Behavior in an organization

Present complexities in the workplace need good control through strong management. Many problems can arise in any company that will lead either to positive developments or to a decline. Issues that impair the success of enterprises are primarily due to the inability of management to address the work-related challenges of workers. Effective control in the workplace leads to increased operational efficiency. Continuous management guidance is often needed in order to update staff on any step that has been taken towards reaching a common vision. Issues affecting business performance must be solved indiscriminately to avoid regression from the affected individuals. Therefore, employee satisfaction must be considered at all levels. Organizational behavior is a field that deals with the study of the impacts that groups, individuals, and structures have on the behavior of the organization. The purpose of the study is to provide information necessary for the application of tactics that increase organizational effectiveness. Organizational behavior is mainly concerned with the study of various practices of people in the organization and the effect of their actions on the optimal performance of the group (floyd, 2002, p 12). Therefore, human behavior should be predictable and understood to enable the management to adopt right measures of mitigating any defect. Organizational behavior's primary role is thus helping organizations and individuals to have a quick response to crises through the elaborative lessons that are outlined in managing and organizing the resources that are necessary for responding to an emergency. The ever-increasing workplace diversity continuously generates many challenges to the organization regarding fair treatment of employees, decision making, and flexibility in times of crisis. Managers have a tough task in ensuring that there is fairness to all and decisions that bring satisfaction. This essay is meant to discuss organizational change, stress in the workplace, and workplace-related attitudes and personality.

Organizational change

Organisational change is a continuous change from a current situation to a different state. Modern organizations must adapt to the ever-changing business factors for them to continue existing and enjoying their routine practices. The contemporary business faces several environmental factors that necessitate continuous change. These factors include globalization, technological innovation, uncertainty, and discontinuity. The business factors may originate from both the internal or external environment of the business. Internal factors include a shift in cultural values, change in managerial personnel, and deficiency in the existing structures. The agent of organizational change is the employees.

Changes are only evident in any organization through the efforts of individuals concerned (French, Rayner and Rumbles, 2015, p 65- 68). Therefore, organizations introduce changes by the aid of their employees through the gradual teaching of the appropriate actions. With time, employees learn to adapt to their change of attitude to enable them best meet the changing environments. Thus proper management of personalities in an organization is necessary to provide favorable conditions for change. Management is under an obligation to address all issue facing their employees in their daily routines. Any deviation from the expected behaviors must be investigated and appropriate measures put in place for remedy. The change may be either behavioral or non-behavioral. The behavioral approach entails changing the practices and attitudes of employees by decision making, communication, and problem-solving. The non-behavioral approach means changing organizational policies, structure, physical layout of the workplace, and technology.

Types of recent organizational changes

Shift to Electronic Medical reports in The Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Canada

The Canadian government prioritized the use of integrated medical reports in keeping patients' records. The children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) responded positively to the use of the new record management system. The new system helped the hospital to go paperless. By October 2014, the hospital had achieved registration for all the patients in the new electronics software (Gajaria, 2014, 10). CHEO was successful in administering the change in various ways. First, the team responsible for implementing the change had a detailed and achievable plan which enabled a smooth switch. The second winning strategy by the hospital was having in place a team who was to educate and support the health care personnel in the effective use of the EMRs. The hospital also organized learning sessions for the end users on how to use the EMRs.

Transformation of Shell's structure and processes

The departure of the group's chairman before 2004 resulted in a rise in the company's oil reserves crisis. The new chairman resolved to undertake transformation in the company's structures and processes (Traub and Yates, 2004, p 18). As a result, there were a series of globally standardized processes to rectify the fall in the market share. However, more than 80 shell operating units were greatly affected in the short term. Regardless of the major impact of the change in the programs, everyone was encouraged to adhere to the new systems and processes. The leadership focused to get adoption of the new changes by everyone involved. Drivers of the change ensured that all those responsible for the operations in all the markets knew whatever that was required and why. They were required always to remain focused on the performance of the new changes.

Stages of organizational change

A successful change involves recognizing the need for it, incorporating a new behavior, and building a good feeling on the new situation. Organisational change undergoes through three different stages: unfreezing, transition-refreezing. Successful change results cannot be achieved if the system is not unfrozen and after that refrozen. During the first state of change, unfreezing, there is a relatively stable condition. The stage is characterized by an emergency of a disturbing force that often creates an effect on the status quo, and motivation of people to the manner of their behaviors. The unfreezing state motivates individuals and groups to search for corrective measures that will assist remedy a deteriorating condition. This state may force people to start paying attention to ideas, suggestions, directives or information that was previously ignored. The start of the process of change results in invalidation of commonly accepted patterns of behavior, earlier operational methods, and the established frames of reference. The old system of operation is thereby rendered inoperative. The inability of individuals to understand and manage their environment, both internal and external, brings confusion which later develops stress. Therefore, people concerned with the implementation of change have a responsibility of reducing anxiety among the affected people. Tension among the employees may lead to resistance to change.

