What do you do if your employees resist change during a culture shift while still keeping them engaged?

If most employees resist change during a culture shift, the organization may have failed to prepare the employees for change, which is step one of change management. When prepping for change, managers help employees recognize upcoming challenges and raise awareness that the status quo will be disrupted. Managers also need to listen to their employees’ perspectives. Next, leaders need to create a vision that is transformed into a strategic plan noting KPIs, changes in scope, and the teams responsible for implementing change. Lastly, empower employees to be part of quick wins (engagement), and embed wins and changes within company policies and the culture. Visit www.DavisIOPLLC.com so we can help you with your culture change.

Although it sounds corny, listen to understand and not to respond. Sometimes, with the day to day, we lose perspective that there is a lot going on and few paying attention to what is necessary. When there are changes, there are emotions, when we work with people we have to keep this in mind. In my experience, an employee who is reluctant to change is an employee who does not feel valued or does not understand why.

Slowing down to speed up. When change is announced we have a tendency to start running and forget that not everyone is even enthusiastic about the change. Call it resistance. When change is announced we, human beings, all go through certain stages of the change curve: shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. And we do not go through it all at the same time and at the same level. The only thing a leader can do is to listen, step in the shoes of the employee, understand what is going on, listen to their feedback and what people need to be part of the change. There is a lot of value in having these conversations. Not only to reduce the resistance but especially to craft the aspired change together.

I completely agree with Laura. One of the main reasons why employees are resistant to change is not taking the time to make an assessment and listen to them, understand them, and get to know them. Many times it fails at this stage of the process and ends up creating one-size-fits-all strategies without counting on the specific needs of the people. Knowing how to communicate the “why” and the “what‘ in it for me” in that change that benefits both them and the company itself is necessary to be effective in the change management process; these assessments, interviews, among others, must be part of that first phase.

I agree with the views shared and I also think it’s very helpful to include employees in defining what needs to change. People are often resistant to change when they feel it is imposed. If they are part of defining the solution that will go along way to gaining their buy in and helps to ensure they are engaged and listened to.

Beyond the why of the culture shift, take time to really clearly assess and communicate both "who whe are" and "who we want to be". Make sure some aspects of the previous culture (i.e. our mission, some of our values) are still included in the future culture, to give a sense of continuity. This will help people connect to the new culture, finding it is rooted in the current one.

I would also take an employee centric view to this. Yes it’s very important to communicate the why and the benefits of the change, but what if your employees still don’t agree or buy into it? The ‘why’ here for me is the importance of identifying and understanding the assumptions that people hold on why people behave the way that they do. For example if you are trying to encourage better collaboration and employees starting point is that ‘we just don’t do that around here’ you need to get underneath that so you can understand and then hopefully start to challenge those assumptions.

Involving others in planning and implementing the change, particularly those that will be impacted the most, increases the likelihood that the change will be effective. Those closest to the work can provide insights senior leadership may not have. This helps to avoid challenges the change may encounter, creates a smoother path through implementation and increases the chances of making change stick. Those involved also become your change ambassadors, championing the change and helping to move others through their concern and resistance.

Yes this is so important! A co-created culture which is more bottom up than top down is hugely powerful. Employees engagement around the behaviours which are most important aligned with the organisation’s purpose and their observations on the current blockers and challenges will set a culture change initiative up for success from the outset.

My advice here would be to focus first on the one or two behaviours which are most critical for your organisation and where you want to make a positive change. Support must also be given to those who call out the inappropriate behaviours and those who might not yet be meeting their targets but are exemplifying the right values and behaviours. Culture change does take time and needs a continual focus. Having people who champion the culture and the focus in the different functions is also critical here.

It’s also really important to assess whether the culture change is working. Draw a line in the sand before you start the culture change and then measure progress. Conduct pulse surveys. Hold focus groups. Look at the data and metrics your organisation already holds to help to indicate if you are moving in the right direction.

In my experience, it is extremely important to make the new culture tangible and down-to-earth. For this you should first formalize the desired culture into a Culture Book using existing stories and examples, proving it already exists in the organization. The second step is translating this culture in observable behaviors, for people to understand what will be expected from them, and into rituals that enable this culture. Then it becomes part of their daily routine and they can't "reject it" any longer, or in this case they should just leave, which is totally ok if they don't resonate with the new culture.