BMG563- Department of Management & Leadership-Level 5

Assessing if employees are likely to resist the change and discussing the nature of resistance, forms which it can take and its outcomes

In Spotlight PR Ltd, employees will surely be resisting to change as the board of firm has decided to drop its traditional services as now, it is going to re-launch and rebrand company solely as an online image management firm. Because of this, there will be significant changes in the organization as to develop its online expertise and reposition the company will be required. Along with this, it is expected that there will be several redundancies among the 100 strong workforce. However, it will majorly put a huge impact on employees that are involved in the event management (Free and et.al., 2013). But, at the same time, firm will be required to do recruitments so as to hire more people in order to reflect the new emphasis. This might not be liked by the existing employees as they would not feel comfortable with upcoming changes. Whenever there is some kind of disturbance in the order of things, people start avoiding these situations. As per the case of Spotlight, employees are likely to resist the change and their nature and forms of resistance are stated as below:

Loss of status or job security– Due to changes in the existing working patterns, people would get afraid that their job might be on risk as well as current situation may prove to be harmful for them with respect to loss of job. With administrative and technological changes, mainly employees, peers as well as managers will resist as because of the same, their positions in the firm would be on risk. This is because of the reason that the work that they are currently performing will be either done by techniques itself or other employees will also be able to do the same (De Groot and et.al., 2010).

Fear of failure– When Spotlight will adopt changes in its functioning, employees would have fear of failure in terms that will doubt their capabilities with respect to performing duties. Main reason behind this fear is that they will have to leave their comfort zone and thus, they might be worried about adjusting into new work requirements. Thus, if Spotlight wants to implement changes successfully, they would at first require to help the employees to move beyond these fears.

Concern about support system– Employees that are working within predictable routines always have a strong feeling that in the challenging times, their support system will help and back them up by which they would easily face the situations (Tanner, 2017). However, employees in Spotlight will resist to change because they would have fear that their support system will not be there after implementing changes in the organization. It is because; events management and promotions is completely different from corporate reputation management and so, their roles and responsibilities as well as the support system will get changed (Wheelen and Hunger, 2011).

Loss of control– When Spotlight would bring changes in response to changing market conditions, that is, to leave its traditional services and re-launch and rebrand the firm entirely as an online image management corporation, it will have to recruit more people in the team who would have roper knowledge and skills to perform the new work effectually (Galliers and Leidner, 2014). This will make existing employees feel to have loss of control. It is because; hiring new people in the firm would make them develop a sense of losing control over their work environment with which they are familiar and comfortable.

Organizational politics– One of the major reasons because of which employees may resist to change in Spotlight is to prove that the alteration in working style is not right as according to them, management has taken a wrong decision. This is the reason; they influence others as well because of which they also start resisting (Burke, 2013). Along with that, as changes always make some alterations in the power and positions of employees, so, because of the fear of losing some power in organization, some people do politics and make all efforts to make the change failed.

Climate of mistrust– In a climate of mistrust, that is, where people do not trust each other as well as not having faith on the decision making authority, meaningful organizational changes cannot be brought down in the firm. If there will be mutual mistrust, a well-conceived initiative would come to failure. Therefore, for Spotlight which is planning to implement changes with respect to re-launch and rebrand the firm entirely as an online image management corporation, at first, it is necessary to check whether there is mutual trust in between personnel of the firm or not (Laudon, Laudon and Brabston, 2011). If not, then at first, re-building their trust is important through which better results from the change efforts can be gained.

The outcomes from resistance of employees to change in Spotlight are like if there will be overuse of this approach, that is, bringing changes in business, the results gained from the same will suffer. In case if there will not be a thoughtful change strategy then firm may have to face or trigger a strong resistance as well as organizational turnover. Also, because of the fear of failure, intent of employees would become harden that will resist the efforts of company to implement change effectually (Langley and et.al., 2013). Due to loss of control, employees would feel, powerless and confused as well as their motivational level and morale would also get down. Because of the same, it will become difficult for Spotlight to gain higher profits as demotivated employees cannot perform as per the desired standards. Apart from that, because of the organizational politics, severe issues may arise like people against to change may influence others as well because of which there might be increased rate of employee turnover that would reduce the profits as well as negatively impact its goodwill in the market (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014).

