Due Week 10 and worth 300 pointsIn this assignment, you will combine the previous four (4) assignments into a proposal that you could present to the executive leadership and board members. You will ar

Resistance to Change and Communication

Yesenia Mejias

Strayer University

Managing Organizational Changes (HRM 560)

Dr. Patricia Obiefule

May 28, 2018

1. Diagnose the Reasons for Resistance to Change

There are a number of reasons for the organization, which acts as a resistance towards the change in the organization for betterment. The poor communication in between the managerial staff and employees fails to communicate effective benefits of the change, some interferer’s poke in the change plan due to their self-interest (Srivastava, 2011). Some of the individuals feel excluded from the organization due to their non-involvement in the company decision-making making it difficult for them to accept the change in the organization. Some individuals are not having effective training or skills to perform their job in an effective manner after the change in the organization. Some of the individuals have low confidence in the company’s managerial staff that they will be able to manage the change in an effective manner (Cole, 2005). Some of the employees fear the change in the routines or their job responsibilities after the change in the organization. The lack of reward and benefits system after the successful implementation damages the morale and motivation level of the employees towards the change in the organization.

1. Interpret the potential causes of resistance in the organization. Identify and describe three (3) potential causes of resistance to your change plan. Identify and describe three (3) potential sources of resistance to your change plan.

The selected organization Google Inc. is one of the leaders in the sectors with potential reasons acting as a resistance against the change in the company. Firstly, the factor of the unknown, the employees will always be much curious to gain information regarding the rationale and expectations of the occurring change at the organization (Beaulieu, 2013). They will certainly fear that any inappropriate change at the organization does impose certain adverse influence over the company reputation, which can challenge their leadership in the market. Secondly, the employees will certainly fear regarding job loss. Getting an employment at Google Inc. is the dream of many employees in the market (Srivastava, 2011). They will fear that change at the organization does not put an adverse influence over their employment at Google Inc. Thirdly; the Google Inc. has a workforce of one of the best employees available in the market. If the company does not carry out proper communication with the employees, then they will certainly resist the change in the form of demotivation.

1. Create a Plan for Minimizing Possible Resistance to your Change Management Plan.

There are certainly a number of techniques available for overcoming resistance to change at the organization. The company must develop an effective plan for the involvement of some significant factors to ensure the success of their change plan by mitigating all the resistance factors. Firstly, the company needs to carry out a proper communication with all of the employees at the organization. They need to provide their expected output for the betterment of the company and employees to their workforce (Wasson, 2004). Google Inc. needs to elaborate the improvements to the organization and its contribution towards sustaining the strategic position of the company in the market. Secondly, the company needs to inform their rationale behind the change. They need to take the employees into their confidence by providing them assurance of their job security with reasonable justification. The company must convey their employees that the change will make their job more secure and effective (Moffat, 2017). Thirdly, it is much significant for the company to involve all of their employees in the consultation process. The involvement of the employees in the planning stage of the change will also provide significant suggestions for making change process more efficient. In addition, the employees of the company will feel valued and motivated (Wasson, 2004). They will ensure their maximum input for making the change process successful in the best favour of the organization.

1. Elaborate on the Relationship between Resistance to Change and Communication

Communication is one of the significant factors when it comes to developing an understanding of the organization. The resistance is a very common factor when it comes to change in the organization. Resistance might come in an active or passive form for the organization. The communication is the most effective tool available for the companies to deal with the resistance to change in the organization (Mushtaq, 2011). The two-way communication ensures that all the employees at the organization understand the rationale of change and its possible benefits. In addition, the organization is also able to gain some of the significant suggestions from the employees for making their change process more effective. The communication with the employees wins their commitment to the change (Simoes & Esposito, 2014). The committed employees tend to perform better for making the change process successful. If the company does not carry out proper communication with the employees then it will lead to certain adverse fears in the employee's mind including unknown, job loss, lack of trust, unvalued, etc. increasing the resistance to change at the organization.

