According to Heraclitus “The only thing constant is change” (Bhandola, 2015, p. 62). The latter is an inescapable truth that I had a difficult time dealing with when I completed my undergraduate studies and was expected to transition into the professional working environment. When I was pursuing my undergraduate course, I had a part-time job as a baby sitter. I mostly worked during the weekends because my school schedule could not allow me to work during the week. Babysitting was a job that I enjoyed despite the difficulties it came with like crying babies, nagging, annoying and notorious children. Of course, when I started my ‘babysitting career’ things were not as smooth as they had become during my final year of graduate school, three years into babysitting. Along the way, I had picked up a few tricks on how to deal with even the most difficult children, a factor that had made me a popular baby sitter in my neighbourhood. Parents appreciated how easy it was for me to interact and deal with children, and my services were always on demand. I thought that since children are the hardest to deal with, my transition into the professional nursing scene would be smooth. If I could work with children, how hard would it be to deal with grown-ups?
My assumption could not have been further from the truth. First, the new professional nursing job required me to work round the clock. Sometimes I would get a whole day to rest in a week whereas other times I got half a day, and during some weeks I got no rest days. I was unprepared for the said changes, and it took me a while to adjust fully. Moreover, my new job required me to apply pre-determined procedures when dealing with my patients. Unlike my babysitting job, being a practising registered nurse (RN) demanded that I apply scientific concepts and deductions for the successful execution of my role. It was no longer a matter of wit and luck. The first few months on the job were hell! I hated my job! I found it to be cumbersome and exhausting, and I could not wait to get home when my shifts ended. Regardless, I believe that if I had better insights into change management, at the time, the transition from my non-professional job to the professional one would have been much more manageable.
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The Change Process
The change process is defined by the severity, thereof, which determines the effects of the said change. Moreover, to overcome the fear and resistance that change elicits it is crucial to take a proactive approach towards the same (Bhandola, 2015, p. 62). Joshi (2014, p. 14) emphasizes the constancy of change and the rapidity of improvement, both of which are factors that characterize the change process. Nonetheless, Doll et al. (2017, p. 307) establish that when cultural changes are involved, the change process that is required aims at making profound alterations, and to attain deep change it is essential to determine change goals as well as the steps that should characterize the change process. Therefore, from the evidence provided, my job transition process should have been spearheaded by the adoption of a proactive, rather than the reactive approach I took. Nonetheless, the change would have been more natural if I had set the goals that I wanted to attain in my new profession and established a clear plan on how I would work towards achieving them. The latter would have provided a sense of direction and eased the overwhelming nature of the change.
A successful change process during the transition period from my babysitting job to my RN job would have been characterized by the incorporation of an initiation and evaluation phase, to begin with. The initiation phase should have been the first to deal with the change as it would have allowed me to draft a plan to implement the change, including reasons why changes in my professional conduct and task execution were critical. The evaluation phase would have allowed me to review the changes proposed in the first step of the change process to establish their relevance and applicability. After the said phases, I would have a well-established change plan, highlighting the adjustments I needed to make on a personal and professional level, which would guide me through the transition. Besides, I would have also required a tracking system to monitor the changes I was making and their impact on my new job. Equally, crucial to the change process would have been the determination of my training needs that would have facilitated better management of the change process to allow maximum productivity on my new job (Bhandola, 2015, p. 64).
Moreover, considering the cultural changes that were involved, especially with the transition from an informal to a formal working environment, the change process should have been characterized by measures to implement profound changes. Hence, the change process would have entailed not only desirable criteria but also content that would translate into practical and measurable components. For instance, it would not have been enough to state that the change process would require me to enhance my time management skills. I would have needed to outline the measures I would take to improve the said skills, like timing myself when performing tasks, and the means through which improvement would be measured. So, if I took ten minutes to execute a five-minute task the previous week and during the following week it took seven minutes, improvement would be noted. Additionally, the deep change would have required dedicated participation in my new job, to improve the chances of learning the nitty-gritty of the trait and enhance my efficiency in task execution (Doll et al., 2017, p. 310).
Factors Affecting Reaction to Change
The factors that would have affected the change from non-professionalism to professionalism would have included embracing a change management attitude as opposed to a change control one. Instead of trying to stick to my old working tendencies to control the changes that were taking place, I should have alternatively prepared to handle the inevitable change that was bound to occur as a result of taking up the new job (Bhandola, 2015, p. 64). Also, in the spirit of change management, awareness of the change would have affected my reaction to the same. For example, if I had researched and found out how drastically my working hours would change, I would have had a more positive perception of the same when it happened. A proactive rather than reactive approach would also have enhanced my reaction to change while the successful implementation of a change would have had a similar effect (Bhandola, 2015, p. 64). Furthermore, the adoption of a change leader character would have reduced my resistance to the change as it would have allowed me to understand the shift and devise means of dealing with it. Finally, understanding that the change would have been a multilayer process would have reduced the frustration of trying to deal with everything at a go and lessened the stress that came with trying to attain undefined goals (Doll et al., 2017, p. 313-314).
Easing Change
The factors discussed above would have eased the transition from my babysitting job to my professional nursing job because they would have facilitated the adoption of a risk-based approach to the change, eliciting the need to create an action plan which would have guided me through the transition. The said plan would have made the change process systematic, characterized by the attainment of change goals in different phases, rather than trying to alter everything at the same time (Bhandola, 2015, p. 66). Additionally, understanding the aims of the change would have eased the change process especially with regard to enhancing professional efficiency and effectiveness. Effective and efficient nursing practices would translate into improved patient care, change goals that would motivate me to pursue change regardless of the difficulty, thereof. Nonetheless, understanding the purposes of the reform would have allowed me to associate the same with the need for a patient-centred approach in my new line of work, enabling me to facilitate the realization of organizational goals by including my patients and their families in the care process (Joshi, 2014, p. 14).
Conclusion
The inevitability of change has remained the same over the years, and it will continue to maintain a similar trend. In the words of the famous saying, “if you can’t beat them, join them,” the best way to deal with change is to enhance preparedness for it by understanding the change process, the components thereof and the reactions they are likely to elicit towards the change.
References
Bhandola, P. (2015). Leveraging Change for Continuous Improvement.
Doll, G. A., Cornelison, L. J., Rath, H., & Syme, M. L. (2017). Actualizing culture change: The Promoting Excellent Alternatives in Kansas Nursing Homes (PEAK 2.0) program. Psychological services , 14 (3), 307.
JOSHI, M. (2014). Change Is Constant, but Improvement Is Rapid.
