Culture Shock: Why Change Fails in Diverse Workplaces—and How HR Can Fix It

These reactions apply across all national cultures, although individual reactions may vary depending on the individual's competencies and personal situation. Differences in national cultures, however, may make managing change in a diverse or global organization more challenging.

Leaders have to be able to gather reliable feedback about how employees feel about the change. In some cultures, employees will be reluctant to share personal feelings or to display any doubts or discontent to someone higher in stature. Managers from outside cultures should turn to a trusted insider, someone from that culture or someone who understands both the management and the local cultures, for advice on how to "read" and communicate with these employee groups.

Organizational culture may affect successful implementation of change as well. In "Resistance to Organizational Change: A Case Study of Oti Yeboah Complex Limited," Rosemond Boohene and Asamoah Appiah Williams relate the experience of a Ghanaian wood product firm that, because of depletion of raw materials, decided to change from a sawmilling operation to a plywood producer.

The authors reported that:

This kind of change affected the strategy, the structure, the culture, the technology, and the work processes of the organization, which eventually brought about employees resisting the change because of certain new roles, redundancy, and responsibilities. This led to a series of strikes, boycott, and lockouts because of fear of the unknown and possible loss of job. The consequence was production stoppages and paying labour for no job done.

Cracking the Code of Change: What Every Leader Must Learn from HR

The Leadership and Navigation, Business Acumen, and Consultation competencies can help HR professionals to identify obstacles that are holding the organization back and support the change process. In this case, a chief human resources officer (CHRO) points out the larger implications of a single problem and helps a chief executive officer (CEO) see the need for action.

A firm has implemented a change in its strategic direction, but one divisional head of sales is resisting the shift in focus and is persisting in following the old sales and marketing strategy. The CEO has tolerated this small rebellion.

The CHRO comes to the CEO and points out that this focus of resistance is problematic. The divisional head is hurting the change initiative and damaging the perception that the rest of the firm has of the CEO. As long as he tolerates this behavior, the CEO appears weak and not fully committed to the change. The new strategy will create some emotional turmoil as it changes many people's jobs and relationships, and the employees need to see their leader's commitment to this direction.

The CEO accepts this perspective of the situation and meets with the divisional head to restate expectations and possible consequences for not meeting them.

Managing Change Initiatives

Organizational change can have a broad impact. For example, a reorganization that follows a merger can require new departments with different leaders, revised job titles and functions, new pay structures, and new policies and processes. Organizational change can also be very focused, such as reengineering one process and providing necessary information and training to affected employees.

Large or small, these changes trigger complex responses in the organization and in individual employees. HR's role as consultant requires that HR professionals know about more than just how to design a new solution to an organization's challenges. They must understand and be able to manage responses to change so that these initiatives achieve their intended goals. During a change initiative, stakeholder management becomes a key responsibility of HR. Being a leader amidst change requires clarity of vision, creative problem solving, tactful communication, and courage.

The Art of HR Consultation: Navigating Organizational Gaps and Cultivating Change

 

Consulting Process

Consultation involves providing guidance to organizational stakeholders. It requires the ability to diagnose problems or identify opportunities, develop effective solutions, win support for the solutions, and then implement them effectively. For HR, guidance often involves using HR expertise to improve the organization's performance so that it can take advantage of opportunities and achieve strategic objectives.

The Consultation and Analytical Aptitude competencies combine to equip HR professionals to be organizational problem solvers, presenting sound, evidence-based proposals to leaders to improve performance, as shown in this case.

HR identifies a turnover trend in a particular business segment-specifically, a higher rate of turnover than should be expected. The head of the segment wants to know why this is happening and suggests that the fault might be in the candidates who are put forward for the roles.

