How to embed your employees into a changing system - obstacles of changing systems and how to overcome them

Modern businesses are increasingly often exposed to constantly changing environments. Therefore, they tend to be forced to change their systems and strategies on a regular basis to stay competitive.

Through an incremental adaption of change for instance, a company ensures an optimization of its sustainability. A smooth change also accounts for a business stability, as incremental adaption tends to enhance the performance of staff and the business processes. Other than with a radical change, a step-by-step implementation of a new system could simultaneously maintain and control the fit to organizational strategies, processes and structure of a business.

However, it is not only the business which has to embrace change, but also its employees. Being aware of this fact, the importance of developing a compelling message should be implemented into the change management. Employees might feel comfortable with the organization’s status quo. Hence, organizational change might have an impact on staff. In these cases, business have to overcome obstacles like staff’s resistance for change.

Following resistances could occur while implementing change into an organization:

• Job Factors: (e.g. fear of changing working conditions)
• Personal Factors: (e.g. fear of work’s devaluation as a result of substitution through machines)
• Social Factors: (e.g. staff feeling being left behind by management due to a lack of communication)

These obstacles tend to lead to dissatisfaction of staff and accordingly to a decrease in quality of a company’s products and services. Hence, businesses should strive to increase staff’s participation and opportunities to cooperate and negotiate the changing process, by including managers of the departments in the decision-making process. Seminars, training and effective ways of communication should then prevent dissatisfaction of employees and tend to increase their loyalty to the company. Especially in times of change, employees tend to become suspicious. However, staff’s involvement tends to keep fluctuation rates low and accounts for a business success – because nothing is more crucial than your most valuable resources moving to your competitors!