Ife PsychologIA 25(2) 2017.

383 - 394
Copyright (C) 2017 © Ife Centre for Psychologial Studies/Services, Ile-Ife, Nigeria ISSN: 1117-1421

INTRODUCING CHANGE IN ORGANIZATION: IMPLICATION FOR HUMAN

RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT PRACTITIONERS

Onimole S.O. (Ph.D)

Department of Entrepreneurship
Joseph Ayo Babalola University
Osun State, Nigeria

Abstract
This paper considers that change in organizations is linked with change in people and
that there are many influences which operate in both directions – organizations influence
people and influence the development of organizations. The paper also shares the view
that one of the most obvious and urgent problems at management level in organizations
is the failure to achieve the expected benefits from investments in equipment, training,
organization development inputs etc, these situations seem to have an element in
common, - the need to obtain commitment to change, if the required results are to be
achieved. The paper observed that at all levels organizational change efforts often run
into some form of human resistance, and that the major obstacle to organization growth
is managers inability to change their attitude and behavior as rapidly as their
organization requires. Consequently, it is suggested that managers need to increase their
skills at diagnosing resistance to change and at choosing the appropriate methods for
overcoming it. The view is maintained in the paper that if organizations objectives are to
be met and overcome resistance to change, and in coping with change, people in
organization must be trained and educated about the envisaged change before hand as
people will resist change when they do not understand its importance/implications, and
perceive that it might cost them much more than they will benefit. Again such problem
will occur when trust is lacking between the person initiating the change and the
employee or management or when there is a conflict of interest. It is argued that the main
ingredient in the change process is the employee and in preparing companies for
fundamental change will require first and foremost, preparing the people within the
organization and the top management team must not only have a clear and compelling
vision of the organization as a first step, everybody in the organization regardless of level
or role must also understand and adopt that vision.
Keywords: Change in organization; Human Resource Development Practitioners;
Resistance to change; Change Agents.

Introduction
When people are confronted or threatened with change in organizations, there are some
well known axioms which in interventions for change, born out of fear of change, such

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as: - ‘let sleeping dog lie’ , ‘you cannot teach an old dog new tricks’, ‘from frying pan
into the fire’. Similarly, maxims about certain things, people or departments are trotted
out to prevent any alteration in the status quo. According to Kotter, et al.., (1999) fear of
change is understandable but because the environment changes rapidly, and it has been
doing so increasingly, organization cannot afford not to change. A major task of a
manager or Human Resource Development practitioner is to implement changes and that
entail overcoming resistance. Change, according to Kubr (1997) is the “raison detre” of
training intervention. Change in organizations is linked with change in people and there
are many influences which operate in both directions - organizations influence people and
people influence the development of organizations, One of the most obvious and urgent
problem at management level in organizations is the failure to achieve the expected
benefits from investments in equipment, training, organization development inputs etc.
These situations seem to have an element in common, i.e. the need to obtain commitment
to change, if the required results are to be achieved. According to Marloso (2000),
commitment to change is composed of several different elements which in practical
terms can be defined as; attitude to change, managerial and organization style, the
design of learning situations and the use of the business disciplines of time, cost
achievement, against which any project must be evaluated.

The process of change

A useful concept of change process is the three-step sequential model originally
postulated by the social psychologist Kurt Lewin and later developed by Dalton (2000)
states:-
 Unfreezing or thawing out of established behaviour patterns
 Changing or moving to a new pattern.
 Refreezing or development of the new pattern.

Assuming that we live in a dynamic wor1d change has to go on all the time or from time
to time. However, as Bower et al.., (2000) wrote, ‘an acceleration in the rate of
change will result in an increasing need for re-organization’. Reorganization is usually
feared, because it means disturbance of the status quo, a threat to peoples ’ vested
interests in their jobs and an upset to established ways of doing things. For these reasons,
the needed re-organization is often deferred with a resulting loss in effectiveness and an
increase in costs”.

