Many people and organizations resist to change. Generally employees or individual and management or organization resist to change. Some of the possible reason for why people and organization resist change are as follows:
I. Resistance by the Employees or Individuals
Individual is considered as the main source of resistance to change due to their perception, personalities and needs, because of the following reason individual resist the change. Individual employees or the trade union generally resist change for the following reason:
1. Inconvenience or Love for Status Quo
The introduction of a change in doing a job may disrupt the normal routine of employees. Thus, any change that interferes with the normal work routine is generally inconvenient and is resisted.
2. Fear of Uncertainties
Employees perform their job in a normal routine. They are aware of their duties, responsibilities and superior's behavior. Any change may create some uncertainties in the minds of the employees. Employees tend to speculate what would be their new roles and responsibilities and how their superiors will respond to them. Such uncertainties may result in some resistance to change.
3. Fear of Economic Loss
These include the fear of technological unemployment, fear of reduced work hours and consequently less pay after change, fear of demotion and low wages, obsolesce of skills, etc. Whenever people sense that new machinery pass a threatening challenge for their existence, they resist change. For example, many managers in today’s industries are resisting the introduction of computers. Further, when people perceive any psychological degradation of the job that they are performing, they simply try to maintain status quo and resist change.
Any change that creates a feeling of fear of economic loss among employees is likely to generate resistance to change. Change may create fear of economic loss due to the following reasons.
- Fear of lay-off or retrenchment or termination from the job.
- Fear of reduced job opportunities due to change in technology.
- Fear of wage cuts or reduced incentives.
- Fear of demotion and consequently low monetary benefits and status.
- Fear of more work-load due to automation and reduced monetary benefits.
- For all or some of the reasons of fear, employees resist change.
4. Social Displacement
Change often results in disturbance of the existing social relationships. People in work organizations develop some sort of information relationships and any change breaking these relationships will be strongly resisted. Group pressure also brings about resistance to change in individuals.
By working with each other employees develop certain patterns of social relations. They feel comfortable in communication and interaction with certain persons. This comfort makes work more enjoyable and helps to develop friendships. Any change in structure, technology or personnel may disrupt these social relations. Hence employees resist change.
5. Fear of Obsolescence of Skills
The knowledge is exploding at a fast rate. As a result, knowledge is any field that may become obsolete. When employees feel that the introduction of new technology in place of old one poses a threat of replacing them, they resist such change quickly and violently. For instance, when employees have fear of being phased out of their job by automation, or computerization they resist such change. In cases, when job security is at stake, even a minor change in policy and procedure may evoke resistance to change.
6. Habits
Once we become habituated on anything, it will be difficult to change that habit. As human beings, we are creatures of habit. Changes in old work habits create resistance. Employees tend to respond in accustomed work.
Every human being has his own habits. Habits are hard to break. They are sometimes serious constraints to change. Learning a new method of performing a job becomes difficult due to the habits. Hence, most employees do resist change due to their habits that have been developed over the years.
7. Fear of Loss of Power
Employees may fear loss of job security, reduction in pay and increase in workloads. The cost of change may be higher than benefits of change. Sometimes, change may erode the power of the employees. They may lose some power and influence. Apart from it, the change may force to accept new power position. To enjoy new power position, they may be required to establish new relationship which may be in the time being difficult. Hence, employees resist change.
8. Lack of Understanding / Clarification
Some people resist change because they do not understand the nature of the change. It happens due to the lack of clarification or gap of communication. Hence, every person takes or understands the change in his own way. Some persons take the change as an indication of their poor performance on the job while some others may assume that their position would soon be abolished. Some others may take it as a measure of punishment for some personal reasons. Thus, lack of clarifications about the nature of change invites resistance from the employees.
II. Resistance by the Management or Organization
Organization itself is another source for resistance to change. Many times, the resistance to change is initiated by the organization as a whole or by the top management. Following are the main reasons for organizational resistance.
1. Resource Transfer or Reallocation
Organizational change usually invoices a huge expenditure and sufficiency of resource usually in a major constraint. In such a situation, change is resisted by the departmental heads and employees. This is true, when government forces the organizations to introduce certain technological, organizational or social changes but does not provide adequate human and physical resources, the organizations oppose such changes. Similarly when trade unions pressurize management to introduce certain changes for the safety, welfare and comforts of the employees, the management put resistance to such changes for lack of availability of funds.
Sometimes, a change requires transfer of resources from one department to anther department. In other words, resources are reallocated to departments for implementing the change. Any department getting lesser or reduced allocation of resources than in the past would resist the change.
2. Organization Structure
Some organizational structure has built in mechanism for resistance to change. For instance, in a typical bureaucratic structures when chain of command is clearly spelled out, authority, responsibilities and duties are clearly defined, flow of information is stressed through proper, channel and the entire pattern is highly mechanistic and rigid, and any changes in the organization structure or pattern would either be possible or strongly reputed.
Some organizational structure has built-in mechanism for resistance to change. For instance, in a typical bureaucratic structure, where chain of command is clearly spelled out, authority, responsibilities and duties are clearly defined, flow of information is stressed through proper channel and the entire pattern is highly mechanistic and rigid and any change in the organizational structure or pattern would either be impossible or strongly refuted.
3. Non-cooperation or Threat by Experts
Sometimes, a change results in the transfer of responsibility to perform a specialized task to a new individual or group of experts. The expert person or group loosing the responsibility for performance may resist the proposed change. Moreover, if the change is to be affected through the cooperation of those loosing experts, it would even be more difficult to affect the change successfully.
4. Fear of Increase in Responsibility
Sometimes, a change may result in increase in responsibility of managers. In such a situation, managers may oppose the change.
5. Threat to Power and Influence
Managers occupying top, key and prestigious positions resist change when they perceive that the change may thereafter affect their position, power or influence. Introduction of new technology, reshuffling in organizations structure (levels, departments, authority or responsibility) or reallocation of resources may disrupt the existing power relationship and may adversely affect some of the top executives. They initiate resistance in order to safeguard their interest by maintaining status quo.
6. Fear of Loss of Investment
In case when organizations have invested a huge capital in their permanent assets and training of employees, they are afraid of their capital being sunk, if they introduce a new technology.
7. Group Inertia
Sometimes, long standing group norms or group inertia may resist the change. In such a situation, an attempt to change the job of one individual is opposed by all group members.
8. Chain of Effects
Sometimes, one change may lead to a series of changes. For instance, change in the data processing technique in accounting department may require change in data processing technique in all the departments. If the other departments are not willing to change, change in accounting department cannot be implemented.
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