Why Do Employees Resist Integrating New Technology While Performing Work Duties in the Workplace?

¶ … employees resist integrating new technologies into workplace duties, and what can be done to prevent employee resistance to technology changes?

You know, I'm all for progress. It's change I object to." - Mark Twain

The Key Question to be addressed: The salient topic of this paper approaches the question of why there is a predictable and often across-the-board degree of resistance from employees when it comes to approaching - and adapting to - new technologies in the workplace. Moreover, the issue of resistance to workplace change - technology-related workplace change in particular - cries out for a close examination from several perspectives.

Firstly, this paper will discuss the issue of why people often fear any type of dramatic or workplace change, and are frequently reticent to go along with significant adjustments and modifications in lifestyle or workplace situations. The psychological reasons for human resistance to change is an important foundation for understanding workplace issues. Secondly, examples of the dynamics of workplace reticence - fundamental to understanding the more specific question of why employees resist new technologies - will be examined. Thirdly, this paper projects that while there will be a continuing "outsourcing" of technology jobs to foreign countries - not necessarily a result of technology-challenged employees in America - the smart companies and the visionary workers of the future must adjust to the new global marketplace reality with better strategies.

Additionally, the paper discusses what the negative results will be - and are - for companies which, in the present global environment and for the future, fail to properly prepare their workers and the work culture within their ranks, for the advent of new technologies, and for the outsourcing strategies now enlisted by many companies.

Background to the Key Question:

There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than the creation of new systems," Machiavelli wrote in 1513. "For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institution and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new ones," he concluded. His words are relevant in the changing workplace of the new millennium.

Change, by definition, alters the status quo and disrupts established patterns of behavior and relationships," according to an article in the Journal of Labor Research (Taras, et al., 2002). "Change is particularly disturbing if it occurs rapidly..." And that is because when there is "rapid and sweeping" change injected into a comfortable workplace, employees feel their lives becoming "complex and unsettling."

No matter what the change, chances are that few people will like it," writes Karen Jansen in Human Resource Planning (Jansen 2000). And the range of behaviors associated with employee resistance to any change, according to Jansen, runs the gambit from "passive resistance" to "active resistance" and even on to "aggressive resistance."

One of the key conundrums in implementing technological change, and getting employees to accept it, writes Jansen, is that "virtually all discussions of change take the change agent's perspective." Hence, "behavior that is not in line with the change agent's" strategy for implementing that change "is perceived as resistance." With this in mind, it is possible that consultants, change agents, and even HRD professionals, "create the very resistance they are trying to overcome," Jansen contends. The way to get around this problem is by "creating readiness" for change, and by "building momentum" within management for employees' acceptance for change.

Think beyond resistance," Jansen suggests, as the first step for change leaders, because there will always be resistance and leadership must not contribute to resistance. The second step is to "create and foster readiness and momentum," and the third step is "keep in mind the social energy of change," i.e., use "early adapters" to "help spread the word about the need for change."

Why do workers resist technological changes?

Resistance to new technologies in libraries, for example, is explained in a research paper by Penn State University and Clarion University researchers (Horan, et al., 2000) as attitude-related. The attitudes of library staffs - which can result in resistance to new technologies - is that technology would: "result in the loss of control and privacy"; "erode interpersonal relationships"; "replace people in their jobs"; and "replace familiar, traditional and useful library processes." study that was alluded to in the Horan paper, by Sara Fine, of the University of Pittsburgh, "identified behaviors among library staff members," according to Horan, which showed their resistance. Those behaviors included: "a decline in work"; "an...unwillingness to be trained...refusal to even try technology"; "absenteeism" and "withdrawal...general negativism, criticism or rage at the administration."

It is not unusual for some users [of new technologies] to see new technology as a threat," according to the Hurst Technologies (http://www.hcinc.com/success)"Work With The People" report. "Some users find it to be an insult to the manner in which they were performing their tasks before," the report continues. "...Others simply see it as an annoying interruption to the 'daily grind'." To be sure they had the full cooperation of the employees prior to installing new technologies, Hurst interviewed their workers, observed their workplace habits, and included them in the decision-making process.

Literature Review - What happens when change hits the workplace? Proof that change effects workplace dynamics is found within actual cases authors discuss

Vested Interests and Resistance to Technology Adoption." Three researchers (Canton, et al., 2000), including Erik J.F. Canton, CPB of the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis, have put together a scholarly examination of resistance to new technologies; their Abstract asserts that "many technologies that would obviously improve firms' efficiency are not adopted" in some countries. And the reason why those technologies are not adopted is that, according to the study, "If the costs of adoption for workers exceed the benefits, they will aim at keeping the old technology in place." And, further, "for resistance to arise there should be losers alongside the winners."

The report breaks these obstacles to change (resistance) down into three components. 1) The concept of sticking to the "status quo" avoids the protests and violence and efforts to achieve political fame, which has, in the past, been visited upon companies when new technologies (such as the spinning machines introduced on the American Continent during the Industrial Revolution) are introduced. 2) Another obstacle to the adoption of new technologies may be unions (which resist laborsaving technologies as a general rule, thus protecting their members' jobs). A third obstacle, according to Canton, et al., is "regulations and laws that formally prevent technological improvements."

The researchers also allude to the fact that "introduction of a new technology makes old experience worthless," which suggests a potential drop in productivity (whether real or not) for those who adopt. Secondly, new technology implies schooling for those who will operate the technology, and an implied "temporary slowdown in growth." Overall, in their conclusion, the researchers suggest resistance to change might go a long way towards explaining "huge productivity differences across countries...as well as differences in technologies employed by different firms."

