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Need for change in an Organizational Structure:

Change is the only constant thing in the world. Business environment is at continuous pace and the only option left with the management and the whole organization is to accept and embrace the change to remain in business and sustain in the market. Burke (2013) observed that there are specific reasons and needs that compel organizational changes in terms of structure, functional and operational modes. Growing competition can be one such prime reason along with hope to increase customer loyalty. However, there are other direct and indirect reasons that push the systems towards changes. The needs for incorporation of changes can be discussed as below:

Changes in Technology:

Present time is the time for speed, quality and accuracy. Only technological advancement can be helpful in meeting the basic requirements to remain in business. Now, the organizations also need to embrace the new technologies introduced in market and make the necessary changes in existing system. With the advancement of technology, communication process has transformed completely from rotating dial up landline fixed phones to mobiles with all sorts of application like Whatsapp, Skype and so on which keep anyone across the globe connected all time. Social media has become the most powerful marketing tool unlike the only dependence on newspaper or televisions. Internet has provided access to the farthest knowledge and information in a jiffy. Now, these are the small excerpts of the huge changes in technology that already occurred and is at constant development and up gradation. According to Langley et al. (2013), organizations just need to change the static structures and systems and take the advantage of the technological advancement to pace up own growth and development.

Changes in the Economic scenario:

Economy of any nation may be subjected to changes. Now, changes can lead to any condition either strengthening or weakening. Economic affluence can impact an organization positively. Strong economy means growth and development opportunities for the organization. In such case, the organizations need to change the strategies. New employment opportunities turn up to meet the expansion plans of the organization. However, Blankenship et al. (2015) mentioned that even the positive changes in organization can meet some challenges like opposition from the existing staffs. On the other hand, the challenges pile up in huge volume when the economy of the nation weakens. Recession can crop up leading to reduction in pay packages of employees or even sudden work suspension leading to job threats. Management of such huge pressure becomes a challenge for the organization. Only branded organizations with huge customer base and strong relation with stakeholders can overcome such situations. Whatever steps may be taken by the organization, the thing that becomes inevitable in such situation is change- Change in strategies, policies and operation procedures.

Change to increase Customer satisfaction:

The most important asset of an organization is the customer base. The more the number of customers, the more strong is the base of the organization. However, the needs and the requirements of the customers are changing very fast and the organization needs to change the product types and varieties in accordance to the customer needs. Kuipers at al. (2014) mentioned that the most changes incorporated in product types are mainly to cope up with the changing preferences of the customers.

Change to grow as an organization:

The goal of any organization always remains in growing to the next level. Growth is characterized with magnanimous changes. New arenas are opened up with new opportunities. Trainings are provided to the staffs of the organization to meet the requirements of new growth. Now, this change can help employees utilize the creative corner of the mind and adopt new skills to contribute to the overall growth of the organization. Growth and development are the main keys for sustaining in the market and for such sustainability, only applicable thing is change.

Change as a part of organizational tradition:

In accordance with the view of Hornstein (2015), many organizations believe that change can initiate improvement and new innovation in the system. Changing the age old systems implies in terms of values, feelings, internal and external policies and terms among each other. Now, this can create untold improvements and imbibe a whole lot of freshness in the working environment. The changing can even please the customers and increase customer satisfaction by a great deal. Efficacy mapping can be very important for implementation of the changes to ensure the best implication of the same.

Changes for bridging performance gaps:

The organizational targets are set for each quarters of the year. Now, any performance gaps noted in achieving the organizational targets are handled with changes to bridge the identified gaps. Organizational needs are identified and changes are incorporated accordingly to fill up the gap in achieving organizational targets.

Changes due to merger or acquisition of organizations:

Business needs cause many organizations to embrace merger or acquisition among organizations. This causes havoc changes and mostly the impact is negative on the employees. Actually the number of employees required for running multiple organizations is not useful after merger. The excess of employees face threat to the job especially for those employees who come in common functionality in the two or more organizations. The whole process creates havoc changes in the whole set up all together.

Barriers to Change:

Organizational structures are subjected to change with time to meet the needs of the time. Organizations may take up new policies and procedures in place of the existing ones. This causes change which has to be scheduled change with proper planning at the background. In the view of Gerth (2013), change can be categorized into two stark types, namely incremental and transformational. Incremental change can be incorporated gradually while being in the system. In other words, where there is no need for overall or havoc changes, only minor modifications of alterations can be sufficient, in such cases, incremental changes are incorporated. Here gradual modification is implemented while the process is still in motion. However, Lozano (2013) mentioned that there are certain cases where both internal and external processes get identified with major non-conformity and need complete policy and strategy change to sustain in the market. Such cases need transformational changes just as reengineering is needed for certain industries.

Now, change is something that need involvement of all level of employees and the staffs need to get involved in the change process to successfully incorporate the changes. Barriers come in the way of the changes mainly due to the pre-occupied notions among the management who consider all aspects in the system including the technological changes, but keep aside the concern or consideration for the human resource which is the main force and power behind the change implementation. The wrong outlook can in turn emerge as barrier and hinder in the implementation of the changes. Here, this can be elaborated that the barriers mainly can originate from three different sources, namely:

• The target organization where the changes are to be incorporated
• The employees who can be most affected by the incorporated changes
• The change that is supposed to be incorporated in the organization

The detailed study of the barriers can help the management to understand the cause and lead towards the resolution to overcome the barriers.

Opposition to Change:

The change is not the concern to most of the people. Instead, van den Heuvel et al. (2013) mentioned that the impact of the change that concerns most of the stakeholders of the organization, specifically, the employees. The lack of confidence towards the unknown outcome as a result of incorporated change makes most of the employees to oppose the change. The barriers are provided basically from two different sources which are identified as organizational resistance and the other is individual resistance or resistance from employees.

