Models of Organisational Change
Introduction
Organizational change typically refers to the efforts that change agents exert in order to bring the organization to a new state of affairs and motivate employees to exhibit new behaviors that benefit the organization. Advances in technology, change of employee demographics as well as global economic competition trigger organizational change of every type today. Furthermore, the Covid-19 pandemic has given rise to a situation in which organizations have to reconsider the way they conduct their business. As a result, an organization’s competitive advantage largely depends on its capacity to embrace change and innovate.
The role of HR professionals in managing change.
Nowadays, HR professionals are called to play a pivotal role in managing organizational change. The reason for this is twofold. On the one hand, organizational change, regardless of its content, always affects people and has a significant impact on them. On the other hand, successful organizational change implies the adaptation of employees’ knowledge, competencies, attitudes and behaviors to new circumstances. Although the responsibility for this adjustment lies with all senior managers and executives, the role of the HR professionals is particularly important due to their mission and their theoretical understanding of change.
Organizational change models.
In order to build interventions for change in organizations, HR practitioners often use various models of organizational change. Most organizational change models are developments in one way or another of Lewin’s model of change. Other models like the ADKAR model, Kotter’s 8 step change model, McKinsey 7’s model or Bridges Transition Model have extended Lewin’s model by adding more stages and/or variables to the list of factors that influence change. In the next part I discuss two models of organizational change.
Lewin’s model of organizational change
Although developed in the early 50’s, Lewin’s model is still used as the basis of thinking about organizational change. At the heart of this model lies the assumption that there is a balance of forces which keeps the organization in a stable situation and the task of change management is either to increase the forces for change or decrease the forces that impede change. Change management thus proceeds in three sequential stages of unfreezing, change and refreezing (see Figure. 1).
At first the organization starts in a stable state. Therefore, it must be unfrozen so that the change can occur. In this stage, organizations must “unfreeze” their current processes and perceptions implying that old ideas and processes need to be replaced by new challenges. This process leads to the revision of the existing situation and reinforces the understanding for change. Important interventions of the HR department include communicating the plan for the upcoming change, facilitating executives to build a guiding coalition and formulating a vision that creates positive expectations with respect to organizational change. Furthermore, HR professionals, along with OD specialists, design the change management processes that the organization will follow.
The second stage includes the implementation of the interventions. The new situation is being formed through changes in knowledge, values, skills, attitudes, systems and processes. Because change involves learning, this stage entails providing employees with new information, new behavioral models and training sessions to increase their capabilities and cope with change. Key activities in this stage also include praising employees, establishing feedback processes and coaching. Last but not least, HR Management practices are redesigned in order to be aligned with change management objectives.
The third phase of refreezing involves the consolidation of change. This implies that the HR department uses the new HR capabilities (eg., communication systems, performance appraisals, rewards, selection, socialization and training and development) to secure that there will be no throwback to the old ways of operating and behaving. The main goal of this phase is to transform the desired attitudes and behaviors into a natural self-reinforcing behavioral pattern.
As every model, Lewin’s model comes with its own limitations. One might argue that it represents a static view of change. Change is dynamic and organizations face a distinct set of problems in sustaining the positive impact of the implemented interventions. Therefore, organizations have to reproduce the conditions for a continuous change. Furthermore, Lewin’s model regards employees’ resistance towards change as something irrational. However, people may react in different ways towards change. Although its limitations, Lewin’s model is still considered as a fundamental and influential organizational change model.
Albrecht’s Change Engagement Model
Whereas most of the organizational change models consider employees as passive recipients of change initiatives, employees’ attitudes to change have been shown to have a significant impact on the outcome of these interventions. In order for organizational change to be implemented successfully, employees need to be willing to positively and actively engage into the change process. Today, organizations need employees who feel energized with change, who are willing to experiment with change and who actively support and adopt new initiatives. Based on this notion, Simon Albrecht and his colleagues developed a model that builds the construct of employee change engagement into organizational change.
The change engagement model proposes that change-related organizational resources, change-related job resources, change-related job demands, and change-related personal resources can potentially directly or indirectly influence employees’ change engagement and positive organizational outcomes.
Change-related resources refer to psychological, social, or organizational aspects of the job that (a) are functional in achieving change-related goals; (b) reduce the associated physiological and psychological costs of change-related demands and (c) stimulate personal growth and development. Change-related resources influence employee change engagement via a positive motivational pathway because they foster employees’ growth, learning and development and provide employees with what they need to deal with organizational change.
Change-related resources refer to psychological, social, or organizational aspects of the job that (a) are functional in achieving change-related goals; (b) reduce the associated physiological and psychological costs of change-related demands and (c) stimulate personal growth and development. Change-related resources influence employee change engagement via a positive motivational pathway because they foster employees’ growth, learning and development and provide employees with what they need to deal with organizational change. These resources can be located at the organizational level (e.g., senior leadership’s support for change, HR management systems and support, organizational change capability, organizational change culture and climate), at the job level (e.g., information about change, participation in change, decision making autonomy, career development opportunities) as well as at the personnel level (e.g., hope, optimism, resilience, self-efficacy).
On the other hand, change-related job demands (e.g., change-related role ambiguity, change-related job insecurity, change-related work intensification) refer to those psychological, social, or organizational aspects of a job that require sustained psychological (cognitive and emotional) effort or skills and are therefore associated with certain physical and/or psychological costs. Although change-related job demands are not necessarily negative, they often trigger negative experiences that adversely influence the extent to which employees are open to, or engaged in, change.
Change-related resources refer to psychological, social, or organizational aspects of the job that (a) are functional in achieving change-related goals; (b) reduce the associated physiological and psychological costs of change-related demands and (c) stimulate personal growth and development. Change-related resources influence employee change engagement via a positive motivational pathway because they foster employees’ growth, learning and development and provide employees with what they need to deal with organizational change.
By using this model, human resource managers can do several things to foster change engagement among their employees. An important starting point for any intervention is the baseline measurement of change engagement and its drivers. On the basis of this assessment, HR managers are able to diagnose where to most usefully develop their interventions. Consequently, they may design and implement a leadership development program or redesign selection, socialization, performance management and training and development practices to support and promote ongoing change. Other interventions may include the development of a culture management program that will strive to embed the values of innovation, creativity, responsiveness and adaptability into the vision of the organization. Of course, whatever the type of the intervention, this should focus on increasing change related resources and alleviating the negative impact of change related demands.
Bringing all together, it can be argued that the change engagement model provides practitioners with a useful framework to create an environment that paves the way for a successful organizational change. In this sense, the model highlights the importance of organizations adopting a “systems” approach to organizational change, whereby organizational, job, and personal resources are appropriately measured, embedded, and developed. However, in a certain organization, the issue as to which of the main drivers play the most significant role in fostering change engagement is still malleable and depends upon the specific organizational characteristics that prevail.
Conclusion.
Summarizing, it can be stated that HR professionals have a central role in supporting organizational change. However, due to its complexity, this requires the knowledge of different perspectives, models and approaches. Therefore, understanding key management and leadership issues of change is a critical factor of success.