Resistance to technology, according to the president of Currid & Co., a technology analysis and consulting firm (Currid, 1996), equates to "higher operating costs, lower customer service and lagging competitive reactions." An example of a resister of technological change is the customer service manager who "refuses to automate" the handling of certain customer service issues with a "voice and fax-back system." Why the resistance? "Secretly," the report states, "he reasons that if the technology works, it will shrink his department, reducing his power base."

The FUD Factor / Journal of Business Strategy. As is so aptly pointed out in a Journal of Business Strategy (Pietersen 2002) article, change over the past and certainly today does cause tension and stress, and indeed there are predictable responses across the board when dramatic technological changes are introduced into nearly any workplace environment: "Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt." The "losses" that many employees experience when there is dramatic change to their working space, according to Pietersen, include losing "certainty" (the "comfort of the known and the familiar"), "the sense of competency, financial security, and the status we enjoy in the existing order."

As a result of what the FUD Factor, which is reality for most businesses today, means to workers and the company, specific management strategies must be administered to make the case for smooth change. Those strategies are spelled out and will be summarized in this paper.

Industrial Relations (Canada) / "Unions and new office technology": The researchers who put together this study (Gattiker & Paulson, 1999) in Canada were seeking to determine what the attitudes were of unionized and non-unionized white collar workers regarding technological changes in the workplace. On the one hand, the research shows that union members generally agree that their union leadership should accept technological change "if bread-and-butter issues (e.g., wages, benefits, job security) have been safeguarded." On the other hand, few "technological change clauses and provisions" have been included in collective agreements, suggesting that the unions as of yet haven't shown much clout in the planning for rolling out a company's technology advances.

Further, Gattiker & Paulson present a close look at "attitudes" of workers as a key measuring stick as to whether or not they will accept dramatic technological changes: does the technology make the job "rewarding" or does it create "de-skilling" and open the door for layoffs.

Academy of Management Review / "Rethinking Resistance and Recognizing Ambivalence": the researcher who wrote this paper (Piderit, 2000) argues that "resistance to change" may be a phrase that needs to be retired. His position is taken because previous research has consistently overlooked the fact that "potentially positive intentions" may have motivated the so-called negative responses to change. The studies, Piderit reports, have tended to "oversimplify" responses to change, and "varied emphases in the conceptualization of resistance have slipped into the literature," which tends to "blur" researchers' sense of how complicated the phenomenon of resistance really is.

Moreover, Piderit continues, one explanation as to why employees resist change may be found in research on obedience to authority: "resistance might be motivated by individuals' desires to act in accordance with their ethical principles...[and] by mere selfishness." Also, Piderit believes that employee responses to technological change can be categorized in three dimensions: emotional responses, cognitive responses, and intentional responses. The change leadership must confront the realities of all three of those potential employee responses (resistances) to new technologies in the workplace.

Transition Leadership / Convergent Group: According to research conducted by the Convergent Group, senior management "often overlooks the fact" (Kimberling, et al., 2001) that technological change "impacts employees at all levels of the company." Indeed, "at its most rudimentary level, all change involves some degree of loss whether it is loss of stability, loss of expertise, loss of relationships, or loss of understanding."

This goes a long way towards proving that employees do in fact resist change, because it is human nature to resist losing anything; and losing any of the four concepts listed in the preceding sentence threatens bread and butter job security.]

And further, it is not so much the basic fact that employees appear resistant that drags a company down, but in reality, it is management's failure to guide employees through key transitional periods that can drag a company down. Managers too often are focused on technological and process changes, but they should also, say the authors, be assisting employees to integrate the new technologies by empowering them as a team, and building forward momentum towards positive growth within the company.

Analysis

Logistics Management & Distribution Report: "Most corporations are like an iceberg," according to research consultants Pilnick and Gabel (Trebilcock, 2002). Ten percent is the visible formal organizational structure, but the 90% hidden under that structure is the "informal system" which actually determines the way a company functions. That 90% of a company is it's "shadow organization" (the "attitudes" and "practices" of its workers), and the way to implement dramatic changes in technology within a company is to "reprogram the culture slowly but steadily."

Pilnick and Gabel offer eight steps, in terms of facilitating a smooth business change (by employees) into technologies. Those steps include: "conduct a business/culture analysis"; "design an... intervention strategy"; "establish the scope and timetable for change stages"; "develop a mission statement"; "select the target [workers] and...choose the individuals who will host the change..."; "identify...change platforms"; "select culture-based tools"; "begin the transformation process."

The Journal of the American Dietetic Association offers practical steps for "overcoming resistance to...change": First, the article (Henry, 1997) notes that "resistance to change serves a function - maintaining the status quo or the organization's perceived state of equilibrium." Hence, the writer asserts, if there were no resistance, organizations would be unstable, lacking focus and integrity" because the company had no outlet for debating the need for change in the first place.

Answers and Conclusions

Change Management" (Brenner, et al., 2003) means adopting systems which help to create not just a new technology system within a company, but a vision for that company. In fact a change management plan, according to Brenner, et al., should comprise five areas of focus: "vision and goals, business benefits, metrics, organizational structure," and finally, a plethora of intervention strategies and recommendations to make sure the integration is as smooth as possible.

How to assist employees as they approach technological change in the workplace

When preparing for workplace change, in order develop a workable management strategy, the publishers of Prosci Research and Change Management Learning Center (www.prosci.comand (www.change-management.com) suggest managing the "human side of change, not just the business side." And business leadership should approach this new challenge by first ("Phase 1") defining the change, preparing a change management team, and developing a sponsorship model. In "Phase 2" (actually managing change) employers should develop solid change management plans, and take well-defined, well-explained action to implement the plan.