Introduction
There has been an increasing desire for the firms, companies and organizations to improve their internal management structures and processes, so as to make the best use of new and evolving technologies because of increased competition among the various firms, companies and organizations in the world. Organizations are institutions where the people’s skills and abilities are brought together so that the organizations can utilize them to achieve their goals.
It also denotes the relationship that exists among the components of system. A system is a set of procedures that enable an organization to achieve its objectives. An organization consists of languages, practices and techniques through which people carry out their activities and it indicates their relationship with other people in the society. The outward manifestation of an organization is known as culture.
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In case of a company it is affected by some forces of change as internal and external forces of change such as finance and banking this where the bank’s services are very expensive to access since the cost of services of loans and overdrafts are very high access because for the company to access this facility the managers must have securities so that they can be provided with this facilities thus the company needs to change its way of operating due to the fact that it lacks the necessary resources to run effectively.
The company’s lists of internal and external threats include violence in the workplace, product defects, product liability, sabotage, chemical spills, terrorism, and natural disasters as earthquakes hurricanes or floods these factors can affect the operations of the company since their occurrence can result in the companies loss of profits thus the company needs to take corrective measures so that it can operate effectively.
The company’s change may occur because of the managements desire to change the way it operates its business for example if the company has been operating and has been focusing on its own needs of profit maximizations and improvement of its products then it needs to refocus its efforts towards producing products that have the preferences and tastes of the customers because they are the final users of their products thus the company needs to ensure that it produces quality products so that other companies may compete with them because of their production of poor quality goods and services and if they produce and sales decline they may thus be declared bankrupt because of not performing according to the regulations of the Company’s Act.
There are strategies known as discourse ordering strategies that are used by employees in companies so that they can understand the organizational change, they can learn how the organizational practices can be instituted, regulated and how organizing occurs in various mechanisms this ensures that they get the right skills and knowledge of conducting their affairs in the organizations. Individual psychological phenomena macroeconomic and political theory is used to explain organizational change.
Organizational change has not been accepted by very many organizations because many people are not willing to embrace change that will affect them in one way or another. The companies may change their systems from manual systems to the technological systems. In the manual systems workers are laid off since they are replaced by technical or machine-like systems which do their jobs and they cut on the expenses of the organization such as reduction of salaries and wages and these results in organizational change since the process involves s transferring some employees from one department to the other and laying off some workers due to the fact that change has taken place.
Information technology has been acknowledged to bring about change in the company because of its tools and methodologies for systems design but these tools do not address the issues of the workers thus the need for social-economic system that addresses the needs of the workers. Recently social-economic tools and methods have been established in companies so as to help workers in those companies to achieve their objectives. Mangham, I. (1988).
Information technology has been considered as a useful tool in organizations because it has microelectronics that store, process and communicate vast amounts of information quickly and vastly, it also provides a way of integrating separate ways of handling information data processing on large mainframe computers, text on typewriters, photocopier and printing machines and communications through the telephone, radio and the television. For information technology to be made effective the users and technologists need to be involved in designing the system so that an appropriate technology can be put in place to address problems that arise in the companies.
There are four levels of organizational change they include shaping and anticipating the future, defining what businesses to be in and their core competencies, re-engineering organizational processes and incrementally improving processes.
In the level of shaping and anticipating the future the company assesses what it is good at performing, and what it would like to achieve in the future. The management should define its opportunities based on its possible future needs and desires, to assess its strengths and weaknesses in scenarios as its mission, measurement of the system so that it can weigh what its good at achieving and hence enable it to improve its performance.
In the level of defining what businesses the company needs to undertake in the future and its learning of its competitors, defining its measures, goals, strategies this ensures that the company prepares a proper plan of conducting its activities so that it would ensure that the company achieves its goals in the future. The re-engineering process involves focusing on making structural changes to the everyday activities and duties with goal of improving productivity, efficiency, quality or customer satisfaction this enables a company to perform its activities successfully. Incrementally changing a company’s process it means focusing on making small changes to existing work processes.
The company’s management should ensure their employees implement the changes when they arise so that the company can achieve its goals because the small changes made can enable a company to successfully install parts of a system that can bring changes in the organization. These levels of organizational change increase customer satisfaction and they also enable them to do the right things at the right time and thus improve their productivity (Stone, R. J. 2).
The effects and consequences of organizational change have been widespread from the most insignificant alteration to a task or procedure through to major organizational restructuring and re-sizing. The effects of either the prospect of change or the actual implementation of change can be found far beyond the immediate issue, that it is the focus of change itself; this can have adverse effects on changes in the organization. When change is related to work procedures or structures, the results can range from temporary and marginal reduction in productivity, to internal sabotage or major industrial action. This can result from insecurity, employment, future potential or remuneration and the type of work that is done.
If a company interacts with its environment, then it is able to respond to external influences through the openness of the system boundary, since a more open system experiences higher levels of changes in its environment.. An open system is preferred in the police organizations because with this system the police can gather information from the public about issues that affect them directly or indirectly such as information as crime rates and measures can be taken to curb these vices in the future (Denning, S. 2001).
The factors that stimulate and motivate change are environmental, technical structural, psychological, managerial and the goals and values of an organization. In the case of the environmental factor can affect change because it can be brought about changes in the company because it can result from change of the climatic factors, in case it rains the company such as the soft drink company can reduce its production because the customers may not desire their products at such a time because of the cold weather thus change is experienced.
In case of the management goals and values of a company they may affect change this because the managers may come up with their plans of how to improve the performance of the company thus in the process of restructuring its company and looking at how it would like to operate its business then change is experienced. The psychological factors can affect change this factor can arise from the way the management and employees of a company carry out their duties and responsibilities, if they don’t carry out the activities satisfactorily then the company may not achieve its objectives and may result in low performance of the company and may result in change in the level of its production.
