Beyond Resistance: Cultivating Change Engagement

Change engagement is a positive psychological state that employees experience when they are enthusiastic and willing to support, adopt, and promote organizational change. It is considered a more proactive and motivational expression of positive change-related attitudes than other constructs such as openness to change or readiness for change. When employees are appropriately engaged, organizations are more likely to see positive change outcomes, such as successful implementation and adoption of a change and return on change investment.

In a conceptual analysis by Albrecht et. al. (2020), the authors propose the Change Engagement Model (CEM), which is based on the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model, to help explain the impact of change engagement. The CEM argues that change-related organizational resources, job resources, job demands, and personal resources can directly and indirectly influence change engagement. The key components of the CEM include:

The model proposes that change engagement, influenced by the other factors, leads to successful implementation and adoption of ongoing change, return on change investment, and innovation.

The CEM highlights the importance of organizations adopting a "systems" approach to organizational change, where organizational, job, and personal resources are measured, embedded, and developed. The model can be used to develop a common language around change and as a diagnostic tool for organizations to understand and manage employee attitudes toward change.

The CEM can be used to increase employee engagement by providing a framework for understanding and managing the various factors that influence how employees experience organizational change. The CEM identifies key areas where organizations can focus their efforts to promote positive attitudes and active participation in change initiatives.

Overall, the authors conclude that the CEM can be a valuable tool for both researchers and practitioners to better understand, manage, and optimize employee engagement. It offers a way to move away from managing resistance to change and towards creating a work environment that promotes active engagement.

The authors also note that more research is needed to validate the CEM and to further explore the relationship between change engagement and organizational outcomes. However, they believe that the model has the potential to be a valuable tool for organizations that are seeking to improve their change management practices. They propose that change engagement, as a motivational and agentic construct, is essential for organizations seeking employees who are not just passively accepting of change but are energized and actively involved in the process.

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Sources:

Albrecht, S., Connaughton, S., Foster, K., Furlong, S. & Yeow, C. (2020), "Change Engagement, Change Resources, and Change Demands: A Model for Positive Employee Orientations to Organizational Change", Frontiers in Psychology, (11)531944.