Everyone today is keenly aware of, and concerned about change. The fact of the
inevitability of change can best be summarized as Blair (2000) puts it, ‘..we may not
recognize it or otherwise take cognizance of it, we may oppose it or we may even try to

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accelerate it’. No matter what our position may be, change makes its course in the
evolution of human effort. Change may take place so slowly that it is not perceptible in
one generation or even two, or it may occur with such rapidity that we are left somewhat
breathless in the wake of the waves”. The change process heralding the 21st century is
unprecedented. It is indeed perplexing as it is swift, pervading, intense and persistent.
The revolutionary changes witnessed in this century have made territorial boundaries
between nations to become gradually less important.

According to Hassan (2014), changes resulting from communication revolution,

revolution in technology, in production and distributive systems, material science and
biotechnology have not only affected the face of the earth but has profound impact on the
life and living of human societies. In spite of all its perplexing, unsettling, domineering
manifestations, the change process at the dawn of the 21st century is only relevant in
respect of man. No wonder therefore that in keeping with the times, Sustainable Human
Development (SHD) is now the priority item on the individual, corporate national and
international development agenda. What are the implications of this fast changing
scenario for the Human Resources Development (HRD) sector and what role will the
HRD practitioner need to play? These will form the import of this study.

Resistance to change
It is implied in this study that organizational change efforts often run into some form of
human resistance. Although experienced Human Resource Development practitioners are
generally all too aware of this fact, few take time before an organizational change to
assess systematically who might resist the change initiative and for what reasons. Instead,
using past experiences as guidelines, HRD practitioners all too often apply a simple set of
beliefs’, such as “production engineers will probably resist the change and not accept
training intervention because ‘they’ are independent and suspicious of training
departments and top management. This limited approach in practice has created serious
problems. Because of the many different ways in which individual, and groups can react
to change, correct assessment are often not intuitively obvious and require careful,
thought. However, for a number of different reasons, individuals or groups can react very
differently to change, from passively resisting it to aggressively trying to undermine it, to
sincerely embracing it. For example people will resist change when they do not
understand its importance as well as implications, thereby perceive that it might cost
them much more than they will benefit from. Again such problem will occur when trust is
lacking between the person initiating the change and the employee or management or
when there is a conflict of interest.

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The Force Field Theory

A pertinent question has always been why should the introduction of a new method of
doing things be a problem? The explanation for a problem like this may be multiple and
complicated. It could be associated with any of the four common reasons as presented by
Kotter et al (1999):
 A desire not to lose something of value
 A misunderstanding of the change and its implications
 A belief that change does not make sense for the organization and or
 A few tolerances for change

The tendency however, is for organization to attempt to demonstrate that the new way to
get a new development activity accepted by members of the organization and to explain
rationally, the advantage of the new activity over the old one. For example: the need to
improve efficiency; the need for flexible working hours; effectiveness must be
increased; productivity must be increased; the need to always remain alert for new
management innovations etc. To subordinates this is an indication that management feels
compelled to sell them a bill of goods; an implication which they resent. Subordinates
will see little need (if managers are effective) for anyone to inform them that
effectiveness should be increased, new concepts should be tried, productivity must be
increased etc. They will resent anything that indicates that they are not doing this already.
The resistance may even increase because of:
(a) The negative interpersonal impact of the new idea upon the line manager.
(b) The mistrust and condemnation of the subordinates implied by the new
programme.
(c) The inhabitation of the questions and fears the subordinates may wish to express.
(d) The feeling of being manipulated by the fact that the plan for change did not
involve them at the planning stage.
(e) The dependence and submissiveness caused by the unilateral training manager
strategy.

Considering our findings in this exercise anyone who has planned major organizational
change knows:-
(a) How difficult it is to foresee accurately all the major problems involved.
(b) The enormous amount of time needed to iron out the kinks and get the people to
accept change.
(c) The apparent lack of internal commitment on the part of many to help make the
plan work manifested partly.
(d) By people at all levels resisting taking the initiative to make modification that
they see are necessary so that the new plan can work.
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Dealing with resistance

According to Enemali (2010), managers need to increase their skills at diagnosing
resistance to change and at choosing the appropriate methods for overcoming it.
Experience has shown that many managers underestimate not only the variety of ways
people can react to organizational change but also the ways they can positively influence,
especially individuals and groups during change and again because of past experiences
managers sometimes do not have an accurate understanding of the advantages and
disadvantages of the methods with which they are familiar. There are however, several
ways to overcome resistance to change. One of these according to Kotter et al.., (1979) is
to educate the people about the change before hand. Communication of ideas helps
people see the need for and the logic of a change. Other ways are through: participation
and involvement, facilitating and support, negotiation and agreement, manipulation and
cooperation, and explicit and implicit coercion.