Resistance to change

Resistance to change is usually a natural phenomenon, but not all changes are resisted. Most changes are received positively, but the few that are opposed pose a significant danger to the effectiveness of organizations. The first step towards effective management of change is accepting that people have a natural instinct in adapting to their environment. Therefore, managers should analyze all situations to find the unnatural causes of resistance to change.

For a change to be successful, employee resistance must be overcome. Unless employee resistance is not contained, there will be a loss of productive time and energy (Harvey and Broyles, 2010, p 23-26). Also, there will be an organizational inability in adapting to the changes in both the external and internal environments and inefficiency in making its operations efficient. Resistance to change also affects the performance of the employees in their duties. However, not all resistance is negative. It may be a positive force in some cases.

Resistance to change is a useful tool for employee feedback that should never be ignored. The management must know why there is resistance to the proposed changes and find solutions to measure whether the change is viable or not. Therefore, a platform for listening to employees' comments on the change should be created to gather more views on the best way of implementing the change.

Work-related attitudes and personality

Workplace attitudes are a set of assessments of one's job that builds an individual's feelings towards the attachment to a certain position. Attitudes create either a positive or negative feelings of an individual toward the assigned duties. A person may build negative attitude about his job due to poor workplace relationships or failure of the position to offer the expected benefits. Therefore, management is responsible for ensuring that all employees are treated in a personified approach to ensure that all their needs are addressed. As a result development in positive attitudes is achieved. Any organization with motivated employees easily achieves their goals. The current world business dynamics require that employees remain positive in all their work time to prevent resistance in primary organizational tasks. Both the management and employees are therefore needed to express ideal personality and attitude traits to manage organizational change.

Managerial traits necessary for managing organizational change

More than 80% of the responsibility for managing change lies under the docket of the management. Managers have a crucial role to play in the organization with several ever-changing responsibilities (Robbins, Judge and Campbell, 2017, p 77). They need to build high-performance in creating a collective workplace culture with its foundation based on competitiveness and teamwork for better performance. Above all managers must strive to earn trust from the employees and other organizational players to promote unity and collaboration. Best managers are always proactive in addressing needs of the team, actively seek best ways of motivating each employee, and are aware of people's attitudes, engagement levels and moods. Managers must express various traits which aid in the proper management of change in the organization. Most organizational changes fail due to the poor managerial leadership and directive.

Managers should have a high level of flexibility to be able to adjust to the ever-changing organizations. Therefore, they should have the ability for systemic thinking because of the complexity nature of the changes that they encounter with. The manager needs to think strategically and understand the whole organizational picture which will help him appreciate the diverse network within which the organization operates. Systematic reasoning helps the manager to have an understanding of the interdependency between the various sections of the organization and the outside environment. For successful management of all the possible organizational changes, the manager needs to take a strategic view of the world. He needs to recognize the co-existence of the business with the outside world. Hence a manager needs to embrace diversity through the management of all possible risks.

Embracing diversity helps managers to promote heterogeneity within all the players of the organization (Robbins, Judge and Campbell, 2017, p 80). Thus aspects of race, culture, gender, and age cease to be threats to harmonious co-existence of all the organizational players. Individual, therefore, can use their differences to appreciate the complex situations that they find themselves operating. Managers need to respect diversity within their workplace and their immediate business environment by building bridges between different groups. They should endeavor to continuously seek common grounds of decision making without forcing for acceptance. However, they should be aware of the potential risks, recognize the importance of other people's views and have the ability to fast note issues. Through the ability of the manager in embracing diversity, the question of balancing both local and global perspectives arises.

The manager needs to possess the ability to realize and appreciate the intensity of impacts that local and international decisions have (Runcan, Rta and Goian, 2013, p 102). Although, the manager must exercise a balance between the global framework of values and the local diversity. They should ensure consistency in operational standards while encouraging employees to be innovative in the exercise of their skills. The manager should always take responsibility for all the issues that relate to organizational operations. Apart from the managerial attributes and personalities in addressing organizational change, there should also be employees'

Personality traits exhibited by employees to aid organizational change

Personality traits of the employees are the largest influencing factor in managing organizational change. They form 85% of all the required attributes in any organization. However, some personality traits score more than the rest as follows, communication ability 55% and emotional tolerance 30%

Employees should have the ability in engaging in meaningful dialogue and language with all the organizational stakeholders. Positive attitudes in better engaging communication help to lessen ambiguity that may arise in the organization among the key players. In cases of organizational change in any aspect, employees have the responsibility of engaging in a fruitful communication with the management of proper implementation ways to be achieved. The active participation of all the players in a meaningful communication prevents assumptions on ideas and beliefs that are held by the employees (Richard, Emener and Hutchison, 2009 p 14). Any development in the organization must be actively communicated to all the stakeholders for effective implementation. Employees play the most significant role in embracing organizational communication at all levels. Therefore, poor employee attitude in communication may lead to informal communication like grapevine which may result in revolts within the workforce. As a result, resistance to change is easily experienced which derails organizational success. The positive attitude among employees leads to their emotional awareness.

