Reactions to change
Changes are a part of life at most workplaces today, and change is therefore also a natural condition at shops that develop and adapt to their surroundings. Change will affect the employees and thereby also the psychosocial working conditions.
As the manager, you must be well-prepared and help the change process running smoothly, including managing employees’ reactions to change. This also means that, as a manager, you must have insight into the factors that can influence the psychosocial working conditions.
- What emotional reactions are common in connection with change?
- Why do managers sometimes experience resistance to change among staff?
- What do these perspectives mean for the change process?
Be prepared for resistance
Some degree of resistance to change is expectable, and it is often difficult to get everyone onboard the change process. Typically, this is not because individual employees intentionally try to obstruct the change process; rather it’s a natural reaction to something unexpected, unknown or something that’s difficult to immediately understand.
Here is what you can do
If your employees feel that the change is being implemented after careful consideration and planning, and if they feel that they have been told a narrative about the change that makes sense to them as employees, then they will feel less psychological uncertainty and you will see a more positive reaction.
You can manage your change process in three phases: A preparation phase, an implementation phase and an integration phase.
1. The preparation phase
A good change process beings in the preparation phase:
- Identify the possible risks and opportunities for the psychosocial working conditions linked to the change. Find inspiration in information and advice on this page. If you have a health and safety organisation (undertakings with ten or more employees), you should include them in the process. Once you have an idea about the risks and opportunities, then you have a better basis for planning the activities you want to carry out.
- Communicate about the change. During the first phase of preparing for change, focus should be on communicating information about the change, and a change narrative can be one way to accomplish this. The change narrative describes the change and it helps to concretise the change and make it more relevant, and this in turn helps to reduce uncertainty and resistance among staff.
Develop a change narrative
A change narrative answers the following:
- What is the background for the change? Why are we doing this?
- What has been decided (what solution)? Why and when?
- What does the change mean for the company? For employees? What will be new? What will be changed? What will disappear?
- What is the vision for the future and how will the change contribute to realising the vision?
- What opportunities and benefits will the change bring?
- What challenges and downsides will the change bring?
The manager or the management team should write the change narrative. The more specific information you can include in the narrative, the more secure and certain it will make your employees.
Your communication will help to encourage employee involvement and understanding. You should be aware that your employees may have different needs for information, and the need for information will also be different depending on where you are in the change process.
Keep the dialogue open. It’s important to keep the dialogue between management and staff going throughout the change process. Management must take responsibility for communicating and engaging in dialogue with staff about their concerns, uncertainty and any confusion. Acknowledge that your employees both stand to win and lose from the change. Therefore, you should focus on what the change means for your employees’ workday.
Remember that it’s crucial that top and middle managers communicate well. Middle managers serve as point of contact between top management and employees, and they are therefore key to implementing the change process. You can ensure this by including the employees in steering groups and by making the change process a fixed item on management meetings, for example.
A plan for activities and communication.
If your employees feel that they receive well-timed, accurate and sufficient communication from management, it will benefit the change process.
You should therefore consider making a plan for your initiatives:
- When, what and how should we communicate? (For example: face-to-face, noticeboards, newsletters, intranet.)
- What should the content be? Who should do it?
- What activities should we have to include employees and when? (For example meetings to discuss the change with the individual department/group.)
- Should we have special events and, if so, when? (For example a publicity gimmick, a celebration.)
Some of these activities may already have been planned higher up in the company, but it’s still important that you prepare for how you will manage things in your department.
Answer the common questions
For example, you can prepare a Q&A with answers to the questions employees are likely to have, such as:
- What is the background for the change?
- What has been decided (what solution) and why?
- When will the change be?
- What does the change mean for the company, the group, employees?
- What will be new and different? What will disappear? What is the end goal of the change?
- What opportunities and benefits will the change bring?
- What challenges and downsides will the change bring?
- In what respect can employees influence the change?
Communicate the essential aspects. As a rule of thumb, you should communicate about all essential decisions and changes, and give regular status updates. For example, send out weekly management status updates about the change process via email, or host a staff meeting if you need your employees feedback on something. It’s also important to communicate if nothing is happening and to explain why.
To support the change process it’s also important to regularly talk informally at the workplace about the relevance and necessity of the change, the goal of the change and the expected benefits.
Use ‘change teams’ and enthusiasts. Driving a change process can be difficult. A ‘change team’ can help you, as a manager, to promote and communicate about the change. The change team can consist of one employee from each department or enthusiasts among the employees who are particularly well informed about the change.
You can also set up a working group. You can hear their thoughts about the change and use this insight to prepare how to deal with the change in the best possible way. You can hear the working group on specific matters that concern their work/department.
Set up a test group. If you’re introducing a new IT system, for example, you may want to start by testing the new system in a single department before rolling it out everywhere. Such a pilot test can be a way to gain valuable experience before rolling out a new system across all shops, and it may also give employees a sense of ownership of the new system.
Prepare your employees. Remember that the employees are the key to a successful change process. So it’s important to pay attention to whether your employees have the required skills to implement and take part in the change. Here is what you should consider:
- How are the individual employee and the group affected by the change?
- What will it take to implement the change for the individual employee and for the group?
These considerations can help you determine whether the change only requires you to give information and guidance or whether you also need to give instructions and training.