An understanding of attitudes to change is based on the recognition that there are four
distinct patterns associated with effective change. These four phases according to
Marslow (1973) are the same in any major or minor situation and can be defined as:
1. acceptance of the role and contribution of the change agent, consultant, systems
analysts or any executive responsible for introducing change.
2. resolving the underlying fears or anxieties about change – (what’s going on?
What is behind this? How am I likely to be affected?)
3. Obtaining identification and commitment to specific action (what have I got to do
to see this change is accepted?).
4. Building into the organization a method of reappraising the effects of the current
changes and modifying systems, organization structure and management roles as
required.

Summary of literature review

The literature reviewed for this study indicates that attempts have been made by various
authors to identify some obstacles to organizations efforts to introduce change in
organization. Literature also postulated - Kenny, John and Raid (1993) that training per-
se cannot take place unless there are people, to effect the change and that organization is
organic hence cannot grow or change without people, and that people cannot grow in
organization without adequate development or appropriate skills for productive purpose
resulting from change intervention.

One of the founders of management of organization Drucker (1964) argued that the
major obstacle to organizational growth is manager’s inability to change their attitude and
behaviour as rapidly as their organization requires. Even when managers intellectually
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understand the need for change in the way they operate, they sometimes are emotionally
unable to make the transition. However, the change efforts described herein is keyed to
the concept that continuous education and training in organization can assist or enable an
organization to accomplish its objective. Our example also demonstrates that such a
change in management strategy requires the involvement and commitment of people at
all levels and that in the final analysis the real agent of change is the organization itself.

Impact of change
There is little doubt about the dominant role that change has played in contemporary
society, and this is nowhere more evident than in organizations. All organizations today
are vibrating from the forces of change. A wide variety of forces bombarding the modern
organization make change inevitable as organizations of all types and sizes are
experiencing pressure to make fundamental changes in the way they operate. The
pressure according to Hassan (2014) is as a result of four major factors, globalised market
place, the drive for quality improvement, increasing external regulation and social
change.

Global market - The information revolution being witnessed over the last decade, has
made the world a much smaller place, and is having dramatic effects on the ways
organizations can, and need to do business. Another feature of the global market is the
formation of economic blocs, which provides the companies of member states with
access on equal terms, to much bigger markets. The increasing competition and
opportunities which the global market brings cannot be ignored if organizations must
thrive and survive.

Quality improvement - Changing technology and knowledge explosion are two factors
that have had tremendous impact on the quality of programmes, procedures, services and
products of organizations both in the private and public sectors. The concept of quality
has been firmly implanted in the minds of business people and government officers, for
some years now. We are constantly reminded that quality is defined by the customer and
therefore we must focus on the customer, that service quality is at least as important as
product quality and that everyone, from the Chief Executive to the gateman, can make a
valuable contribution to quality.

External regulation - National and International regulations are legislations that are
introduced for very good reason - to protect the customers or the employee, for example.
The challenge is for organizations to comply with the regulations or standards, without
sacrificing organizational freedom or individuality.

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Social change - Like technological change, social change has occurred throughout
human history, but not at its current rate. For example, people who grew up in the 1920s
had a vastly different socio-cultural environment contributing to the value development
from that of people who grew up in the 1960s. One result of the contrast between these
socio-cultural environments is a differing set of values for the people growing up during
these times. This constitutes a value gap which becomes a relevant factor in managing
people in modern organizations.

