How to keep your employees at the heart of organisational change

Change needs to be managed better

Restructuring, redundancies and other major organisational changes inevitably affect the workforce. However, the real test for any organisation is trying to ensure that these periods of transformation are well managed so that any negative impact on employees, in terms of morale and productivity, is minimised.

A recent survey of 1,000 people in full time employment across a range of companies in both the public and private sectors, carried out by Capita HR Solutions, revealed how commonplace major organisational change has become. Over half (52 per cent) of those surveyed have already been through a large scale organisational change in the last 12 months, while 67 per cent think it's inevitable that their organisation will have to undergo restructuring or make redundancies due to the current economic climate.

Our survey went on to show that employees are having an overwhelmingly negative reaction to these changes in their workplace. Of those that had already been through organisational change half (50 per cent) now feel uncertain about their future at work, 40 per cent feel less motivated and more stressed and one in five are actively seeking alternative employment. In fact, only 12 per cent of respondents say they feel positive about the changes.

The survey points to poor change management practices as the reason for employees harbouring these negative feelings. A worrying 63 per cent claim they heard about the changes via a rumour first as opposed to hearing about it from their employer. Nearly half (46 per cent) claim that they felt unsupported by their employer during the change process and 40 per cent assert they were unclear as to how the proposed changes were going to impact on them.

These results indicate that change must be managed better, from the initial planning stages right the way through to implementation, if employees are to remain engaged and motivated.

 

For the full article published in Changeboard please visit:

www.changeboard.com/content/3787/leadership-and-management/change-management/how-to-keep-employees-at-the-heart-of-organisational-change/