Strategies to Manage Employee Resistance to Change

Education and Communication can be used to make the employees aware of the change. As per the statistics workers normally resists because of insufficient, misleading or incorrect information (Williams & McWilliams 2010/2012). So to reduce these kinds of incorrect information, management should communicate well and explains and informed all the coming changes to the employees. Management communicate well the detailed aspects of the change to employees will easily overcome the difficulties of resistance to change.

According to a survey of Indian Organizations and MNCs in Delhi conducted by “International Refereed Research Journal”, states that the employees of MNCs those who communicate well are more acquaint and familiar with change management compare to Indian companies employees.

The study shows that the changes are often resisted because the employees who were to carry it out did not know what they were supposed to do (Swati Mittal 2012). That means the manager had not communicated well the detailed aspects of the change to employees. Whereas the MNCs in India are very friendly to employees and they both have direct communicated relationship, therefore they MNCs managed the resistance to change more efficiently than the Indian companies.

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Moreover, in the “International Journal of Business and Management’s” research on deviant behaviors and resistance to change shows that a company’s changes made without knowing or without any interest of stakeholders were inversely effect the company. So the company should inform its all stakeholders about the change, for this company should use an efficient and convenient communication system (Akinlolu Ayodeji Agboola & Rafiu Oyesola Salawu 2011).

Furthermore, Education is also very important factor to reduce resistance to change. Company can educate their employees by providing better training in the form of workshops or training camps is needed to workers to get ready to face resistance.

Sometimes when the workers get enough skills and education about the change aspects, they themselves accept and welcomed to the new changes that they before refused. As a research from “International Journal of Business and Management” about a company stopped its automatic salary increments says that the employees of the company were not happy with that scheme and the company tries to give training to them about that bonus scheme. So the company ordered all the HODs (Head of Departments) to educate their respective departments on the benefits of the new bonus scheme. After the training those employees get enough education about the new bonus system and they agreed to the new system. And they were motivated to work harder (Akinlolu Ayodeji Agboola & Rafiu Oyesola Salawu 2011).

Participation can be used to satisfy the workers, as when workers are participated and involved in decision making process then they will have understanding that the organization needs them and value their work. If the people actively participate they will be more likely to feel ownership of the change and will be less likely to resist.

When the employees are involved and participated in planning and implementing the change process will have better understanding towards the changes. Participation of managers and employees to the change approach will be able to manage resistance to change quicker (Rosemond Boohene & Asamoah Appiah Williams 2012). When employees are involved in the change effort they are more likely to buy into change rather than resist it. This approach is likely to lower resistance more so than merely hoping people will acquiesce to change. For example a company tries to change its strategy should ask opinion from its employees and has to participate their employees in the decision making process about the new strategy, if not the employees may not feel good or comfortable about the changes and they may not follow the new strategy.

The management themselves made decisions often leads to resistance as there is no involvement of employees. Coercion is using the formal power and authority to force others to change. This is advised to use when all the five techniques were failed or when a crisis exists (Williams & McWilliams 2010/2012). Coercion is forcing employees to change so companies can use different methods to force them like threatening the employees with loss of jobs or promotions and firing or transferring them to other jobs. Managers can explicitly or implicitly force employees into accepting change by making clear that resisting change can lead to losing jobs, firing, or not promoting employees.

A research made by “International Business and Management” in the year 2012 about the resistance to change shows that the Oti Yeboah Compex Limited have used the technique Coercion to overcome resistance to change. They used this technique to manage the resistance occur because of their new reward system. They use disciplinary measures such as threatening the loss of jobs and warning of firing, so they manage to control this resistance very easily even though this technique is not advisable to use often as this may created anger in the employees and the change may be sabotaged (Rosemond Boohene & Asamoah Appiah Williams 2012).

Negotiation allows them to discuss and make mutual understanding among themselves regarding the work they do at the job and agreeing who will do what when the changes occur. A constructive criticism and healthy negotiations are always very helpful to the organization and leads to get productive ideas. Managers can combat resistance by offering incentives to employees not to resist change (Rosemond Boohene & Asamoah Appiah Williams 2012). This can be done by allowing change resistors to veto elements of change that are threatening, or change resistors can be offered incentives to go elsewhere in the company in order to avoid having to experience the change effort.

This approach will be appropriate where those resisting changes are in a position of power. According to Journal articles I read it shows that most of the companies do not give importance to negotiations for overcoming resistance to change, as a result they feel difficult to manage and overcome the resistance to change. As there are no negotiations, the management should not know what the demands that the employees want are and what is the opinion of employees towards the new changes. So to have better understanding and to manage the resistance to change negotiation is needed.

Top management support is need to employees to reduce the difficulties faced because of change. Management should listen and hear the voice of employees and has to facilitate ways to fulfill their demands. Sometimes employees may feel very difficult to change, in these cases the management should help them to overcome the resistance. Management should facilitate all the necessary ways to encourage them, as this is organizational issue the employees themselves alone cannot come through this and they need management support.

According to a research made by “International Business and Management” says that the companies who had greater quality of manager-employee relationships and development opportunities are easily overcoming the resistance to change or they have less likely to face resistance to change than the companies who doesn’t have good relation between management and employees (Rosemond Boohene & Asamoah Appiah Williams 2012). The research by “International Refereed Research Journal” states that the MNCs operate in India are more efficient in managing the resistance to change than the Indian companies because of the management support given by the Top managers of those MNCs to their employees. The managers ask the employees how they feel about the change and what are the ways that the management could help them to overcome the resistance. So this is the reason that MNCs are efficient and more flexible in managing resistance to change (Swati Mittal 2012).

To conclude, as there is a proverb “prevention is better than cure”, the organization has to take precautionary measures that would not lead resistance to change again in the organization. For that the company can arrange awareness programs giving information about the factors that causes the resistance like self-interest, misunderstanding, distrust and general intolerance. Moreover, to overcome and manage resistance to change the company has to identify what causes the resistance to that organization. In different organizations the causes of resistance to change will differ. When the organization finds what causes them, then they have to use the most appropriate technique to manage them. Managers should carefully analyze the situation of the organization and has to use the most appropriate techniques to manage the resistance to change.

List of reference

Swati Mittal (2012). Managing Emplotee Resistance to Change a comparative study of Indian organizations and MNCs in Delhi – NCR region, International Refereed Research Journal, Vol.3, Issue3 (4),p.p 64-71.

Akainlolu Ayodeji Rafiu Oyesola Salawu (2012). Managing Deviant Behaviors and Resistance to change, International Journal of Business and Management, Vol.6, No.1,p.p 235-242.

Rosemond Boohene, Asamoah Appiah Williams. Resistance to change : A case study of Oti Yeboah Complex Limited. International Business and Management, Vol.4,No.1,2012,p.p 135-145.

Williams and McWilliams. MGMT Asia-Pacific 2010/2012 edition.