1. Evaluate Three (3) Communication Strategies

There are a number of communication strategies that the companies can utilize to convey their message towards the employees. Verbal communication strategy, which comes in two parts including written and oral is one of the effective strategies that provide information to the employees in an appropriate manner (Chayka, 2013). The E-mail, text, chats enable the employees to understand the message in a clearer manner with certain detail. The verbal phone calls, video calls can deliver the message to the employees; however, its impact will be low in understanding and trusting. Non-verbal communication comes in the form of an opportunity for the company to convey their message with the support of certain cues and indications. It is a good strategy for small changes; however, it is of no use for carrying out a big or serious change in the organization. There is also an error in the strategy that either the employees are able to understand the message in a clearer form or not (King, 2009). The visual communication strategy provides an opportunity to the company for explaining their rationale and point of view with the support of various graphs, indications, or illustration. The company displays various indication or signboards at the workplace to draw attention towards any significant matter. The employees will be able to understand the focus of the company with this strategy; however, the understanding rationale will not be possible.

1. Recommend One (1) Communication Strategy that would be applicable to your Organization. Diagnose why this Communication Strategy is best for your Organization.

The most effective communication strategy for the Google Inc. to communicate with their employees will be a verbal written strategy. The employees of the company are quite technical and highly qualified. The company needs to provide stronger justification with proper statistics to their employees in order to gain their confidence toward the change at the organization (Chayka, 2013). The company needs to put figures and graphs in the written document to explain the expected benefit from the change to the employees for understanding in a better manner. This strategy will also mitigate the factor of miscommunication in between the employees and the organization, as they will be providing the information to the employees in a detailed way.

1. Create a Solid Communication Plan for your Change Initiative

The first and most significant factor in the change plan is the communication topic, which is the change plan. The author will identify the pool of their target audience, which are the respective employees of Google Inc. The author will perform it by evaluating the stakeholder for the change. Next, the author will identify the most effective communication method, which will be verbal written communication (Forster, 2002). The author will make use of various media including E-mail, reports, and presentation to convey the change rationale to the employees. The author will keep circulating the change plan with the employees with progress and modification at a certain frequency with respect to the nature of change at the organization. The author will make use of senior and credible managers to communicate with the employees in order to win over trust and credibility factors of the employees (Torppa & Smith, 2011). Lastly, the author will take regular feedback from the employees regarding the change and its benefits in order to bring certain improvement in the change plan.

References

Beaulieu, G. (2013). Can Explanatory Reasons Be Good Reasons for Action?. Metaphilosophy, 44(4), 440-450. doi: 10.1111/meta.12040

Chayka, M. (2013). Startups and communication strategies: Swinging for the fences. Journal Of Professional Communication, 2(2). doi: 10.15173/jpc.v2i2.122

Cole, M. (2005). Top 10 Reasons to Embrace Change. OLA Quarterly, 11(2/3), 3-4. doi: 10.7710/1093-7374.1080

Forster, P. (2002). Plan to survive or survive to plan?. Strategic Change, 11(8), 391-397. doi: 10.1002/jsc.616

King, C. (2009). Emergent Communication Strategies. International Journal Of Strategic Communication, 4(1), 19-38. doi: 10.1080/15531180903415814

Moffat, P. (2017). A credible plan for change?. Practice Management, 27(3), 5-5. doi: 10.12968/prma.2017.27.3.5

Mushtaq, S. (2011). Resistance to Organizational Change: Successful Implementation of Change through Effective Communication. SSRN Electronic Journal. doi: 10.2139/ssrn.1759034

Simoes, P.M.M., & Esposito, M. (2014). Improving change management: how communication nature influences resistance to change. Journal Of Management Development, 33(4), 324-341. doi: 10.1108/jmd-05-2012-0058

Srivastava, A. (2011). Resistance to change: six reasons why businesses don’t use e-signatures. Electronic Commerce Research, 11(4), 357-382. doi: 10.1007/s10660-011-9082-4

Torppa, C., & Smith, K. (2011). Organizational Change Management: A Test of the Effectiveness of a Communication Plan. Communication Research Reports, 28(1), 62-73. doi: 10.1080/08824096.2011.541364

Wasson, R. (2004). Five steps to effective change management. Engineering Management, 14(1), 14-15. doi: 10.1049/em:20040102