Organizations may realize that as the workforce gets older, the types of benefits workers prefer may change. Work arrangements such as flexible work hours and job sharing may become more popular as employees remain in the workforce even after retirement. It is also possible that employees who are unhappy with their current work situation will choose to retire, resulting in a sudden loss of valuable knowledge and expertise in organizations. Therefore, organizations will have to devise strategies to retain these employees and plan for their retirement.
Finally, a critical issue is finding ways of dealing with age-related stereotypes which act as barriers in the retention of these employees. Sometimes change is motivated by rapid developments in technology. Such change is motivating corporations to change their technology rapidly. Sometimes technology produces such profound developments that companies struggle to adapt. A recent example is from the music industry. When music CDs were first introduced in the s, they were substantially more appealing than the traditional LP vinyl records.
Record companies were easily able to double the prices, even though producing CDs cost a fraction of what it cost to produce LPs. For decades, record-producing companies benefited from this status quo. Yet when peer-to-peer file sharing through software such as Napster and Kazaa threatened the core of their business, companies in the music industry found themselves completely unprepared for such disruptive technological changes.
Their first response was to sue the users of file-sharing software, sometimes even underage kids. They also kept looking for a technology that would make it impossible to copy a CD or DVD, which has yet to emerge. Only time will tell if the industry will be able to adapt to the changes forced on it. Globalization is another threat and opportunity for organizations, depending on their ability to adapt to it. Because of differences in national economies and standards of living from one country to another, organizations in developed countries are finding that it is often cheaper to produce goods and deliver services in less developed countries.
In the s, knowledge work was thought to be safe from outsourcing, but in the 21st century we are also seeing many service operations moved to places with cheaper wages. For example, many companies have outsourced software development to India, with Indian companies such as Wipro and Infosys emerging as global giants. Given these changes, understanding how to manage a global workforce is a necessity.
Many companies realize that outsourcing forces them to operate in an institutional environment that is radically different from what they are used to at home. Dealing with employee stress resulting from jobs being moved overseas, retraining the workforce, and learning to compete with a global workforce on a global scale are changes companies are trying to come to grips with.
Market changes may also create internal changes as companies struggle to adjust. For example, as of this writing, the airline industry in the United States is undergoing serious changes.
Demand for air travel was reduced after the September 11 terrorist attacks. At the same time, the widespread use of the Internet to book plane travels made it possible to compare airline prices much more efficiently and easily, encouraging airlines to compete primarily based on cost. This strategy seems to have backfired when coupled with the dramatic increases in the cost of fuel that occurred begining in As a result, by mid, airlines were cutting back on amenities that had formerly been taken for granted for decades, such as the price of a ticket including meals, beverages, and checking luggage.
Some airlines, such as Delta and Northwest Airlines, merged to stay in business. How does a change in the environment create change within an organization? Environmental change does not automatically change how business is done.
In , brothers Kurt on the left and Rob Widmer on the right founded Widmer Brothers, which has merged with another company to become the 11th largest brewery in the United States. It is natural for once small start-up companies to grow if they are successful. An example of this growth is the evolution of the Widmer Brothers Brewing Company, which started as two brothers brewing beer in their garage to becoming the 11th largest brewery in the United States. This growth happened over time as the popularity of their key product—Hefeweizen—grew in popularity and the company had to expand to meet demand growing from the two founders to the 11th largest brewery in the United States by Anheuser-Busch continues to have a minority stake in both beer companies.
Change can also occur if the company is performing poorly and if there is a perceived threat from the environment. In fact, poorly performing companies often find it easier to change compared with successful companies. High performance actually leads to overconfidence and inertia. As a result, successful companies often keep doing what made them successful in the first place.
For example, Polaroid was the number one producer of instant films and cameras in Less than a decade later, the company filed for bankruptcy, unable to adapt to the rapid advances in one-hour photo development and digital photography technologies that were sweeping the market. Successful companies that manage to change have special practices in place to keep the organization open to changes. For example, Finnish cell phone maker Nokia finds that it is important to periodically change the perspective of key decision makers.
For this purpose, they rotate heads of businesses to different posts to give them a fresh perspective. Research shows that long-tenured CEOs are unlikely to change their formula for success.
Changing an organization is often essential for a company to remain competitive. Failure to change may influence the ability of a company to survive. Yet employees do not always welcome changes in methods.
According to a survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management SHRM , employee resistance to change is one of the top reasons change efforts fail.