Individual Resistance:

The employees tend to individually resist changes figuring out the outcome of the same without proper clarification about the same from any external source or from the higher management. The causes of such opposition can be understood as below:

Convention:

Employees, like all human beings tend to move by the conventional ways which gradually develop into habits. The habits and daily practices during work, helps in fast job completion for the employees. Just like an operator or and technician can decide or take necessary decision based on previous experiences and practices, all employees tend to take the explored path with known results to ease the operations process. Such programmed responses or the habit based responses that ease the regular operations. However, changes break down conventions and compel the previous practices to be changed since the processes may match no further. The uncomfortable zone so created due to change leads to opposition in the organization.

Job Security:

One of the few basic requirements of human beings is security in terms of physical security as well as security of job. Changes pose as a threat to the job security of employees as many are not aware of what exact changes are being incorporated and what the main impacts of the same are. However, Kuipers et al. (2014) mentioned that some instances do come out as job threat for employees. Incorporation of software and technologies in organizations help the organization to perform complex jobs dependent on employees with ease and in much smaller time and with greater accuracy. Turning the pages of time, the incorporation of computers was also seen as a drastic threat to the employees who knew job of many can be done by a single computer causing dismissal of the emerged extra manpower. Similar cases are observed when highly efficient equipments are installed in organizations. The labors feel such changes as threat to the job and oppose changes in all forms.

Uncertainty of future implications of change:

Existing organizational structure and processes are well known for the employees. Uncertainty about the future implications and fear of being exposed to the unknown territories create a pressure on the mind of the employees which come up as opposition. Change in structure or process can even impact on the existing economic benefits enjoyed by the employees. When employees feel that change can reduce the benefits, the opposition to the change comes automatically.

Organizational resistance to change:

Now, from organizational point of view also, opposition is observed. The reasons can be understood as below:

Inertia from existing structure:

The existing equilibrium in the organizational structure tends oppose any further changes to the same. The organizational structure can be changed by replacement of old employees or managers by new ones for the same post. However, Nuhu et al. (2016) mentioned that differences in work culture and background among the new and old employees can create a disturbance in the existing equilibrium. The perception towards the loss of inertia causes overall resistance from the existing work force.

Lack of focus on impact of changes:

Change in one system can impact all inter-related sub-systems. Lack of focus on impact of changes to all related systems can cause repulsion to changes among the employees who were not ready for the same.

Inertia of the whole department:

The opposition from the whole department can lead all the employees in the team oppose changes since the voice is raised as one. Anyone wanting to support the change cannot do so owing to the inertia of the departmental opposition on a whole.

Fear of losing expertise due to the changed situation:

Employees with expertise in specific field which may be decision making, operating process designing or quality manual defining feel the process of change to be threat to the expertise and oppose the same. In other words, employees tend to keep important and expert jobs with own self with a fear that decentralization can decrease the importance of the position held by those employees or managers. Lozano (2013) mentioned that change in structure poses as a risk that may cause decentralization and leave the position held at a stake. Opposition comes from the insecurity of losing position.

The power relations and the present resource allocation get changed along with changes in the organizational structure. Now, this becomes problem for those in the middle management who find the change as threat to the position and power enjoyed in the bureaucratic system.

Lewin’s three step model for Change Management:

Cummings et al. (2016) stated that the change management can be handled with expert hands by following the Lewin’s three step model for change management. The three steps are:

Unfreeze: This step is the awareness step where the management clearly informs the necessity of the change for sustainability of the organization. The benefits of the upcoming changes and the advantages that can be extracted from the change is discussed which make the unwilling employees accept the changes and participate in the process.

Change: The change in the overall process is made operative in this step by replacing all old practices by the new ones till the new system becomes operative.

Refreeze: The final state involves assimilations of the incorporated changes in the system to that in no way the old practices can find the way back in the changed organizational structure.

The whole process can be performed with involvement of the employees and the management in the same platform. Evan hurdles can be subdued by expert management of the change in organizational structure.

 Overcoming the resistance to change in organizational structure:

Vigoda-Gadot and Beeri (2012) mentioned that during the situation when organizational changes become a must, management needs to adopt some specific strategies for winning the employees and involving the whole lot in actual implementation of the changes. Here, the most significant steps can be discussed as below:

Educating the staffs with proper communication about the changes:

Lack of communication and information related to the actually and the impact of the changes cause the employees to resist the changes with self-fathomed harsh after-effect of the changes. Only clear communication can bridge the gap among the management by informing the necessity of the changes and the positive impact of the same on the organization and the service-life of the employees. Trust, dependence and mutual confidence is developed which work as miracles during change management. Obviously expert managers are needed for the proper change management.

Encouragement for involvement in the change:

Cordial invitation to the employee representatives in decision making for changes can enhance the involvement of the employees in the change. Even most of the responsibilities can be bestowed on the representatives once they are willing to change the structure.

Providing support for being acquainted with the change:

Once the confidence is built up that management is not up to dismissal of the existing employees by enforcing the changes, employees tend to adopt to the changes. Here comes the importance of support from the management in terms of trainings, providing benefits for accepting and supporting the changes or even by manipulating for ensuring better performance of the employees once the change is incorporated.

Coercion:

This can be the worst tool in the hands of management to curtail resistance to changes. In fact threatening t lay off or transfer to other branches can compel the employees to accept and adopt the changes. But the tool needs to be avoided as that can worsen the relation among the employees and the management.

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