These changes require that we alter what we expect from the people we work with. We have to change the values we live by. Values like awareness, teamwork, tolerance, responsibility and information are paramount – just as flexibility and change readiness.

Overview

Change management can be describe as the act of changing the current state of affairs to new ways of doing things through a series of activities including communication and education, leadership, and team work

When switch from manual system to automate system we have to consider about the change management because organizational changes typically involve many different types and levels of personal loss for the people in the organization. For example, change always requires the effort to learn the new, which is a loss in terms of time and energy that could have been used elsewhere. Although some may welcome the learning opportunity, many of us don’t want to invest that time and energy unless we are dissatisfied with the current arrangements or see powerful advantages to the proposed change. Upgrading to new software in which the future benefits may not be seen as sufficient to outweigh the short-term investment required to learn the new programs.

Second, people want to feel good about themselves Ideally, people are able to take pride in their work, feel responsible for a job well done, feel they are part of a high-quality enterprise, and feel that their time has some significance. In many work situations, the work itself and the organizational culture make it difficult for people to feel good about themselves. In these poorer situations, people usually invent strategies to help them feel better about themselves, and these strategies involve getting some sense of control, belongingness, and significance out of their work. Sometimes this involves opposition to management, on the assumption that management is always up to no good. More commonly, the worker-management relationships are not completely alienated. Still, the workers’ strategies for achieving “good” feelings are unknown to or quite misunderstood by management. Therefore, change initiatives, unknowingly and unintentionally, threaten to cause the workers serious personal loss. Not surprisingly, the workers resist and do all they can to sabotage such change initiatives.

Third, change initiatives often require large losses for middle managers. Generally, people perceive that information systems increase the ability of top executives to know more about what is going on and to exert more direct control. New systems require us to learn a new set of behaviors.

Reasons for Change

Factors may lead to a necessity for change

To improve performance

To reduce waste and inefficiency

To improve management control and satisfaction of the employees

To improve the quality and productivity of an organization

To compete in the changing market environment

To achieve the desired business results as early as possible

Model of planned organizational change

Change can be managed. By observing external trends, patterns and needs, managers use planned change to help the organization to adapt to external problems and opportunities. When organizations are caught flat footed, failing to anticipate or respond to new needs, management is at fault.

Four events make up the change sequence:

Internal and external forces for change exist

Organization managers monitor these forces and become aware of a need for change; and

The perceived need triggers the initiation for change, which

Is then implemented.

How each of these activities is handled depends upon the organization and managers’ styles.

Organizational Development

Organizational development (OD) is the application of behavioral science knowledge to improve an organization’s health and effectiveness through its ability to cope with environmental changes, improve internal relationships, and increase problem-solving capabilities. Organizational development improves working relationships among employees. The following are three types of current problems that OD can help managers address.

Mergers/Acquisitions

Culture differences should be evaluated during the acquisition process, and OD experts can be used to smooth the integration of two firms.

Organizational Decline/Revitalization

OD techniques can contribute greatly to cultural revitalization by managing conflicts, fostering commitment, and facilitating communication.

Conflict Management

Conflict can occur at any time and place within a healthy organization. Organizational development efforts can help solve these kinds of conflicts.

OD Activities.

A number of OD activities have emerged in recent years. Some of the most popular and effective are as follows.

Team-Building Activities

Team building enhances the cohesiveness and success of organizational groups and teams.

Survey-Feedback Activities

Survey feedback begins with a questionnaire distributed to employees. Employees are engaged in problem solving based on the data received from questionnaire.

Intergroup Activities

These activities include retreats and workshops to improve the effectiveness of groups or departments that must work together.

Process-Consultation Activities

Organizational development consultants help managers understand the human processes within their organization and how to manage them.

Symbolic Leadership Activities

This approach helps managers to use the techniques for cultural change, including public statements, ceremonies, and slogans.

Forces for Change

Forces for organizational change exist both in the external environment and within the organization.

Environmental Forces

External forces originate in all environmental sectors, including competitors, technology, economic forces,

Internal Forces

Internal forces for change arise from internal activities and decisions. If top managers select a goal of rapid company growth, internal actions will have to be changed to meet that growth.

Change Process

Unfreezing: Moving: Refreezing:

Breaking from the Instituting the reinforcing and

old ways of doing change supporting the

things new ways

Unfreezing stage,

Management realizes that its current practices are no longer appropriate and the company must break out of (unfreeze) its present pattern by doing things differently” (Bateman & Snell, 2004:559). This could be triggered by the environmental changes or the performance gap (drivers of change). In this stage, people need to move towards recognizing that some of the past ways of thinking, feeling and doing things are outdated. Bateman & Snell (2004:559) state that the most effective way to do this is to communicate to people the negative consequences of the old ways by comparing the organization’s performance to its competitors. However, care must be taken not to arouse people’s defensiveness by pinning the blame directly and entirely to them.

