The benefits of change and the consequences of not changing

Benefits of change

➢Improved communication and collaboration between employees

• Improved communication and collaboration between employees is one of the major benefits of change management. This can help to ensure that everyone agrees and that they are working towards the same goal. Improved communication can also help to reduce conflict between employees and can improve team morale. Collaboration between employees can also lead to new and innovative ideas. This can help to improve the organization and can help it stay competitive in the market.

➢Increased employee productivity and job satisfaction

• Employees who participate in the change process are more likely to be productive and satisfied with their jobs. They will feel like they are a part of the change, and they will be more likely to support it.Employees who are not actively involved in the change process may feel left out or may resist the change. This can lead to decreased productivity and job satisfaction. Change management helps ensure employees are included in the process and understand what is happening.

➢Reduced stress levels and fewer workplace accidents

• The change management process can help to reduce stress levels and minimize the number of workplace accidents. This is because change management helps to ensure that changes are made in a safe and controlled way. Employees are more likely to be anxious if they believe their employers are forcing them to alter their work without providing any input or control. Change management allows employees to have a say in the change process and gives them a sense of ownership. This can help to reduce stress levels and prevent workplace accidents.

➢Better decision making due to streamlined processes

• One of the major benefits of change management is that it helps to ensure that changes are made in a safe and controlled way. This can help to improve decision-making in organizations. It can lead to confusion if changes are made in an unsystematicmanner. This can make it difficult to make decisions and can cause problems for the organization. Change management helps to ensure that changes are made in a coordinated way. This can help to improve communication between employees and can lead to better decision-making.

• Resistance to change does has effects on organizational change management. Resistanceemerges in different and unexcepted forms. It can be individual or at organizational level; it may be organized or unorganized. It can be overt or covert. Regardless of its type and extent, there are some negative effects of resistance to change and there may be some positive side of resistance to change.

➢Reduced performance

• The obvious negative effect of resistance to change is on productivity of employees. Their performance drops when they’re not motivated about their work and not willing to embrace change. Subsequently, it adversely affects organizational performance. This situation calls for a vigilant effort from leaders and change agents. Besides keeping an eye on performance and productivity of employees they should also focus on listening to genuine concerns of employees.

➢Employees turnover

• Most often than not employees resist change because they view it as a threat to status quo. This feeling of uncertainty causes stress and employees are soon burn-out. And it is natural that when employees feel burn-out they start thinking of quitting their job. Therefore, change leaders should be very careful about employees’ turn over during implementing change.

➢Conflicts

• Employees tend to be aggressive when they resist change. This causes conflict and disruptive conditions such as strikes at workplace. Conflicts usually happen due to worsened relationship between management and employees. When change leaders forcefully throw change on their employee who in return respond in negative arguments and quarrels. There are conflicts within employees due to difference of opinion about change.

➢Delayed Execution of change

• During the planning phase, change leaders usually don’t anticipate resistance and how it will affect change. But when they actually face it and try to manage it then it is the timeline which suffer most. Unrealistic timelines should be avoided and there should be flexibility in revisiting schedules and plans when organization is facing resistance from employees.

➢Additional financial cost

• There is always a financial cost of resistance to change. Organizations suffer losses when its productivity is reduced due to resistance by unmotivated employees. Time and other resources are wasted when experienced employees leave organization and entire change initiative is delayed. Same is true for conflicts such as strikes which cost any organization heavy financial losses and reputation as well.

The role of change in the survival and prosperity of organizations

Organizational survival and growth are implicit organizational goals requiring the investment of energy and resources (Jones & Bartlet, 2008). Organization that does not have survival as a primary objective or goal should have re-think (Gross, 1968). The goal of organizational survival underpins all other goals (Gross, 1968). Paying attention to this goal contributes to the satisfaction and execution of other organizational goals. Gross (1968) argued that the concept of survival is an unwritten law of every organization. This suggests that every organization should see survival as an absolute prerequisite for its serving any interestwhatsoever.

• Technological innovations have multiplied, products and knowhow are fast becoming obsolete.

• Basic resources have progressively become more expensive.

• Competition has sharply increased.

• Environmental and consumer interest groups have become highly influential.

• The drive for social equity has gained momentum

• The economic inter-dependence among countries has become more apparent

• Each organization desires to advance, grow and develop. Hence the organization should achieve flexibility to meet the growth and development needs. Leaders/managers constantly work for making the organization dynamic and flexible to achieve growth and development. So whenever experiences or foresees inflexibility, organizational changes are to be carried out. Changes under such circumstances benefit the organization as a whole. Because of above causes, organizational changes can take place in all, some or any of the following internal changes:

• 1.Employee goal changes

• 2. Work/job technology changes

• 3. Organizational structure changes

• 4. Organizational climate changes

• 5. Organizational goal changes.

Concepts of creativity and innovation and their significance for organisational success and change management

• According to West (2002), creativity is distinct from innovation as it encompasses the processes leading to the generation of new ideas to create value for individuals, organisations . The term innovation is used to describe the use of these new ideas, products or methods where they have not been used before (Eurostat Community Innovation Survey (CIS) 2015). Innovation intentionally introduces ideas, processes, products or procedures which are new to that job, work team or organisation, and which are designed to benefit the job, the work team or the organisation.

• Creativity and innovation within a well-run organization have always been a sure pathway to business success.

• Stimulating creativity and exploring new ideas and digital business strategies increase the organization’s productivity

• Creativity and innovation improve an organization’s problemsolving ability

• Creative problem solving that competitive edge that any business seeks to achieve

• Creativity and innovation are only possible when change occurs. Encourage employees to cultivate and implement new ideas. Allow team members to develop initiatives that align with their interests. Someone passionate about a particular idea or concept can spread the excitement to other.

• When leaders are creative, they promote creative way of thinking throughout the entire organization. An innovation culture inspires creativity. Team members feel comfortable sharing ideas because they know their voices are heard.

1.2 Identify the barriers to change and innovation in the organization/ Barriers to change and innovation – how to identify them and other difficulties in implementing change

The barriers to change and innovation in the organization are

• limited understandingof the change and its impact

• negativeemployee attitudes

• failure to involveemployees in the change process

• poor or inefficient communication

• inadequateresources or budget

• inadequateorganisational infrastructure.

• resistance to organisational culture shift

• lack of management support for the change

• lack of commitment to change

• past experience of failed change initiatives

• lack of skills

• lack of staff

• difficulties in establishing service

• absence of equipment required for the change

Difficulties in Implementing change

➢Lack of Proper Planning

• Without step-by-step planning, change in an organization is likely to fall apart or cause more problems than benefits. One need to understand exactly what changes will take place and how those changes will occur. The timeline for the change is also a key component. One need to plan for downtime or difficulties in completing regular work tasks while the change occurs.

➢Low Employee Morale

• Low morale becomes a barrier to the organizational change because the staff is likely to resist the changes. That resistance will make it difficult for a leader to facilitate a smooth transition and may impact productivity and efficiency as well.

When employees are unhappy with leaders decisions, they are far less likely to implement those decisions in a manner that helps the company achieve success.

• The decision to implement changes should come from the top level of the organization. All management level staff needs to be on board and able to deal with the changes or you may face dissent within the staff. Showing managers how the changes will affect the company and the steps for implementing the changes can help get them on board if they initially have reservations.