Why organizational change initiatives fail without employee engagement

¶ … change management, more than 60% of the efforts for organizational change fail. Organizational changes usually fail because they do not approach it in a holistic manner needed to come up with and achieve change. Research methods for engaging employees in the process of change and for benchmarking the progress of change initiatives include:

Establishing a Vision

Establishing a mode of making people appreciate the purpose of the change is beneficial in the entire change process. When people are aware and informed of the goals and objectives together with the changes that they need to effect, they usually seem to make more sense in their work, reducing resistance. The moment a coalition is established and trained to implement the change, experience of experimental learning and participation at times usually equips others with the full with the knowledge of the required changes that need to take place and how to witness its success (Schlachter & Hildebrant, 2012).

Empower Others to Act

To keep up with the set pace, it is mandatory to transfer the training and knowledge from the solution providers to the HR team of your organization. This knowledge transfer is very significant to the ability of your company to implement and guide changes to occur in the future in terms of cost and efficiency. This can be achieved with sessions of training the trainer to vindicate the subject organization in the used tools. Increase the number of personnel at all stages of the organization via the communications skills and experimental learning will assist in the vision and help people with the knowledge for the future and current change.

Plan for and Create Short-Term Wins

It is of great significance for people to understand and be aware of the progress they are making. This is supposed to be done through action plans and measurable goals, carrying out duties with the team leaders to be well-informed and updated at all levels. Hosting sessions of e-learning with divisional or regional leaders to use their best practices with others and success stories are very significant and effective. As the initiative progresses, governing the additional surveys for engagement and shared results displays the changes in the organization. This will always continue to enhance enthusiasm into the initiative.

Consolidate Improvement and Produce Still More Change

Since failure is caused by early declaration in mind, the seventh step by Kotter requires quick implementation of changes that have been achieved even in production of additional change. Concisely, the momentum should be maintained. The more your staff gains knowledge and agrees to need for the business change, the more positively they are bound to respond to the process of change. The staff members of the organization invest themselves in the duties they perform in the organization. The organization should be aware the knowledge of these duties making significant contributions to financial security, professional development, self-confidence, purpose or sense and identity. Changes that influence their duties may have a big personal and professional outcome (Goonan & American Society for Quality, 2009).

Benchmarking is defined as the process of evaluating services, products, and processes and compares them against the ones for the organization, which are understood to be leaders existing in more or one aspect of their functions. Benchmarking comes up with the necessary insights that one requires to have the knowledge of understanding the subject organization compared with other existing organizations even if they operate different business or is filled with different customer group (Patton, 2011). Benchmarking is accompanied with many reasons. Having full knowledge of the significant reasons allows managers to carry out their investigations carefully and obtain maximum benefits. The most significant benefits include the requirements of the end-user are met appropriately, the correct productivity measures are determined, attainment of competitive position, sorting and awareness of the best practice existing in the industry, and establishment of objectives based on the external conditions perspective. The process of benchmarking is an objective setter (Slatter & Lovett, 2009).

Leading global corporations have been using the strategy of engaging the right people to manage resistance during the change process. These include front line managers, middle supervisors and senior managers. This strategy has not been an effective tool in fighting resistance. In the end, it requires the leadership to act in managing resistance. This can be achieved if the leadership demonstrates high levels of commitment to the underlying change. While analysis and benchmarking are likely to spot the source of resistance, resistance must be addressed at the individual level. This can be achieved through personal discussions between supervisors and resisting employees (Baker, 2009).