Leading and managing organisational change
The HR leader may be faced with developing strategies to respond to organisational change, or he or she
may have the opportunity to promote and lead an organisational change initiative. Some types of
significant structural change, such as those brought on by restructuring, mergers and acquisitions, or
downsizing, hold both challenges and opportunities. �We buy companies to get excellent people� said
Mark Zuckerberg in 2010 to sum up Facebook�s acquisition strategy (Goldberg & Lobb, 2012, p.2).
Organisational growth, talent management and business performance can all be enhanced through
change initiatives and can present a real opportunity for HR to add value; at the same time, not all staff
may experience these changes as positive. For this Key Concept Exercise, you will examine the role of
the HR professional in planning for and managing change.
Human resources leaders have to constantly grapple with change. For them, leading and
managing organizational change is one of their foremost responsibilities. How change is
managed more often than not is the difference between success and failure of change in addition
to determining the level and degree of opposition to change.
As a concept, change management will often start with an awareness of the need to
change. In order to diagnose the unique characteristics and indicate the direction in which action
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needs to be taken, it would be important to undertake a situational analysis of the factors that
precipitated the change (Battilana, & Casciaro, 2012). Consequently, an evaluation after
identification is carried out on the choice made of the preferred action.
In essence, managing change during the transitional state becomes key to the success of
the change process. Thus challenges associated with change sprout and have to be managed
comprehensively. The challenges that have to be anticipated and planned for will include low
stability, misdirected energy, loss of momentum, conflict and resistance to change.
Since change is not an entirely linear and logical process, but rather a cumulative,
reformulation-in-use and interactive process. The type of change will in some instance shed
light on why people are resistant to change. It is not all about the end, the means is equally
important. On the whole, change is either strategic or operational.
Strategic change focuses on transforming the organization. As a concept, it is concerned
with the long-term, organization-wide and broad issues. It seeks to get the organization to its
future, generally defined by its strategic scope and vision (Benson, 2011). It covers the mission
and purpose of the organization, its corporate philosophy on such important aspects as quality,
growth, values, innovations, customer needs and technologies employees.
Strategic change thus covers the organizational strategic goals and competitive position
ideal for cementing its competitive advantage and development of product-market development.
Overall, strategic change takes place only in the context of social, economic and competitive
environment, its internal resources, culture, capabilities, systems and structures.
In structural change, the ability of the organization to point out and appreciate the
competitive forces that are active and how they change over time linked the ability of the
business to mobilize and manage the necessary resources required to cement a particular
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response through time. It should never be treated simplistically but rather as a sequence of
logically planned and executed events.
Operational change has a lot to do with procedures, new systems, technology and
structures that have an immediate effect on the working arrangement within a particular part of
the organization (Buchanan, Fitzgerald, Ketley, Gollop, Jones, Lamont, Neath, & Whitby,
2005). On their own, their impact is more individual and focused that strategic change, thus the
need to handle them with utmost care.
In as much as change is a good thing, it will more often than not be resisted by people. The
reasons why people resist change is as varied as there are people in this world. Basically, the
main reason for resistance to change is the threat to the familiar. This will affect behavior
patterns, status and financial rewards. Resistance to change presumes that the management is
rational in its quest for change and that employees are irrational, stupid and emotional in not
responding to the change as the management anticipated.
However, given each person’s individuality, when an individual decides that the change will
leave them worse off than they were previously, the resistance to change becomes real and
rational in terms of the individual’s self interest. Thus some of the main reasons for resisting
changes that have emerged over time and from research include;
The shock of the new – when individuals rightly or wrongly interpret change as
leaving them worse-off with regards to methods of working, established routines
and conditions of employment. Irrespective of management assurances as to the
benefits of the desired change, employees have legitimate reasons not to believe
everything management tells them. The risk of loss of employment make
employees takes all communication from the management with a pinch of salt.
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For them, management only looks out for the organization and not the employees
and all they do for employees is hidden behind ulterior motives intended to
improve profitability and not employee welfare (Amstrong, 2006).
Economic fears – threats on job security and loss of money
Inconvenience – the changes bring more challenges to the employees life,
Uncertainty – employees appreciate that even the best laid down plans could be
unruffled at any time.
Symbolic fears – for employees each change despite assurance of maintaining
status-quo, will undoubtedly result in small changes that could have a negative
effect due to the value attached to the symbols. Some of the symbols include
reserved parking space or separate private office (Arnette, 2013).
Threat of interpersonal relationships – when a group perceives rightly or wrongly
that they change would disrupt customary standards and social relationships, they
will offer resistance to change.
Threat to status or skill – this is when an individual interprets the change to mean
they will be de-skilled or status reduces, the natural reaction is to resist the
change.
Competence fear – this is borne by the individual’s ability to acquire new skills or
cope with new demands.
Overcoming resistance to change can be an uphill task. However it is important that no
effort be spared in achieving change – especially if it has been determined to be beneficial to an
organization. To begin with, an analysis of the potential impact of the change by taking into
account its effect of peoples jobs (Heugens, & Lander, (2009). The analysis point out the areas in
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need of specific or general support by individuals and which areas have a higher probability of
eliciting resistance.
As far as possible, individual negative and hostile reactions need to be identified and
measures put in place to mitigate resistance. This allows for the mapping of likely fears and
feeling so as to try and relive those that can be classified as unnecessary worries and ambiguities
resolved. For the individual championing the change – change agent, must always be alive to the
likelihood of new ideas being viewed suspiciously and thus the need to invest significantly in
discussion intended to make the proposal totally understandable to all.
By involving employees in the change management, organizations benefit from
employees giving feedback on arising issues and concerns, which can tem be addressed
promptly. Thus by an organization making employees achieve a feeling of ownership of the
change, it benefits from employees being more happy to live with the change since they feel that
the organization valued them enough to involve them in the planning and execution of the
strategy – the strategy is not longer for the organizations but is owned by the employees.
For example, the planned changes to be implemented by Etihad Airlines on Jet airways
are intended to make the Jet more profitable. To achieve this, Etihad set out to instill in Jet
‘Etihads’ way of doing business. The Etihad way is includes returning Jet Airways to
profitability in the shortest time possible. Etihad achieves this by implementing the ‘multilateral’
strategy which identifies loss-making airlines that have access to key markets and bringing them
to the Etihad family.
On its part, Etihad gets access to key source markets and for the airlines, a chance at
continued operations and guaranteed profitability in the future. Secondly, all Etihad tie-ups are
designed to nature loyal customers. This way, Frequent Flier Programme members get access to
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a wider array of redemptions options that are designed to increase customer loyalty. Thirdly, Jet
will benefit from increased efficiency. Etihad will in the long run, make Jet airways to operate
more efficiently by seeking to best serve customers from its point of strength as opposed
expending immense energy in areas that others can better perform.
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References:
Amstrong, M (2006) A handbook of Human Resource Management Practice, Kogan Page
Publishers, London.
Arnette, A. A (2013) Effective Change Management Process for Successful PMO
Implementation: A Delpi Study, Capella University, pp. 1-147, retrieved February 13,
