Introduction
Change is an essential factor in any situation or any society. Everyone needs to change regularly to adjust to ever-changing environmental factors. With the change, individuals and organization can achieve growth or to attain their goals. Organizations go through change for the primary purpose of realigning their activities and practices to their ever-changing goals. Organizational change is the procedure in which organizations make several adjustments to their strategies, technologies, structure, and culture to achieve a given aim ( Al-Haddad, & Kotnour, 2015) . The organizational change enables different organizations to pursue different goals by changing how they carry out different functions. Organizations are required to make sacrifices or invest resources for organizational changes to be effective. For example, by changing their structures, many organizations are often forced to release some of their staff or hire many more. The process of instituting change in an organization must be well planned and executed. It is essential to carry out studies that reveal the consequences of organizational change before embarking on the actual process. It is also critical to involve all the major stakeholders from the managers, the owners, and employees. Another important factor that an organization must consider before making changes is the potential barriers that might affect its change process. The identification of the potential obstacles makes it possible for the management to come up with alternatives or solutions that can help an organization overcome the barrier. This paper seeks to list and explain some of the significant barriers to change and the steps that organizational leaders can take to overcome such barriers.
Barriers to Organizational Change
Appelbaum et al. (2017), it is essential for organizations to identify the barriers that might affect their change process before starting the actual change. According to Appelbaum et al. (2017), several barriers can disrupt the change process within an organization that includes: -
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Lack of support from the management
Negative employee attitudes
Poor understanding of the change and its effects
Lack of adequate resources
Lack of required skills among employees and managers
The Major Barriers to Organizational Change
From the barriers identified above, the main ones that have the potential of affecting organizational change are lack of adequate resources, poor understanding of the change and its effects, and the lack of required skills among employees or their managers.
Lack of Adequate Resources
Organizational change requires a lot of resources for it to be successful. Resources that are needed during organizational change range from monetary to human resources. Lack of enough resources can derail the change process within organizations. For example, an organization might want to increase its presence in different areas, forcing it to adopt a change strategy that would see it expand and open operations in new locations. The lack of the required number of employees will make it almost impossible for the organization to be successful in its change strategy ( Nasir, Abbas, & Zafar, 2014 ). Financial problems within an organization also play a significant role in halting the change plans of an organization. With little funds, no organization can embark on a change process successfully because financial resources enable the organization to hire new employees or finance the structural change that it has embarked on. The lack of funds can make it difficult for companies to fund the strategies that they plan to use to change their structures or their operations effectively. From the analysis, it is evident that the lack of resources may fail an organization to achieve its change agenda. It is therefore essential for business leaders to first analyze their change process and confirm whether or not they have enough resources. To overcome the challenge of lack of resources, managers must make sure that enough or excess funds are set aside to cater for the change process. Budgeting of the funds required to finance the change process must also put into considerations variations that might arise along the way ( Nasir et al., 2014 ).
Poor understanding of the Change Process and its Effects
Another significant barrier that might affect organizational change is the failure to understand and internalize the change process and the possible effects that might arise from it. There are instances where managers or employees fail to comprehensively understand what is required by the change process and how to adjust their roles and functions. Poor understanding of the change agenda within an organization may result in employees or managers performing duties that do not contribute to successful organizational change ( Prabhu, 2016 ). This may lead to the achievement of different goals than what had been anticipated. Lack of understanding is a barrier that business managers need to identify and work towards overcoming it because it can lead to organizational failure or poor performance. Additionally, the poor understanding of change and its effects results in employees working differently against each other. Instead of supplementing each other’s efforts, the employees can work according to how they understood the change agenda resulting to a divided entity with different opinions concerning what needs to be done ( Prabhu, 2016 ). To overcome this barrier, managers, employees, and the owners must thoroughly study the change agenda before embarking on making it a reality. Managers need to ensure that there are many informative sessions within their organizations which educate employees about the change agenda, when it will be affected, and how it will affect them. The provision of educational sessions mentally prepares every employee and manager and arms them with the right information that may help them in case they encounter any challenges ( Prabhu, 2016 ). The employees will also be better prepared for the effects of the change if they are foretold about them.
Lack of Required Skills
Organizational change requires many adjustments to be made within the organization. In most cases, organizational change also requires a change of skills or new skills within an organization. The lack of the needed skills negatively affects organizational change because the organization will lack the expertise needed to effect the changes. Uwaryo, Daryanto, and Maulana noted that the lack of adequate skills proves to be a dilemma to many organizations that wish to change their operations because there will be no one to oversee the new changes. The situation is made worse in the case where the new processes that are adopted by an organization are complex and cannot be studied on the job. Also, the lack of required skills also delays the change process as most employees and managers take time before they are equipped with new skills (2015). To make sure that all their employees are equipped with the necessary skills needed during organizational change, managers and business leaders must embark on the training of employees and providing them with the necessary skills before the commencement of the change process. Organizations can send some of its best employees for further education or training to equip them with the necessary skills. The trained employees can, in turn, come back to the organization and offer training to other employees thus making sure that every employee is well equipped with the skills needed to create organizational change a success.
Conclusion
In summation, business managers and leaders need to identify some of the barriers that might affect organizational change and come up with ways to overcome them. Some of the significant obstacles to organizational change include lack of support from the management, negative employee attitudes, poor understanding of the change and its effects, lack of adequate resources, and the lack of required skills among employees and managers. Of the five barriers, the main ones that have the potential of affecting organizational change are lack of adequate resources, poor understanding of the change and its effects, and the lack of required skills among employees or their managers. Lack of enough resources can derail the change process within organizations. Poor understanding of the change agenda within an organization may result in employees or managers performing duties that do not contribute to successful organizational change. The lack of the required skills, on the other hand, negatively affects organizational change because the organization will lack the expertise needed to effect the changes. The analysis of the significant barriers to organizational change demonstrates how change within an organization can be easily disrupted. It is therefore critical for managers and organizational leaders to be alert and come up with measures that help in overcoming the barriers.
References
Al-Haddad, S., & Kotnour, T. (2015). Integrating the organizational change literature: A model for successful change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 28 (2), 234-262. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JOCM-11-2013-0215
Appelbaum, S. H., Cameron, A., Ensink, F., Hazarika, J., Attir, R., Ezzedine, R., & Shekhar, V. Factors that impact the success of an organizational change: A case study analysis. Industrial and Commercial Training, 49 (5), 213-230. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/ICT-02-2017-0006
Nasir, H. M., Abbas, A. F., & Zafar, F. (2014). Four factors to influence organization & employee commitment to change within Pakistan. International Journal of Information, Business, and Management, 6 (4), 183-200.
Prabhu, V. P. (2016). Proactive personality and organizational change: Factors affecting retention. Journal of Organizational Psychology, 16 (1), 11-23.
Uwaryo, J., Daryanto, H. K., & Maulana, A. (2015). Organizational culture change and its effect on change readiness through organizational commitment. Bisnis & Birokrasi, 22 (1), 68- 78.