More than 80% of the workplace related emotions of the employees affect their performance. Therefore, they influence every section of the organization hence need to always exhibit high sensitivity to emotions. Employees carry the role of embracing emotional awareness in all the perspectives of the organization (Richard, Emener and Hutchison, 2009 p 25). An effective balance of emotions within the employees helps in creating good relationships between all the players of the business. Stronger team environments are created whereby employees can freely share their experiences without fears of any intimidation. Emotional balance among all the players of the organization improves stability in decision making. Therefore, employees can remain focussed towards implementing change through active involvement in the assigned tasks. Proper emotional balance improves the flexibility of the employees in various organizational aspects such as cultural diversity, class differences, and educational levels. Balance on these factors increases tolerance to changes that may occur in the business operations.

Stress

Stress is a physiological and psychological imbalance that results from the demand for situational demand and the ability and motivation of an individual to meet the required needs. Stress may be good or negative depending on the impact that is caused. Positive stress results when a situation offers a possibility of a person to achieve something (Robbins, Judge and Campbell, 2017, p 16). Negative stress appears when an individual is faced with physical, social, emotional and organizational problems. Negative effects of stress cause an individual not to be actively involved in the collective performance of organizational tasks. Conditions that generate stress in the workplace become limiting agents of effective organizational change. As a result, employees resolve to concentrate more on securing their comfort areas rather than embracing change. There are numerous effects of organizational change on the employees.

Employees suffer from reduced morale in performing their duties. Change may lead to fears of employees due to their inability to cope with the new working styles that the management may set. Thus, they will feel less optimistic about their continued professional existence in the company. As a result, most employees suffer from the reduced ability to meet the set goals thereby reducing overall organizational performance. Reduced morale also causes employees to resolve to other activities that are not in line with the organizational duties. Most of them start engaging in activities that will help them divert workplace stress. Poor management of change may also lead to a disruptive work environment.

The inability of the management to be actively involved as the key players of implementing change causes worker aggression and a deteriorating work environment (Evans, James, and Lindsay, 2002, p 55). Job-building factors are thus weakened to the extent that most operations in the organization fail to reach a minimum threshold. As a result, diversity within the employees in regards to cultural, educational, age and gender are adversely affected. Employees start creating groups whereby the individuals share similar attributes as a way of running away from the reality of change. Negative vices among the staff generate disharmony which leads to further divisions within the workplace. Creation of informal groupings leads to increased job stress and a resultantly reduced efficiency.

Stress resulting from organizational change disrupts active employee involvement in their duties (Senior and Swailes, 2016, p 47). For instance, when management takes more time in resolving resistance to change, employees become less efficient on their daily jobs. Failure of the management to provide quick resolutions for the change leads to lack of direction among the employees. Productive time meant for producing organizational returns are therefore reduced to merely trial periods. Most employees fail to understand how to perform their changed duties and cope with the new work environment. Continuous failure of the employees to meet their expected results may create fear of being laid off.

Employees may resolve into secure working tactics to avoid being fired. The state cause workers to remain glued to the factors that the organization intends to change. Therefore, management may decide to undertake strict measures on the individual workers who disregard change. The decision by management to fire some employees lead to increased tension among those who find a difficulty in embracing change.

Solution to employee stress

Management must take an active role in mitigating the causes of stress that may arise among employees. There are various ways that the drivers of change should follow to ensure the success of the new work dynamics. Managers should set clear and achievable goals which every employee can achieve. Supervisors need to be more transparent about job goals and supportive roles. Manageable tasks for employees will help mitigate possible chances of regression hence reducing stress factors. Also, management needs to ensure that the work environment is flexible.

Flexible work environment helps individuals to experience reduced pressure in their lives. Flexibility may include ease in changing the allocation of duties and duration of completion. Employees who fail to achieve results set by management for a specific period should be encouraged to put more efforts instead of being treated as failures. If necessary, more time should be allocated to enable them to achieve their tasks. Naturally, some people easily perform a particular task better than the others. Therefore, management should study well the intended change of operations before implementing them and after that assign duty to individuals with right qualities. Proper implementation of the change helps the supervisors to assign duties to those employees who can successfully tackle them.

Conclusion

Organisational behavior plays the greatest part in improving the performance of various tasks. Proper employee and management attributes are necessary to ensure that effective organizational change is achieved. Every individual concerned with implementing change need to be sensitive to the diversity issues in the workplace. Cultural diversity, age, educational levels and gender of all the organizational players should be maintained to ensure harmonious co-existence in the business. Every aspect that may result in stress among employees should be well managed. Management should be ready with appropriate measures to counter resistance of change by the employees.

References

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