Employee Involvement and Commitment

Abstract In this report is going to explain in details a critical analyzes of employee involvement and commitment in the process of change. According to the readings that has been done, in this paper will be discussed the importance of the connections between employee involvement and commitment and their impact in the process of change. In order to provide support to this theory the paper includes examples, comparing and contrasting different articles and authors.

IntroductionTo write for employee involvement and commitment in a change process, it is important to provide to the reader a clear understanding of the meaning employee involvement and commitment, as well as the interaction of these two factors in order to have a successful process of change. Involvement of employee simply means when every employee is regarded like a human being, and just a cog in a machine. When the employees can have the feeling that organization is taking in account their interests as well as its own and they are being involved, this is a great indicator that will increase the commitment of employee.With such a behavior by employs the one that is going to benefit the most is no doubt the organization itself, and especially during the process of change (Jones, 2005) Furthermore, the process of change is complicated and therefore proper planning and preparation in advance it is highly important, and employee involvement and commitment caries a significant role (Vithessonthi, 2005).

In addition to employee involvement and commitment this study briefly is going to cover some areas such as employee resistance to change and organizational climate for change, in order to use examples and support the theory of this study case.However learning more about the importance of the employee involvement and commitment during the process of change, it is definitely an interesting experience. Literature review The phenomenon organizational change, change management or any kind of change within organization has become a quite common occurrence in now day’s world business (Gumport, 2000). However many companies today are using changes in order to have more successful organizational operation.

Moreover in order to have a successful change process companies should critically analyze some of the very important factors of managing change before and also during the process of change. For example: Adequate planning, providing support, employee involvement, demonstrating commitment, recognizes and handle the resistance, communication, use management tools, evaluate change, avoid pitfalls (Pearce, 2007). However in order to narrow the circle of the research regarding change process, this paper is going to give a particular focus in the importance of employee involvement and commitment during the change process within the organization.Furthermore as it stated above some of the greatest underlying impact in the success or a failure of the organization is certainly the power of the workforce, and is important to ensure if that power is properly focused towards organization’s scope (Lawson, 2006) Having in mind the importance of the involvement and commitment during the change process, it would be obviously necessary for the organizations to have a clear plan in how to increase the degree of commitment during the change process (Haslam , Pennington, 2004).The key factor of increasing the commitment is involvement and empowering the employee in the managerial decision-making basically make the employee feel like they are part of the process of change (Daggett, 2008). Such an involvement plan should begin to be applied long while before the action of change whish is going to enable an easier flow of the process of change (Apostolou, 2000).

The previous experiences and researches proves that, involvement is normally the way to show respect and concern for the employee, that would give them a great reason to believe that organization is taking in high account their interests as well as its own (Temme, 1986). Moreover the author also argues that such techniques are very useful for the organization since this could be a professional way to measure employee’s reaction and expect from them to be a supportive team during the process of change instead a resistance obstacle.However according to the researches organizations must be careful in choosing the type of the employee involvement. In order to choose the right type of employee involvement in the process of change organizations should pay attention to the criteria’s as follows; roles, skills, resource, commitment, outputs, and data (Vidal, 2007). Furthermore the author argues that choosing the right type of employee involvement effects positively in the process of change, commitment and also reduces cost.

Whereas choosing the wrong employee involvement type will negative impact in time planning, solutions, and also in financial resources. However, (M. Gale & J. Clay, 2001) believes that in order to gain the level of the commitment during the change, the organizations should highly consider to use some of the other involvement tools such as; communication, education, group discussion, support, feedback and reward. By giving the people the opportunity the express their opinions in the individual basis, it is great way to understand their feelings for any concern or any possible fear they might have for the process of change.

On the other hand education is also another indicator that certainly increase the level of employee commitment before and also during the change process, people usually feel threatened by the change, so giving them opportunity for training e new education will give them a reason to believe that they will be part of the process and also reassure that they will cope in the future, which means that level of possible resistance is very low.Support is another important way of employee involvement which it has a direct impact in the employee commitment sine new change always brings a high concern and worry to the employ, which can effect negatively in the process of change, but with a proper support management support they will overcome it (Haslam , Pennington, 2004). Although, in the text above it was shortly discussed regarding the impotence of employee resistance during the process of change, however it is highly necessary for the reader to have a clear and detailed explanation what causes the reason of resistance (Prakash, 2009).For example, they don’t believe in change, some employee are trained to evaluate situations independently, obviously that may cause the resistance. (Bovey, 2001). Another way that employee resistance can be caused is when they don’t understand the change; this is simply because of unprofessional way that the change is being communicated to them from some organizations (Van Asten, 2011).

Some employee they tired of constantly changes, and they don’t prefer the change so they decide to resist.According to (Creasy, 2003), a research done in more than 288 companies the author’s findings resulted that employee resistance to change proved to be one of the top obstacles for the organizations. According to the report participants indicated that is a natural human resistance to change and it can impact in the success of the project. Indeed, studies have proven that organizational change it common that attributes outcome of change effort behaviors of employee, particularly in the acceptance or resistance to change (Kotter, 1995).Moreover (Agocs, 1997) defined employee resistance as refusal process by decision-makers to be influenced or affected by the views, regarding the concerns or evidences presented to them that from whom the change is actually proposed.

Normally the resistance to change correspondents to the behaviors of employee in group and also in individual who opposes or support the change that top executives want to implement in the organization (Vithessonthi, 2005).No matter how and what based in the opinion of (Switzer, 2007) he defines that, when people are confronted with change they usually react in one of the four ways as follows; make it happen, help it happen, let it happen, or resist it happening. As it can be noticed from the text above the scope of this research was focused mainly in that last option, resist it happening. After discussing in details regarding employee involvement and commitment in the process of change, it would be interesting to focus the research shortly in the climate of change as well.The researches would help to understand the impact of the factors mentioned above in the climate organizational change. The climate of an organization is inferred by it member, based on the policies, practices, procedures that they are subject to, and the behaviors that are expected they get rewarded and supported, which relates employee involvement and increase of commitment (Schneider, 1996).

However, in order for the organizations to know if the climate for change is favorable it is important control it by using factors as follows; the degree of structure imposed in position, individual autonomy, consideration, warmth and support (M. Burton, Lauridsen, Obel, 2004). Moreover, M. Burton, Lauridsen, Obel, states that organizational climate is the atittude of individuals or a group of emloyees concearning the organization-its; degree of trust, conflict, moral, rewads equity, leader credibility, rezistance to change and scampgoating as individiuals. ConclusionBased on the research made regarding the topic, employee involvement in the process of change, findings shows that one of the most important factors so called top obstacle for the successful process of change is employee resistance. On the other hand researches also proves that the key solution to overcome that obstacle is by using some of the employee involvement tools stated above and that would impact enormously in the increase of the commitment.

However based on this argument it can be concluded that in order to have a successful process of change employee involvement and commitment during the process is the key factor.