Moving

Institute change begins with establishing a vision of where the company is heading (Bateman & Snell, 2004:560). The organization needs to get the vision right. This could be done by getting the people to establish a vision and strategy to focus on emotional and creative aspects necessary to drive service and efficiency. It is of critical importance to inspire people to move and make objectives real and relevant. In addition, a team has to be built with the right people in place with the right emotional commitment, and the right mix of skills and levels. This is complemented by Van der Linde (2002:47) in his highlight of the importance of visionary leadership in instituting change. Van der Linde (2002:47) contends that visionary leadership is engaged through clarity, commitment, communication, capabilities, organization culture, configuration and continuous learning.

Refreezing

Refers to the enhancement of the new behaviors that support the change The changes are spread and stabilized throughout the organization in order for people to identify and behave accordingly. During this stage, control measures, corrective and rewarding measures that support the change are implemented to change behaviors. Bateman & Snell (2004:560) highlight the importance of guarding against refreezing rigid behaviors that might be problematic in future. Bateman & Snell (2004:560) contend that, the behaviors that should be refrozen are those that promote continued adaptability, flexibility, experimentation, assessment of results and continuous improvement.

Implementing Change

Creative culture, idea champions and new-venture teams are ways to facilitate the initiation of new ideas. The other step to be managed in the change process is implementation. A new, idea will not benefit the organization until it is in place and being fully utilized. One frustration for managers is that employees often seem to resist change for no apparent reason. To effectively manage the implementation process, managers should be aware of the reason for employee resistance and be prepared to use. Techniques for obtaining employee cooperation are:

Why Do Employees Resist Change

Idea champion often discover that other employees are unenthusiastic about their new idea. Members of a new-venture group may be surprised when managers in the regular organization do not support or approve their innovations. Several reasons for employee resistance are:

Self-Interest. Employees typically resist a change they believe will take away something of value. A proposed change in job design, structure, or technology may lead to a perceived loss of power, prestige, pay, or many company benefits. The fear of personal loss is perhaps the biggest obstacle to organizational change.

Lack Of Understanding And Trust. Employees often do not understand the intended purpose of a change or distrust the intentions behind it. If the previous working relationships with an idea champion have been negative, resistance may occur.

Uncertainty. Uncertainty is the lack of information about future events. It represents a fear of the unknown. Uncertainty is especially threatening for employees who have a low tolerance for a change and fear the novel and unusual.

Different Assessment And Goals. Another reason for resistance to change is that people who will be affected by innovation may asses the situation differently from an idea champion or new-venture group. Managers in different departments pursue different goals and an innovation may detract from performance and goal achievement for some departments.

The reasons for resistance are legitimate in the eyes of employees affected by the changes. The best procedure for managers is not to ignore resistance but to diagnose the reasons and design strategies to gain acceptance by users.

The strategies for overcoming resistance to change typically involve two approaches: the analysis of resistance through the force field technique and the use of selective implementation tactics to overcome resistance.

Force Field Analysis

It’s the process of determining which forces drive and which resist a proposed change. To implement a change, management should analyze the change forces. By selectively removing forces that restrain change, the driving forces will be strong enough to enable implementation. As restraining forces are reduced or removed, behavior will shift to incorporate the desired changes.

Overcoming Resistance to Change

The other approach to managing implementation is to adopt specific tactics to overcome employee resistance. The following five tactics have proven successful:

Communication and Education. Communication and education are used when solid information about the change is needed by users and others who may resist implementation. Education is especially important when the change involves new technical knowledge or users are unfamiliar with the idea.

Participation. Participation involves users and potential resisters in designing the change. This approach is time consuming, but it pays off because users understand and become committed to the change.

Negotiation. Negotiation is more formal means of achieving cooperation. Negotiation uses formal bargaining to win acceptance and approval of a desired change.

Coercion. Coercion means that managers use formal power to force employees to change. Resisters are told to accept the change or lose rewards or even their jobs. Coercion is necessary in crisis situation when a rapid response is urgent.

Top Management Support. The visible support of top management also helps overcome resistance to change. Top management support symbolizes to all employees that the change is important for the organization.

Benefits and significance of change management

Some of the unique benefits of change management from organizational perspective are given below:

Understanding environment (society, government, and customers)

it is important for organization to understand, assess and gauge the dynamics in its external environment in order to envisage and establish an appropriate relationship with various actors like government, customers and society. Therefore managers by knowing the subject of change management can better be prepared to understand whatever is going on in the environment.

Objectives, strategy formulation & implementation (to develop competitive advantage)

second is consequent upon knowing the impact of change at extraneous level on its own internal dynamics, and the foremost is objective setting and seeking competitive advantage.

Employees (trained, high performing work practices, reliable organization)

The employees are the recipient of change plan. One such perpetual concern of senior managers is to make organization highly reliable; therefore employees ought to be trained and high performing one in today’s hyper competitive world

Technology Issues

Technology is considered the engine of growth in today’s world. Perhaps the greatest challenge for contemporary organizations is the acquisition and integration of technology in its strategy, structure and process.

CONCLUSION

change management and its impact during the implementation of a new business model including a shared service. The implementation of shared services requires a significant integration and coordination, including human resources, to ensure success. To be a partner to the business, the shared services unit and its employees must understand profoundly what capabilities drive successful implementation and how the nature of work affects those capabilities.