Change in Perspective
In order to remain competitive and even survive, organizations must meet the tremendous
challenges presented by all these areas of change. Neither the private nor public
organization can compete in today’s market place by standing still or going backward.
New technology must be incorporated to enhance the product or service. Business
strategies must be clear and well conceived. Investments must be planned to enable
developments. Organization structures must be redesigned to accept change as a basic
premise. All of these can deliver great potential benefits but the main ingredient in the
change process is the employee. Preparing companies for fundamental change means,
first and foremost, preparing people. A key part of this process, is sharing the vision of
the organization. For progress to be made in an organization, the top management team
must not only have a clear and compelling vision of the organization as a first step,
everybody in the organization regardless of level or role, must also understand and adopt
that vision. It is this gearing the organization to fit the times that the organization
development process is all about. Only through a systematic planned-change effort can
the challenges be met, organization development has emerged to help in this effort of
planned change for organizational effectiveness.

Managing change
Managing Change has been a favourite topic at academic discussions among
management and Human Resources Development practitioners, It is not intended in this
study to go the whole hug on the aspects of managing change because it is a major
subject by itself. Leaders and managers of organizations of today have no choice but to
change. Most of us, however still fear change. Nevertheless, change breeds opportunities
and we must re-define our roles. We have to see ourselves as participants in
organizational change and development. Traditionally, the management of change had
been handled in a variety of ways - human relations training, staff, scholarly consultation,
circulation of ideas, developmental research, etc. The modern approach to the
management of change is Organizational Development (OD). We must identify new
needs of an organization by scanning the environment, understanding the key issues, and
making decisive interventions.

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Managing change will be the major challenges for corporate leaders of the 21st century;
we need to move people, create new directions, invent new processes, undertake new
responsibilities, develop people and enable them seek new opportunities. All these
through corporate culture, because corporate culture affects the planning and strategic
decision-making processes of an organization. It comprises elements such as shared
values, decision-making patterns and overt behaviour patterns. Attention to culture is
important because as the environment changes, the strategy has to change, but the culture
tends to stay the same, giving rise to a discrepancy between required strategy and
corporate culture.

The whole process of managing change is dynamic and requires being constantly tuned
into what is happening around and monitoring the process very carefully. This involves
special skills and some of the key ones involved in the process of bringing about change
include:
 Clear definition of organizational problems
 Obtaining valid data
 Being ready and committed
 Communicating the strategy and action, and
 Sustaining the energy level,

Human Resource Development Implications

The change process which organizations must have to undergo to keep with the times will
have significant consequences for human resources management and development. These
changes be of impact on various functions of human resource management:

Selection
The most strategic issue in the selection area, will be how to ensure real diversity in the
work-place. The globally-oriented organizations of tomorrow must have a multi-ethnic
and multi-talented workforce.

Placement
In most organizations today, the primary criterion governing placement is where the
employee can be most productive in the short-term. For competitive advantage,
organization must have multiple criteria for placement; the first assignment being in the
area where the employee is most qualified to serve by his/her background. In addition to
such an assignment, the employee must also be assigned to a more complex function (or
project), handled by a team comprising people from several functions, levels and ethnic
backgrounds. Such an assignment to a multi-level, multi-functional and multi-cultural
team, will facilitate the development of an appropriate mind-set. After a suitable period
of (a year or two), the employee must be rotated through different functional fields to see
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how he/she handles different functions other than in his/her primary area of competence.
This job rotation in different functional areas is very effective in developing a broad
cross-functional experience in employees.

Training and Development

Training and Development must commence from the beginning of the young employee’s
career. Appropriate training and development programmes have to be developed, so that
managers have multi-disciplinary experiences during the early years of their careers.
Cross-cultural training is imperative; so as to develop a corporate culture of respecting
each other’s ethnicity. The motto has to be “Unity in Diversity”. In addition to training,
development requires counselling and mentoring. Executives need to perform such roles.
Training and development must be tied to career planning and manpower planning in a
systematic long-range fashion,

Career Development and Manpower Planning

There must be a comprehensive career development planning for each individual and
manpower planning for the organization. These must be integrated together so as to meet
the strategic objectives of the firm and higher level needs of the employees, individual
strategies from selection placement, training and development compensation and reward
systems, must all be integrated into career development and manpower plans. These plans
must be continuously upgraded as the environment changes.