In fact, reactions to organizational change may range from resistance to compliance to enthusiastic support of the change, with the latter being the exception rather than the norm. Active resistance is the most negative reaction to a proposed change attempt. Those who engage in active resistance may sabotage the change effort and be outspoken objectors to the new procedures. In contrast, passive resistance involves being disturbed by changes without necessarily voicing these opinions.
Instead, passive resisters may dislike the change quietly, feel stressed and unhappy, and even look for a new job without necessarily bringing their concerns to the attention of decision makers.
Compliance , however, involves going along with proposed changes with little enthusiasm. Finally, those who show enthusiastic support are defenders of the new way and actually encourage others around them to give support to the change effort as well. To be successful, any change attempt will need to overcome resistance on the part of employees.
Otherwise, the result will be loss of time and energy as well as an inability on the part of the organization to adapt to the changes in the environment and make its operations more efficient. Resistance to change also has negative consequences for the people in question. The change management process springs from recognising that, while having a vision of the new organisation and communicating it are important, it is the employees themselves who have to deliver the change.
Sometimes, change projects can lose optimism and vision if not implemented thoroughly, so a well-handled process is integral to maintaining positivity and direction. Many are suffering change fatigue. In any organisation, culture and capability are intricately related. An organisation with a culture of continuous improvement, self-development, optimism, resilience and confidence in the face of change, has the ability to constantly renew itself and flex its capability and resources in line with ever-changing needs and thus remain on the competitive edge.
For less flexible organisations, the challenge can be further compounded by top talent, the very talent that is essential to transform the organisation, leaving for more innovative and energetic workplaces. Ensuring change is implemented and embedded effectively is central to any organisational change management process. To enable change to be embedded, it is important that people understand the need to change, can see the gaps between the current and the future and can grasp the implications of those gaps on organisational and individual success.
In turn, this enables the successful adoption of change as people willing move with it. Organisational strategies are usually the prime movers in organisational development. They are usually based on a medium-term view of the challenges faced by the organisation and the need to respond by implementing organisational development.
That leads to group norms, which support the new behaviours that have been agreed. Organisational change management tends to be less effective when strategies are turned into redesigned business processes. For example, when employees are sent on training courses, new organisational structures or processes implemented or operations are closed down without those affected truly understanding the objectives and being engaged personally in the journey.
In many cases, those helping to deliver the changes may also be lacking a thorough understanding. This typically causes a degree of confusion in the business when even the most talented employees feel disengaged and the masses express their resentment daily, passively or actively.
In an article in the Harvard Business Review recently, Boris Groysberg and others examine the relationship between strategy and culture.
In addition, some changes, such as government change, will always have a particular shelf life, but today the changes are coming on fast and more frequently.
Keeping change a part of your ongoing strategy will enable you to keep competitive — and also grow as a company. Without change, companies may soon find themselves falling behind the curve and losing ground compared to competitors. They need to be able to change and adapt to keep up with our ever increasingly more technological and developing times. Businesses should ideally move and adapt fluidly. Rigid work environments can result in shutting off creativity which helps new ideas grow.
Staff who perform the same jobs constantly day in and day out will never get the chance to show their skills or learn anything new to bring to the company. If people do the same thing day in and day out, they will never learn to develop new skills.
Although it can sometimes be difficult to persuade staff to embrace change, those who are able to embrace it with a positive attitude will stand to gain much more in personal development by working with the new strategies. The staff who are able to see the benefits in change are often the most valuable to your company — not only will they develop personally, but will also create situations where the business will automatically grow alongside them.
The ability to embrace change will continually help businesses to find and nurture new business ideas and opportunities. Having stellar change strategies will help any business to move forward into new areas brought about by the new ways of working. This could be either by getting involved with other companies to expand, or simply new contacts which lead to sales growth.
Staff who see their company more easily able to adapt to new circumstances and react to change are able to see positive attitudes from above, will always make a difference to the employee and view the company as one which is relevant and keen to advance. Companies that are not afraid to make changes. Such as perhaps a change in Human resources that may lead to a more relaxed working environment …means they know the company leaders are doing their best to create better circumstances for them.
This will lead to more satisfied team members and in turn, helps to higher staff satisfaction and morale. Change Management, Featured Post. Please log in again. The login page will open in a new tab. After logging in you can close it and return to this page. Why Change In the Workplace is Good! A Guide For Companies. Share 0. Tweet 0.
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