Drawing on her analytical skills, an HR professional gathers pertinent data and information about the segment's workforce: which roles are most affected, the demands placed on workers in the high-turnover roles, and other aspects of the segment's work, including comparisons with other roles within the segment and in similar areas elsewhere in the organization. HR finds that the employees were all identified as potentially solid hires, with appropriate skills and competencies, that there were no red flags raised related to employee satisfaction or performance, nor were the employees involved in any disciplinary processes. This suggests that the fault does not lie with the hiring process. HR engages the functional managers in further discussion and uncovers the fact that the turnover positions are all very high-stress and that the segment has a tendency to treat all work as urgent and time-sensitive. There are strict deadlines, and many unexpected activities often arise and force the individuals to work quickly and without breaks.

Analyzing their findings, HR identifies the causes that contributed to the high turnover. Using this data, HR then works with the managers and the employees to identify new ways to approach the work that will relieve some of the tension, increase breathing space, and also provide time for breaks-that is, to make the employees feel like they are not in a constant, never-ending sprint.

The new methodologies take time to implement, but HR continues to consult and work with the managers and the employees to assess the effectiveness of the changes and to overcome any obstacles that might impede progress until the new approaches become routine practice.

Consulting Model

Throughout the four steps that make up the consulting model, one of HR's key responsibilities is communication with and management of stakeholders. A stakeholder is anyone whose work or experience is affected by the potential outcome of a change initiative-including employees, managers, vendors, and customers.

From Blueprint to Boardroom: The Indispensable Business Documents for Modern HR

 

Key Business Documents for HR Professionals

Human Resources professionals ought to be intimately acquainted with a diverse array of nonfinancial business documentation. These resources serve as invaluable wellsprings of intelligence, instrumental in informing and refining strategic objectives and operational blueprints.

• Business Plan: This foundational document serves as the organizational equivalent of a business case, articulating the very raison d'être of the enterprise—its core purpose, what it was brought into existence to accomplish or realize. A comprehensive business plan meticulously details the entity's structural framework, its marketing schema, and its prospective financial trajectories.

• Strategic Plan: This seminal document delineates the methodology by which an organization intends to fulfill its overarching purpose. It meticulously encompasses the mission and vision statements; specific strategic objectives, overarching goals, and actionable initiatives; alongside pertinent budgetary allocations. Representing a more granular iteration of a business plan, it offers an enhanced degree of specificity and detail. Strategic plans can, moreover, incorporate granular specifics regarding Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

• Organizational Chart: This diagrammatic representation visually depicts the hierarchical structure inherent within an organization. It furnishes critical insights into reporting lines and other interdependencies between individual personnel, functional units, and various departments. Such charts prove eminently beneficial to HR, enabling an astute assessment of whether the organization possesses the requisite number of suitably skilled employees optimally positioned in appropriate roles. For geographically dispersed entities, the organizational chart emerges as an exemplary instrument for meticulously tracking employee locations and their precise integration within the overarching structure and hierarchy.

From Intangibles to Income: Decoding Nonfinancial Measures and Optimizing Your Sales Pipeline

 

Nonfinancial Performance Measures

Nonfinancial measures delve into organizational shifts not directly expressed in monetary terms, yet whose impacts can be quantified to reveal their financial implications. These crucial indicators may encompass:

• Market Share: An indicator of competitive prowess.

• Social Responsibility Achievements: Demonstrating commitment to broader societal well-being.

• Efficiency: Reflecting the effective utilization of cutting-edge technology and streamlined processes.

• Activity Ratios: Metrics assessing how efficiently resources are deployed to generate profit. Examples include inventory turnover, average inventory age, average collection and payment periods, and asset turnover.

• Employee Retention and Job Satisfaction: Gauging workforce stability and morale.

• Employee Engagement: Measuring the level of commitment and involvement employees have with their work and the organization.

• Market Position: This broad category can include several key factors:

  • Reputation among investors, consumers, governments, and political entities.

  • Consumer brand awareness.

  • A recognizable employer brand, which is instrumental in recruiting and hiring.

  • A reputation for quality, robust customer relations, and innovation.

A SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) is invaluable for pinpointing which of these measures (or others not listed) are most pertinent to an organization's strategic goals. It also highlights areas that could benefit from additional resources to achieve objectives or capitalize on identified opportunities.