Participation Is Not A Tool - 1433 Words

However, participation is not a tool. Management cannot simply ask the various parties involved in change to participate. In order for this to work, there already needs to be an existing culture of respect and consideration towards employees’ opinions and towards the workers themselves as people. Studies show that in companies where employees are encouraged to discuss their problems and offer their opinions to management and are given the opportunity to measure their performance, the risk of resistance to change is significantly lower. If management decides to deploy participation just in times of change, as a way of getting people to accept it, then the employees will doubt the honesty and good intentions behind this initiative. Thus,†¦show more content†¦In contrast, if the transformational initiative is carried out by change agents with whom employees are used to relate and with whom employees have developed certain customary work relationships, then the workers wi ll be willing to help with implementing the change, will not display resistance, and will be open to more change. The fact that people tend to resist the change in human relationships and not the technical change was observed and confirmed by the above mentioned study as well as numerous others. If participation in change will be perceived by employees as a continuation or part of a normal, day-to-day behavior, then there will be no resistance. In conclusion, even if there is a perfectly valid reason for technical change, the social implications must be dealt with at every step in the process and not ignored. Even if a new work method is initiated with the best of intentions and it makes sense for management, it might have adverse effects from a social standpoint (e.g. employees might lose the satisfaction they found in the work they performed). There are also other measures that can be taken to overcome resistance such as providing trainings to employees to help them develop new skills, giving people time off during the change if their work is very demanding, and providing emotional