First of all - break the resistance!

The modern market is characterized by changes in trends and requirements, and continuous transformation is a permanent element of our reality. Socio-economic changes that are currently observed in Central and Eastern Europe and thus in Poland pose serious challenges for companies. Organizations are forced to overcome the growing competition on the market. The ability to overcome it is demonstrated, among others, by the level of flexibility and ease with which we are able to introduce changes and modifications in the company to follow changes observed on the market.

An important element occurring during the implementation of the change is not only its course and individual activities related to it, but the staff itself. The most common mistake observed when making changes to organizations is to treat employees and even middle managers only as contractors, not as creative people. Increasing the independence and competence of the staff allows for achieving lasting improvement in the functioning of the organization.

However, it should be remembered that each unit responds to change in a different way. For most people, the observed response to change is FEAR. Opposing change is a natural human response. It is directly related to the fear of implementing innovations. It is worth considering WHY is this happening ?? After all, the goal of any change is to improve the efficiency of the enterprise, better use of resources and create conditions that stimulate the development of human potential and strengthen the motivation and creativity of employees. The reason for the negative reaction of employees to introducing changes is very simple. Situations related to change bring new working conditions, often new obligations. Lack of understanding of the necessity to introduce a change and incomplete or unclear information about its course means that the change is assessed as a hazardous situation. It evokes emotional tension among employees, caused by fear of losing valuable and valued values, as well as fear and fear of the unknown. The consequence of this are numerous conflict situations and misunderstandings.

According to the research of the American sociologist A. Zender, resistance occurs when:

• information about the change is unclear or incomplete  
• there are conflicting opinions about it in the organization  
• the change may endanger the employee's interest  
• the change forces the employee to raise qualifications, lower his prestige and importance 
• the change may show that he is inefficient at work or that his activities are superfluous  
• the employee is simultaneously subject to the effects of strong, opposing forces, pushing towards change and counteracting change.

The resistance against change is the greater, the more employees concerned it feel it is imposed from the outside, and the smaller, the more they feel its co-creators and can participate in its preparation. Personnel changes are more resistant than changes regarding impersonal norms, patterns, rules of procedure and procedures. Resistance against change occurs when the change program does not take into account informal patterns, conduct standards, interpersonal systems, relationships, etc. established in the workplace.

Therefore, when planning any changes, you should try to predict employee responses, identify concerns and overcome employee resistance. Based on the observation of the reaction to a change in the staff employed in organizations, I allowed myself to divide the reasons for opposing employees into 3 subgroups: concerns about the overall functioning of the organization, resistance related to their own job position and fear about the employee's personal sphere. We can highlight the concerns related to:

ORGANIZATION

• insufficient knowledge of the change  
• no awareness of the need for change  
• not enough motivation when making a change
•  no benefits from introducing changes

EMPLOYEE

• increasing employee responsibilities  
• degradation to a lower position  exemption  
• making changes too quickly  
• change of duties and necessary training

PERSONAL SPACE

• making a mistake
•  discredit
•  new situation
•  loss of colleagues, friends
•  coercion to change habits
•  loss of existing control over life
•  previous bad experiences with making changes

The guarantor of the positive acceptance of the changes by the staff is, therefore, to explain the specificity of the intended activities related to the change and to indicate the real benefits for the enterprise and employees resulting from the proposed change.