The business world is changing at a very high pace because technology is advancing, consumer behavior patterns are varying and market regulations are updating each day.
By Alina Khan
The business world is changing at a very high pace because technology is advancing, consumer behavior patterns are varying and market regulations are updating each day. In order to stay relevant in the market a company needs/ to adapt and capture growth opportunities or else they are most unlikely to surpass their competitors. Nowadays change management is not only a sign of success but it can also assist you in sustaining competitive edge. Therefore accepting and adapting to change should be the top priority of any business who wants to survive.
“Change is the only constant”, a quote like this can actually help you survive dynamic environments. Every day comes with new challenges and opportunities but it is up to you how you will manage that change. Change is transitioning from one state to the other. Individual change experience can be different than business changing experience. Change can have several causes and can be of multiple types but when it comes to business, an organization need to transition itself from the current state to where it want to be in the future. This change cannot take place without the involvement of employees under one organization. Whatever way you choose to cope up with the change, you will need to involve people in it.
Change management plays a crucial role at this time when different people react differently to change. Change management is vital because it will provide the processes, tools, and approaches to bring about the individual transitions that will make up the overall organizational change. Change management is the application of processes, methods, body of knowledge, skills, and experience to bring about the people side of change, thus optimizing the benefits of an initiative. – Daniel Lock. Without a successful change management, an organization has very few chances to be successful.
There will be quite a few change management activities that will be discussed in the article to cope up with the change but first let’s discuss, why is there a need to manage the change? As mentioned earlier coping up with change depends on people but people are different. Not every person has the same attitude towards change. A research shows only 38% of people are likely to give a positive response towards change and the rest 62% will feel fear and discomfort.
Change management activities are not only for upcoming problems but also for problems that can occur anytime in future or processes that help and support more than one problem at a time. The change management process will start with ‘Identification’. The first and foremost thing is to find resistance in the organization. Search for the employees that resist the most and try finding out a reason for that because negative attitudes tend to spread faster. Second is to embrace and accept people with change. Recruit and accept people with latest trends because they tend to give valuable insights about the changing world. The third people category to involve is the neutral ones those who do as the others do. It is good to have people like that to some extent but try finding out the reason behind their lack of interest. As mentioned above, this change management activity will help with individual transitions all well.
Another important step in this activity is to make SMART goals to achieve effective results. Setting up meaningful milestones makes it manageable and provide the organization will small wins and motivating alongside. These milestones can help measure the progress and performance of the organization and lets you look back, reflect and take insight of previous activities. After accomplishing goals, feedback becomes necessary.
The next most crucial activity is to engage employees in everything possible and this needs to be done constantly and consistently. Meetings are great way when it comes to involving and communicating employees in business discussion. They can be virtual as well the tradition conference meetings. This is helpful tool only when the group of employees is of a certain number that can be handled easily. These meeting give room for discussion, starting conversation and finding causes. In this time of cloud based webs entire workforce can engage over an employee app which is named Connecteam. This app can also be used in updating employees’ progress, employees can share comment and like on posts likewise on Facebook.
Engaging employees with each other is as important as engaging employees with the organization. Building a team culture among your employees can reveal hidden potentials and make an organization more than only a workplace. There are 5 core functions to disclose secrets effective HR in order to get effective results. Stability, focus, consistency, team work and velocity covers it all.
It is really difficult to follow a path without knowing its destination. Employees need clarity in their direction so they can utilize their skills appropriately. In order to stay effective they need not to lose their focus and stay consistent. As mentioned earlier common goals need joint performance and collaboration. Working in teams decrease competition and give rise to collaborate and complement each other’s work.
As discussed earlier a major development area is adaptability or can be termed as flexibility. Dynamic work environments need people who can adapt to ever changing work related situations. Employees will flexibility are to be considered as an asset in today’s time. Adaptability is the key to an employee’s well-being and ability to thrive within the work environment. During this changing environment knowledge management becomes a crucial component, shared information and collective knowledge is effectively used in growing and developing.
Last but not the least, Organizational Development (OD) is a field of research, theory, and practice that can be help in expanding knowledge and effectiveness of people during change and let them accomplish their goals in a better way. It is a continuous process of making improvements in the organization, so it may be able to solve and manage future problems easily with all the transfer of knowledge and skills.
A very common way used in OD to cope with change is known as action research. This process continuous improvements consists of 4 major steps that are diagnosis, action planning, intervention and evaluation. In the very first step of diagnosis, the organization is diagnosed with all the potential problems that are hurdling in the way of improvements or can occur during this process. This process of identifying problems and their causes is undertaken with the help of a specialist outsider. Mission, goals, policies, structures and technologies; climate and culture; environmental factors; desired outcomes and readiness to take action are some of the major components that are looked upon while taking interviews and surveys.
Strategic planning and appropriate actions are developed for the diagnosed problems. Before implementing any change management strategy its feasibility is assessed. Then all the selected change strategies are filtered, sequenced and monitored. The final result comes in when the organization’s progress is tracked.
Thus developmental activities play a crucial role in preparing employees for adverse and unseen circumstances because an organization’s success and failure depends on its employees. Growth and career development should be encouraged by the HR seniors in the organization through training sessions, appraisals and feedback.