Why do employees resist change?

They resist change because we all resist change. Every animal and plant on the planet resists change.

It’s instinctual, not really under our control. There are, however, ways to help encourage change and work past the resistance compassionately using well understood behavioral science techniques.

The task is to simultaneous eliminate the old behavior while training up the new one. This is a process that is done over time and has to be nurtured and supported. You can’t just do a training and expect everyone to change. That is not how it works.

The best advice to help managers succeed in a change management process is to not freak out at the resistance. Even people who want to change, resist it. Instead, plan for the resistance. Understand it’s not a rebellion, it’s just a necessary part of the transition and continue to put positive pressure toward change and to positively reward the people who do adopt the change.  Positive re-enforcement works better than negative – in all cases.

Depending on the size of the organization, one of the ways to ensure success is to stage the transition using the people most likely to adapt to the new changes first so that you essentially have a proof of concept. You work to make sure the new way of doing things is well established before bringing in the next group.

For example, one of my first jobs was that of a volunteer manager. I had 10 volunteers at a non-profit who thought their job was to spy on staff. The staff/volunteer relationships were toxic. I started out small. Found 3 employees who were willing to experiment with the volunteers. We trained the volunteers on the new job we were asking them to do. Those that didn’t want to do it were let go.  I worked carefully with both staff and volunteers for about 2 months making sure the staff felt supported so that they could establish good working relationships with the volunteers. It was a learning experience for both groups. Once those 3 staff members had volunteers they were working well with, other staff members started asking me to get them volunteers to help them with their work.

I had proved the concept and people started wanting to adopt. Was it easy? No – each new staff volunteer relationship needed to be nurtured and supported to be established right.  Only then could I move on to the next group. Within a few years I had 500+ volunteers donating 20,000+ hours per year in every department of our organization.

Cultural change on a large scale is possible, if you know what you are doing and aren’t afraid of the resistance.

You must work with and around the resistance. Don’t fight it. Resistance is normal. Make space for it within the change management process.

To learn more take my online course: Why is Change so Hard.

Protecting Your Workforce

Workers have rights. That’s because humans have rights.

When we agree to work for someone, we agree to trade our time and energy in exchange for something, usually money, which provides us with the means to purchase food, shelter, transportation and health care for ourselves and our families.

What workers rarely agree to is to be killed for money, or to be injured in exchange for a paycheck. This is why all the various safety compliance requirements exist. It is why companies are held liable for injuries workers sustain on the job.  These laws, while a bit of a legal hassle, are there to protect employees from injury caused by employers exploiting labor and unnecessarily introducing risk into the work environment. And yes, this does happen and yes, workers deserve to be protected from that.

I’ve participated in my fair share of safety committees over the years. I’ve put together safety policies to satisfy OSHA requirements and common sense. At my first big job out of college at an animal control shelter, I was able to reduce our injury rate so much that we actually got a refund from our insurance company despite increasing our volunteer work hours dramatically.

I was able to do all that by instituting effective safety training programs.  Programs that taught our staff and volunteers how to avoid common injuries (which in the case of the shelter work was – a program called – how not to get bit).

Nowadays I teach how to stop harassment and bullying in the workplace. To me, it’s all part of what should be ongoing safety training for your staff.

Too often employers treat sexual harassment training as a compliance hassle. It’s actually a safety issue.  Harassment is a crime in pretty much every state for a reason. The harm it causes is real. It’s not just protected classes in the workplace who are protected. Everyone is. It’s just that when you add the economic impact of it happening in the workplace into the mix, you also have additional monetary damages that are sustained as a result of the problem.

This isn’t just about holding employers responsible for the sometimes trollish behavior of their employees. It’s about ensuring that all your employees are able to work in a safe environment.

No one should have to endure harassment to receive a paycheck. I have yet to read an employment contract that says – in exchange for your time and energy – we will repay you with crap wages, limited advancement due to your gender, skin color, ethnicity or any other arbitrary reason we may have, AND we reserve the right to harass and abuse you endlessly. No one would sign such an employment agreement!

Employers have not only a legal obligation to protect their workforce; they have a moral obligation to do so as well. If you don’t know how to protect your employees from harassment and bullying or discrimination, learn the skills required. Only then can you protect them from abusive behavior in the workplace.

See: https://humanistlearning.com/category/bullyingharassment/ for learning opportunities

 

Humanistic Leadership tips.

Humanistic Leadership starts with respecting your staff as the real human beings they are. It is very easy to forget that they have real dreams, desires and problems they are dealing with. But the leaders who respect their staff and the ones that do the best.  Here are 4 ways you can improve your leadership skills by taking a more humanistic approach to leadership.

Tip 1: Trust your employees. You presumably hired them for a reason. Trust that they are the good and qualified people they are. Give them some space to do their job and empower them to bring problems to you. This approach makes a huge difference in whether or not your employees feel valued.

Tip 2: Be Professional: Yes, you may want a casual atmosphere at work, but you also need to be the boss. That means, you need to be responsive to your employees. Set an example and get back to them right away. Keep them in the loop when you need to research something. Let them know where things stand for real. Always remember Elvis’ motto: Taking care of business in a flash. Take care of business. Professionally. Just think how you would want your boss to treat you and respond to you and that is how you should be with your employees.

Tip 3: Be ethical. Be honest. Don’t lie. Be Responsible. Don’t say you will do something and then not do it. The secret to ethics is to understand how much easier your life is when the people around you are ethical, honest, responsible and don’t lie. Once you understand that, it is easy to understand why you need to be as ethical as you can be as well. To make life easier on your employees!

Tip 4: Be Compassionate. Everyone who works for you is a real live human being. They have their own issues and problems and you need to be compassionate with them. This doesn’t mean that you should allow them to behave badly; it is more that if you feel compassion for your employees, you will treat them better and come up with better management solutions to help your employees succeed. They aren’t just there to support you. You are there to support them as well.