views and opinions of employees towards change in the organization.

Change, as well as the process of change, is very important to any management. In fact, attitude is described as a tendency to feel, think, and behave in a way that would determine the performance of the individual employee and the organization in general. The behavior resulting from attitudes could be positive or negative, depending on situation, the object, or the event. An attitude explains an individual’s favored or unfavorable review of another person’s behavior. An attitude entails the belief of a person towards a certain product, service, or even concept. If the product or service is good, the person’s attitude towards such a product or service is positive. The reverse is true for poor service or below quality product. In this regard, the attitudes of employees in the organization have a direct influence on performance and productivity. In other words, attitudes are indicators of effective and efficient work in many organizations.

As earlier discussed in the previous section, an attitude is manifested by the rationality and regularity of individual conduct, which perhaps permits investigational study. Therefore, it is noted that the attitude of employees should be positive towards certain change programs for any success to be realized. If the attitude of employees towards a particular change program were negative, resistance would be inevitable meaning that the desired goals and objectives would not be realized. An attitude has a direct impact on the self-esteem, output, and turnover targets of employees in any organization (Martin, Jones & Callan 2005).

Conclusion and Recommendations

Employees are change agents in an organization. Organizational change will start with the employees and its structure. Organizational change may be transformative, minor, or major, which requires the collective effort of the employees in the organization. The employee’s feelings, attitude, and perceptions can assist the management in reorganizing the change process during organizational change. Managers can measure the success of the organizational change with the level of employee’s commitment to the change.

Thus, an employee’s feelings, perceptions, and attitude influence his or her commitment towards the organizational change. A positive attitude will produce a positive influence towards the change strategy and plan. Managers must bridge the gap between employees during organizational change, which will provide a positive union between management and its policy.

Management of change works better when the employees are part of the decision-making process. Employees are agents of change and can influence the successful implementation of an organizational change. Managers find it interesting when employees provide support during organizational change. Employee’s emotion controls productivity. The sense of security influences their efficiency in the organization. A positive attitude, perception, and feelings influence the implementation of organizational change.

Reference List

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Piderit, K 2009, “Rethinking resistance and recognizing ambivalence: a multidimensional view of attitudes toward an organizational change”, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 25, no. 4, pp 783-794.