Resistance to change - how to deal with it?

Changes often focus mainly on lower-level employees. Redesigning the existing way of working and changing the status quo can directly cause the emergence of resistance and defensive attitudes. As J. Bright suggests. the reasons for the emergence of resistance can arise from a variety of causes:

Social:

• aspirations to preserve the social status and privileges held;
• striving to preserve the current way of life;
• against the elimination of jobs and professions;
• incompatibility of innovations with existing social norms, habits of daily life;
• personality traits, anxiety, the need to maintain conflict-free relations between people and institutions, and for other psychological or social reasons;
• the tendency of organized groups to impose conformist behavior on individuals;
• the reluctance of individuals and groups to violate harmonious social relations

Technological/organizational/systemic:

• habituation to existing facilities and accompanying services and reluctance to implement new procedures;
• reluctance to spend on purchasing new equipment or on renewing and upgrading existing systems;
• difficulties in company structure, procedures, technology, etc;
• lack of flexibility in large, bureaucratic organizations;

As you can see, most of the reasons for resistance to change lie in social issues. That is, first of all, it is necessary to take care of convincing employees to change and involve them. Just how can a manager do this?

1. Communication - that's the key! The manager's role will be to inform employees about the scope, purpose of the changes, but also to listen to employees: their concerns, questions, etc. Often, good communication can eliminate much of the resistance to change.
2. Participation in the change - the manager can invite employees to help develop part of the process of implementing the change, its scope. If this is successful, employees' understanding and acceptance of the change, as well as their commitment to implementing it, will certainly increase.
3. Facilitation and support of the change - training on the new procedures, transition periods, the possibility of getting help with the implementation, possibly the support of a coach, psychologist or simply talking can help employees deal with those changes that require a lot of effort on their part.
4. Leaders of the change - the manager himself and others who see the benefits of the change for the organization and employees stay can be ambassadors - leaders of the change. If other employees experience their positive attitude they can be infected.
5. Negotiating - if the changes can somehow "hurt" the interests of a group of employees, they can be persuaded to do so by offering something in return.

Of course, still among the methods of fighting resistance can be distinguished manipulation and coercion, but these methods are unethical and can contribute to increasing resistance to change.

Own elaboration based on B. Grouard, F. Meston "Kierowanie zmian w przedsiębiorstwie", Poltext, Warsaw 1997 and P. F. Schlesinger, V. Sathe. and co-authors: Organizational design, PWN, Warsaw 1999