Critically evaluating the strategies available to management in seeking to ensure that only positive outcomes result and identifying options due to which resistance may become negative

Spotlight will have an opportunity to retrain as online analysts that will lead the firm to extend to number of events management employees. Apart from that, this change will prove to be highly helpful with respect to complete reorganization of the remaining workforce into ‘client based’ teams. With the help of this, organization will be able to have new talent in business will experience, skills and knowledge required. Therefore, can be said that new hiring would play a vital role in making new business of firm highly successful in the market (Hughes, 2011). There are several ways by which resistance can be overcome effectually as well as changes would be implemented in an effective manner. Few common among them which ensure that only positive outcomes will result as well as some due to which resistance maybecome negative are discussed underneath:

Engaging employees effectively– One of the most effective ways by which issue of resistance of employees to change can be resolved by Spotlight is to take their feedback and listen the response effectually provided by them. It can be critically evaluated that this is important to make them aware that all clients are happy enough with the change as well as it is good for them also. Along with this, employees should be asked that whether they are comfortable with the change or not. This will make them feel to be recognized and valued and thus, they will be ready to accept change (Overcoming Employee Resistance to Change in the Workplace, 2016). Further, by asking the ways through which changes that firm is planning to bring can be made better would also work in resolving the issue of resistance to change. If employees would have any concern or questions, management of Spotlight should always be ready to answer the same. Also, just taking feedback is not enough as it should be read and utilized to make modifications in the plan is suitable. However, if it is done, making efforts for feedback would go waste as well as employees will not be ready to accept the change that will make the plan failed.

Overcoming opposition– It can be critically analysed that for Spotlight, to engage those employees who are opposed to change will be beneficial. Through this, management would come to know about their exact concerns and it might be possible it can resolve them in timely manner (Anderson and Anderson, 2010). By giving employees opportunity to share their input will make them feel that they are actually being care by the team. However, in case if their concerns are not being listened and management of Spotlight would not make any efforts to resolve the same, their resistance to change would become more negative that may create many issues for the organisation.

Execution of changes in different stages– It is not possible that change will happen at a time as it requires many steps to cross to get implemented. At first, organization is required to get prepared for the change and then necessary as well as suitable steps have to be taken. Following of the same, a plan will be made for managing the change and last but not the least; it is important to support the change and employees to accept and perform it effectually along with ensuring that everything is going as per the determined plans (Free and et.al., 2013). It can be critically assessed that if implementation of plan is not done step by step then making it successful would become impossible and all efforts made by the firm would go waste.

Effectually communicating the changes– To communicate that what exactly is going on and being planned to the employees will be beneficial for Spotlight as their resistance to change might be reduced to some extent if they will be satisfied with the same. It is important to use formal and informal communication with employees depending on their position and nature they possess so that they can be understood effectually regarding changes that are going to be brought in the firm. With the help of communication outlets like town hall, e-mail, face to face meetings and company intranet, information about change will be reached to all people working in the firm (De Groot and et.al., 2010). However, if this communication would not be done in an effective manner, making employees ready to willingly accept the same will not be possible at all.

Conclusion

It can be articulated from the above report that with change in time, business environment and growth of industries, business are required to evolve changes and only then, they can survive for longer duration of time. As per the given scenario of Spotlight, it is important for organization to adopt changes in terms of re-launching and rebranding the firm entirely as an online image management corporation to sustain in the long run. It has been assessed that while implementing changes, company may face resistance of employees to change because of reasons like loss of status or job security, fear of failure, concern about support system, loss of control, organizational politics and climate of mistrust. However, ways to overcome these issues that Spotlight can adopt are engaging employees effectively, overcoming opposition, execution of changes in different stages and effectually communicating the changes.

References

Books and Journals

• Anderson, D. and Anderson, L. A., 2010.Beyond change management: How to achieve breakthrough results through conscious change leadership. John Wiley & Sons.
• Armstrong, M. and Taylor, S., 2014.Armstrong's handbook of human resource management practice. Kogan Page Publishers.
• Burke, W. W., 2013.Organization change: Theory and practice. Sage Publications.
• De Groot, R. S. and et.al., 2010. Challenges in integrating the concept of ecosystem services and values in landscape planning, management and decision making.Ecological complexity.7(3). pp.260-272.
• Free, C. and et.al., 2013. The effectiveness of mobile-health technology-based health behaviour change or disease management interventions for health care consumers: a systematic review.PLoS med.10(1). p.e1001362.
• Galliers, R. D. and Leidner, D. E., 2014.Strategic information management: challenges and strategies in managing information systems. Routledge.
• Hughes, M., 2011. Do 70 per cent of all organizational change initiatives really fail?.Journal of Change Management.11(4). pp.451-464.
• Langley, A., Smallman, C., Tsoukas, H. and Van de Ven, A.H., 2013. Process studies of change in organization and management: Unveiling temporality, activity, and flow.Academy of Management Journal.56(1). pp.1-13.
• Laudon, K. C., Laudon, J. P. and Brabston, M. E., 2011.Management information systems(Vol. 8).Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
• Wheelen, T. L. and Hunger, J. D., 2011.Concepts in strategic management and business policy. Pearson Education India.

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