HRD and Organizational Change
HRD and Organizational Change
INTRODUCTION
Change has been a central concept in Human resource development from the beginning.
Thinking about change in HRD has emerged from two basic directions: individual change
and organizational change. Individual change model focus on way individual’s change.
While this may affect the organization, the primary emphasis is on the individual and helping
the individual change himself or herself. Career development specialist focus on helping
people to change their lives and jobs.
Organizational change embraces the individual, but within the context of changing the
organization. Most of these models emerge from what is generically known as organizational
development.
Sociopolitical factors: Substitution of the applicable regulations or policies will force the
organization to adapt to regulations and new policies. As a result, the organizational culture will
be “forced” to change.
Pressure from Stakeholders: Pressure from stakeholders can trigger changes, including
changes in organizational culture cultural intervention. For example, stakeholders of demanding
an increase in dividends earned each year. This will trigger an “improvement” in the
organization’s workload and of course will be able to influence the prevailing culture within the
organization.
Basically, the change in organizational culture, meaning a learning process again. Re-learning
this is driven by several elements: crisis, leadership, accepted definition of success, and the
process of continuous learning within the organization.
Management is said to be an agent of change. It means that management has to introduce change
successfully in its organization. It has to overcome the resistance and make it a successful
venture. The management must realize that resistance to change is basically a human problem,
though on surface, it may appear to be related to the technical aspect of change. So, it must be
tackled in a human and social manner. Management has to take the following steps to implement
the change successfully.
1. Participation of Employees:
Before introducing any change, the employees should be fully consulted and they must be made
a party to any such decision. The meaning and purpose of the change must be fully
communicated to those who will be affected by it. Enough time should be allowed for
discussion, and pros and cons of the change should be explained, in detail, to employees.
4. Group Dynamics:
Group dynamics refers to the ever changing interactive and adjustments in the mutual
perceptions and relationships among members of the groups. Such group interactions are the
most powerful instruments which facilitate or inhibit adaptation to change. Adaptation is a team
activity which requires conformity to the new group norms, moves, traditions and work patterns.
If these could be positively articulated by management the results are likely to be more
successful and durable.
6. Positive Motion:
The management should use the policy of positive motivation to counteract negative resistance.
It should be the attempt of the management to make the job easier and less exerting. The
management should impart proper training to its employees in new techniques and work
knowledge etc. The leadership styles should also be supportive and human oriented. This policy
will also bring down the resistance to change.
8. Organizational Development:
Organization development aims at molding and development of employees in the psychological
and behavioral areas with a view to achieve organizational effectiveness. Employees with
enriched behavior welcome the change.
The conclusion is that the Management should plan for change. Based on the change plan, the
job should be redesigned. Management should train the employee before hand and prepare the
employees to invite change. Normally trained and developed employees will not resist change as
they cannot keep quiet with enriched skill and knowledge. Any change whether technical, social
or economic will be least resisted by the employees if the management permits the employees to
share benefits which arise out of the change. So, the management must see that employees are
not only assured of it, they are given due advantage of it as well.
§ Designing teams
§ Motivating employees
§ Deciding HR policies
The implications for the HRD manager in this stage are many but one of the most important one
is to decide who will stay and who will be leaving. The HRD department should be very
selective in their task, because the selection of the employees is one of the critical issues at the
time of any merger. Many other actions should also be performed by the HRD department.
Some of the actions and implications of the HR department under this stage are as follow.
There are numerous conclusions that can be made while talking about the HR issues and
activities in mergers and acquisitions. Some conclusions are as follow.
§ HR issues should not be neglected while having any merger or acquisition because Human
resources are the real assets of any organization.
§ Keep track of the Human issues in all the 3 phases of the M&A, so that no issue remains
unfocused.
§ Employee communications, retention of key employees and cultural integration are the most
important activities in the HR area for successful M&A integration.
Here are some recommendations for those companies which are looking to have any sort of
merger and acquisitions keeping in mind the human issues.
§ Companies should put their best people in charge while implementing M&A
§ HR department should be included in all decision making right from the start to the end