Changes will affect you
Changes at the workplace will naturally affect the psychosocial working conditions at the workplace, such as creating uncertainty and insecurity about the scope of the change and what it will mean for daily work.
The better planned a change process is, the better prepared you, as an employee, will be to deal with the change. It’s important to deal with changes positively, constructively and in an open and non-discriminatory dialogue between you employees, and management.
We react in more or less the same way when faced with changes. However, there’s a difference in how strongly we react, and this has to do with what impact the change has, for example.
Here is what you can do
Below are some useful suggestions when you are facing major changes at your shop.
- Seek information. As an employee, you will want to know what the change will mean for you. It’s a good idea to seek information from management and ask questions such as:
- What does the change mean for me?
- What will the change require of me?
- Will I be working with other colleagues than I’m used to work with?
- Do I need other qualifications than those I already have?
- What are my possibilities for influencing the process?
- Have meetings. You can hold meetings in your team/department together with your manager where you express your feelings, concerns and reservations in regards to the changes. Remember that it’s important the meetings do not turn into negative discussions. Instead, use the meetings to discuss how to get the best out of the changes in a future perspective.
- Individual meetings. If you don’t feel it’s possible or don’t feel like asking questions with many people gathered at a staff meeting or similar, ask your manager for individual meetings. The purpose of individual meetings is to ensure that, as an employee, you have realistic expectations of the change, and that you understand your new, future role in the organisation.
- Seek influence. As an employee you can contribute actively to the change process by asking questions and expressing your concerns, come with proposals and alternative solutions. As an employee, seeking influence during the change process can allow you opportunity to influence the process and your own future role in the organisation.
- Support each other. Mutual trust means greater job satisfaction and engagement in the change process. Therefore, nurturing a culture of mutual help and support can help to build trust and thereby benefit the working environment during change processes.
- Courses and continuing training. Changes can lead to new job functions, and you should therefore consider whether you need courses and continuing training to meet the requirements of your new job functions. On the basis of information from management on the company’s future skills needs, as an employee you can be proactive and suggest what qualifications and skills you would like to develop and in this way influence the direction of your own career.
- Celebrate transition. It’s important to celebrate or in some other way mark the transition when you move from one stage to another, and such occasions can also be used to celebrate good results and set a new goal. You can mark and celebrate a transition by having a dinner together in the entire department/group, for example.
- Social activities. Social activities are a good way to make everyone feel part of the group when you have been reorganised into new groups.