Change can be one of the most difficult obstacles to overcome in the work environment. Whether it’s a new employee adjusting to rules and responsibilities, or someone who has been on the job for years, breaking old habits and learning new tasks can be overwhelming. As managers, our challenge is to make change easier for our employees. This is not a simple task, but there are ways to make the transition a little easier.
There are many reasons why change can be difficult for people. For one, I think that the older we get the more we appreciate predictability in our lives. We like to know that we will show up at work and see the same people, work at the same station, and perform a function that is familiar to us. We get comfortable. Sure some days are busier than others and offer certain challenges, but overall we feel pretty confident about what is expected and how we will accomplish our tasks. Change can disrupt this predictability and cause a great deal of distress among employees.
Some people adapt to change easily, others become skeptical at the first sign of change. As a manager, the challenge is to find a way to implement change without creating a stressful environment. Even though you can’t entirely predict the impact of change on the work environment, there are a few things you can do to help prepare yourself and your employees for change: good planning, communication, making yourself available, following up and listening.
Planning
Whenever possible it is always a good idea to plan ahead for change. People usually like to know how a particular change is going to affect them. Dropping hints or providing vague answers can cause unnecessary anxiety and make the change more difficult to accept. Therefore, try to have as much information about the change as possible before introducing it to your employees. Chances are the more organized you appear the more they will trust not only you, but the change itself.
Communication
It’s important to communicate effectively with your employees, especially when introducing change into the workplace. One thing people seem to forget is that communication goes both ways. Even though it is important that you provide employees with the information they need to perform their job, it is equally important that you not only allow, but invite communication, feedback and questions from your employees. It is important for them to know that they have a voice, that their concerns and ideas are heard and valued. Also, the more information they have, the more comfortable they will feel and will likely be more willing to accept the change you propose.
Availability
Even though you are likely running in a million different directions throughout the day, it is important that you make yourself available to your employees, especially during a time of change. They will likely have questions, especially at the beginning. Knowing that you are available to address their concerns could make them feel a little more secure and confident about their role in the change.
Follow Up
Following up with employees to check on progress is a key element to implementing a successful change. How has the change impacted their job? Are any adjustments needed to make the work flow smoother? Have there been any unexpected outcomes as a result of the change? Set a date to follow up with your employees and follow through with it. Their feedback is important to ensuring a positive outcome.
Listen
So often we get caught up in everyday activities that we forget to truly listen to our employees. It’s true that you may not be able to make everybody’s job easier or more efficient, but it is worthwhile to listen to what your employees have to say. They may bring a problem to the surface. They may have ideas to make a process run smoother. Employees can offer great ideas if we take the time to listen to them. As a manager you can do everything right, you can plan ahead, communicate, make yourself available and follow up, but if you don’t listen you could be missing a key element to implementing a successful change.
It can be easy to turn a blind eye to the concerns of our employees when we have piles of work stacked up on our desk. There are days when we all wish we could have a quick five-minute meeting about a change we want to implement and have it be easy and flawless. Unfortunately, as managers it is our responsibility to make sure that a change is implemented correctly and effectively, and sometimes that takes time.
As frustrating as it can be, taking the extra time to pay attention to the concerns and needs of employees can save you time in the future. It is important, regardless of the size of your department, that you have the support of as many employees as possible. Their attitude will affect the attitude of others, so it is important that the change gets off to a good start.
Change can be difficult for people to accept, especially in the work environment. It is our job as managers to not only supply our employees with the information they need to implement a change effectively, but also to follow through and make sure that the change has a positive effect on the department. By listening to our employees, making ourselves available and communicating effectively, we have the power to make a potentially difficult change successful.
Nothing is as upsetting to your people as change. Nothing has greater potential to cause failures, loss of production, or falling quality. Yet nothing is as important to the survival of your organization as change. History is full of examples of organizations that failed to change and that are now extinct. The secret to successfully managing change, from the perspective of the employees, is definition and understanding.
Resistance to change comes from a fear of the unknown or an expectation of loss. The front-end of an individual’s resistance to change is how they perceive the change. The back-end is how well they are equipped to deal with the change they expect.
An individual’s degree of resistance to change is determined by whether they perceive the change as good or bad, and how severe they expect the impact of the change to be on them. Their ultimate acceptance of the change is a function of how much resistance the person has and the quality of their coping skills and their support system.
Your job as a leader is to address their resistance from both ends to help the individual reduce it to a minimal, manageable level. Your job is not to bulldoze their resistance so you can move ahead.
Perception Does Matter
If you move an employee’s desk six inches, they may not notice or care. Yet if the reason you moved it those six inches was to fit in another worker in an adjacent desk, there may be high resistance to the change. It depends on whether the original employee feels the hiring of an additional employee is a threat to his job, or perceives the hiring as bringing in some needed assistance.