The change stimuli may emerge from strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities threats analysis of the political-economic, social, technological and environmental factors arising around the organization’s activities.
Factors that have lead to resistance to change
These include psychological factors, psychosocial factors, sunk costs, personal strategies and confusion.
The psychological factors that have lead workers resistance to change are; Uncertainty: many staff does not know in detail what they are supposed to do or what the system requires them to do and this may lead to a situation that can result in resistance to change, Uncertainty can also arise from poor internal communication, staff inattention to new instruction, inability or reluctance of employees to understand what is required of them. www.uq.edu.au/uqresearchers/researcher/innespa.html
The lack of confidence by the staff leads to poor implementation of change; this arises from inadequate training or communication and absence of an opportunity for the staff to practice properly in their areas of specialization. Worry or anxiety can impede the implementation of change process. Stress is also factor that doesn’t allow change since it limits the performance of daily activities and in such severe cases results in inactivity, loss of self-esteem and a disregard of new or unfamiliar challenges or changes on the part of the employees, fear is also another factor that can impede change, it results from an employee evading a problem thus the staff flees from implementing new skills.
Depression is also another factor that impedes change implementation since it is a personal mood of helplessness and inadequacy associated with other physical or mental conditions and this will constrain an individual’s motivation to progress current work and to develop changes.( Brunes, B. 2000)
The psychosocial factor involves the culture of the workers in the organizations. The elements of culture involve observed behavioral regularities of the staff, that is their language, rituals, dress demeanor, the norms that evolve in working groups that are fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay dominant values such as quality of service, adherence to law these issues affect the operations of the businesses because all workers have different ways of doing their work since they have been brought about in different communities thus their behaviors may vary from one person to the other.
Organizational philosophy is the vision that guides the management of a company towards learning its staff or customers, the rules that have to be leaned by a newcomer, the climate that is the impression created by the physical layout and how staff interacts with outsiders this helps the management to learn how to handle the employees because they are the most useful assets of the organization because they ensure the operations of the company operate effectively because if the management doesn’t learn the employee’s behaviors then it means that they would not work as the per the expected standards and may lead to them resisting change.
Sunk costs refer to situations where time, energy or money has been invested in an existing system by an individual who has had some influence on the establishment of the organization. An experienced manager may resist change in the situation in which he or she has an interest. The personal strategies that can result in the employee’s resistance to change are them ignoring the obvious information such as rejecting the important information that relates to change and the excessive levels of stress which are caused by lack of proper management of time and money of the employees thus resulting in the employee’s poor performances in the company’s environment.
The various ways of preventing resistance to change
For successful implementation of change the right change stimuli must be identified prior to analyzing the current situation and designing the changes. There are Cultural factors. there is need for organizations to minimize the opportunity for external justification and the use of extrinsic forms of motivation, rewards, punishment, so as to allow the individuals to have an opportunity to see the worth of what is to been done and to provide room of improvement for people who cannot accept the new pattern of values and beliefs in their workplaces.
Organizational change management program should be implemented since it ensures that the needs of the people are understood and that the related work done by them to promote efficient delivery of change and to support its results are achieved. It consists of changing the behavior and culture of people, whereby the people are made to understand the importance of change in the organization.
The workers should be engaged in the change process by ensuring that they attend seminars, workshops so that they can have an idea of how the new system operates and should be told about the importance of the changes into the organizations so that once the systems have been designed they can implement the system successfully (Marvin, W.and Sandra, J. 2000)
Communication is important when promoting change because it conveys information to the audience. The right media should be chosen so that the right information is conveyed to the right people and at the right time. The nonspecialized members should be given the basic skills and understanding to promote organizational change. They should be guided by specialists and the project change management approaches and planning programmers.
The users should also be given support mechanisms such as appropriate training at the right time desk-side coaching; good help desks or call center support. It has been observed that the top official’s commitment to the organizational change brings better results to the organization, since commitment encourages a greater degree of transparency and sincerity about information and also informal dialogue can support more formal structure (Marvin, W.and Sandra, J. 2000).
Other measures that can be undertaken to overcome resistance to change of a company are to regularly demonstrate positive features of the change by describing the advantages and benefits been accrued of the new systems to those involved, to compare the benefits of existing system with those of the current systems so as to weigh their benefits and costs, to associate the achievement of change with the internal reward system such as the advancements, recognition, financial rewards and or tangible inducements, and the association of non-achievement of change with internal sections system that is threat of security, lack of advancement, worsened financial prospects, loss of or reduced status of position, use of formal disciplinary measures.
Organizational change is important because it helps organizations to discover goals that people can aspire to achieve in future. It also helps people in organizations to become better connected with other people, organizations that can help the organization achieve their goals in the future and thus be able to compete with other organizations in the world.
.A successful change is focused on the measurement and the improvement of its shorter and long term results thus the of needs company needs to be defined so as to enable successful implementation of change. A successfully change helps a company to survive in the future since it enables it to regroup and regain in the midterm and enables it to grow towards its full potential strength in the long term process
References
Denning, S. (2001) The Spring board: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge Era- organization.revised edition.London: Nicholas Brealey.
Brunes, B. (2000). Managing Change: A Strategic a Approach to Organizational Change Dynamics (3rd Edition) Harlow, Pearson Education Publishing.
Marvin, W.and Sandra, J. (2000). Future Search: An action Guide to Finding Common Ground in Organizations and Communities, San Francisco: Berret-Koehler.
Mangham, I. (1988) Effecting Organizational Change, Blackwell, Oxford. Web.