The Implications for Trainers

It has for sometime become popular to refer to training as an agent of change, our
attention has already been drawn in previous paragraphs to those situations which arise
because of change. Training however, does not serve only the purpose of change, for it is
also the means of maintaining standard and of ensuring that those who are newly
recruited to existing work and practices, are able to maintain those standards.
A trainer can therefore improve his chance of success in an organizational change effort
by: -
 conducting an organization analysis that identifies the current situation, problems
and forces that are possible causes of those problems.
 conducting an analysis of factors relevant to producing needed changes. This
may be focused on questions of who might resist the change. Why and how
much, who has information that the need to design the change and whose
cooperation is essential in implementing it; and what is the position of the
initiator vis-à-vis other relevant parties in terms of power, trust, normal mode of
interaction so forth.
 Selecting a change strategy based on the previous analysis that specifies the
speed of change the amount of preplanning and degree of involvement of others,
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that selects specific tactics for use with various individuals and groups and that is
internally consistent.

The role of the Human Resource Development Practitioners (HRD-P) as

Change Agents
In the changing world of today and tomorrow, it will no longer be sufficient to be
educated and gain qualifications for a trade or profession, which you will then pursue for
the rest of your working life. Young people should expect several career changes in their
world life, and will need to learn and adopt continuously. The focus for organization will
be an effective performance, not qualification levels. This emerging trend will surely
create some challenges and opportunities for the HRD practitioners. What will therefore,
be the role of HRD practitioner in this scene?

HRD practitioners should continuously seek for knowledge and be abreast with what is
happening in politics, communications, trade issues, technology, the internet, economics
and in current news and publications, magazines and books and management advances.
They should keep up with the best current information and all these subjects.

HRD practitioners must be involved in all these changes or they will lose their
effectiveness to interface with a changing world and the needs of corporations and
government. There has not been a time when training or effective training has become
most important than in this fast changing times. The products and services of this period
and the future will be increasingly knowledge intensive and the responsibility for
providing the necessary skills and attitudes to cope with this lies with the HRD
practitioners. They will have to perform a hard core practical trainers role who can
interact with people down the line at various levels and develop need based practical
approaches to HRD problems. Methods like performance appraisal, surveys through
questionnaire or standard package module etc will no doubt continue to be the yardstick
for conducting awareness and appreciation programmes. However, they will have to be
implemented with methods and mechanisms to take care of the changing needs of
organizations. Distinctions must be made between training and organizational
development. Training strategies will have to be revamped according to the needs of the
organization.

As a change agent, the HRD professional serves as an interface with top management and
with middle management to ensure that management is aware of world and national
changes and how the organization can accomplish its mission as it relates to the real
world and to the changing environment. They should facilitate an effective
organizational communication and ensure that meetings are scheduled in sequence from

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top level to bottom in the organization, in order to provide current information from top
to bottom. The purpose of such meetings would be:
 to review individual’s mission accomplishment
 to communicate any new Information on happenings
 to assure that organization policy is being carried out and to announce any new
policies
 to discuss problems and proposed solutions to these problems
 to secure feedback of the implementation of programmes etc

All employees should be kept informed through memos, directives and other written
communications and meetings on a regular basis. As change agent, the HRD-P should
play the roles of an investigator, inventor, application engineer, innovator, entrepreneurs,
facilitator and life cycle extender. It is the responsibility of the HRD-P to select the
process which should be used to develop appropriate corporate culture within the
organization. The HRD-P has a major role to play in articulating well rounded HRD
programmes that will provide training and development at all levels at appropriate times
during the career of each employee. They should assist in making the workplace a more
humane and pleasant environment and also assist in improving the quality of life of the
employees.

Conclusion
As we move from an era of self-reliance, protected markets and nationalization to
globalization, competition and privatization, future decades are going to be marked by
interplay of interventions at the macro and micro levels involving economic, social,
cultural, legal and technological changes. It should realized that as with all change,
preparing and developing people to behave differently is the most important, yet most
frequently underestimated factor in making a difference to the quality of organizational
performance. Therefore, Human Resource Development Practitioners (HRD-P) have
great challenges to meet and must recognize that if they fail in our responsibilities as
agents of organization change, then the organizations, both in the private and public
sectors will ultimately fail.

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