LEADING THOUGHTS

You know the statistic: planned, management-implemented change processes suffer a failure rate of more than 70 percent. Why do change projects fail at such an alarming rate? Resistance to change, the role of the change manager in managing the process, a lack of participation due to top-down steering, organizational culture, the relevance of the goals of change. . . you name it.

Renate A. Werkman (Wageningen U) set out to identify generalized patterns of change in both private and public sector organizations, and to explain variations in those patterns. As a basis, Werkman used widely acknowledged characteristics of the change management process, trying to find interrelations and linking them to the context of the change project. Data were obtained from managing directors, line managers, staff members, employees, and consultants from 367 organizations differing in size, sector, and the type of change process.

Werkman found that there are five patterns among changing organizations, each with their own specific problems, characteristics, and change approaches that require different interventions. Here they are:

Innovative pattern. The most successful pattern shows that “a pleasant culture and leadership and pleasant work characteristics provide important conditions for the success of organizational change.” Change managers here pay attention to a thorough process management, providing clear goals, stimulating employees to participate, and refraining from using power. Found in: smaller, knowledge-intensive, industrial, and food-related companies.

Systematical pattern. “Employees are quite positive about organizational characteristics but there is some control orientation and political behavior.” Change managers here do not consider unilateral and participative approaches to be mutually exclusive, and they pay attention to the process of change. Found in: medium-sized organizations in the financial industry, regional and local governments, and healthcare organizations.

Unclear change process pattern. “Employees evaluate organizational characteristics rather positively, but they experience a lack of clarity about the ultimate purpose of the change process.” Restricted exchange of information and ideas generates limited support for change but change processes do not evoke tensions. “Either people just do not have a clue where to contribute, they trust change managers with the process or they are just not interested.” Found in: relatively small organizations in the IT sector and the service industry; can also be found in public sector organizations that are specifically working on development and innovation.

Skeptical pattern. Combines low change capacity with moderately high control orientation. “The large organizations here are characterized by mechanistic structures and bureaucratic control. . . There is little opportunity for interaction and the exchange of ideas in this pattern and therefore for participative strategies.” Found in: large government organizations and large public utility organizations.

Cynical pattern. Employees are very negative about organizational characteristics. “This negativity is reflected in the change process, which is, remarkably, being pushed through in a relatively unsystematic way by apparently solitary operating change managers.” Found in: research institutions, non-commercial service industry, and central government.

“The results suggest it would be wise for change managers to choose for a participative change approach and for a thorough process management,” Werkman writes. “Power strategies do not enforce compliance but evoke resistance.”

“Understanding failure to change: a pluralistic approach and five patterns”, by Renate A. Werkman; Leadership and Organization Development Journal (Vol. 30 No. 7, pp. 664-684, 2009)

If you cannot find this paper in your local library, email me for a copy: Alan [at] AlanMorantz.com

photo credit: jtu

General HR change, public sector

Charles Cirtwill, Executive Vice President of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, spoke about the future of unions in a CBC National Radio interview in June 2009. In the conversation, he focused on the demographic shifts in Canada and in many other countries that will see labour shortages in the years ahead, and what those shifts may mean for unions.

“The fact is that this recession is probably the last warm-up round to what we are really going to see in terms of a significant demographic shift not only in Canada but around the globe. That demographic shift is going to put real pressure on unions and unionized workplaces because what’s going to happen is union membership is going to fall. The resources available to pay for unionized service, and that’s typically public sector unionized services, are essentially going to dry up. That is going to put pressure on union contracts, on unionization, on union membership that no one has ever seen. . .”

With power shifting from employers to individual workers, Cirtwell says, individuals will be able to negotiate better terms than if they were part of unions.

“In a period of labour surplus, the unions were a huge value add to the employee, to the individual worker. The unions were able to get benefits, to get a level of security in jobs, which an individual worker wouldn’t have been able to negotiate on their own. What is going to happen on the flip side as we move into a labour shortage is that the workers’ capacity to negotiate all those things is going to be that much stronger. In fact in many instances – and this is really going to take a leap of imagination for some people – the unions actually are going to become a barrier to individuals maximizing their returns from their skills and the scarcity of labour. As a result people are going to be, individuals, are going to be less inclined to support the unions.

“. . .I think the real impact on union numbers is going to be simple pure raw numbers. There are simply going to be fewer of them 15 or 20 years from now. They are probably still going to be paid a premium for doing those jobs, however in a time of labour shortage everyone is going to get that premium. In fact, union membership and the union contract may be a hindrance to getting a premium. In a labour shortage, people who work in high demand jobs can name their price and their perks. Being limited to the benefits outlined in a union contract will make it impossible to negotiate a better deal on your own. So I think in terms of raw numbers you are going to see a significant decline in union membership.”

Do you think unions will become increasingly irrelevant in the future?

For a transcript of this interview, email me: Alan [at] AlanMorantz.com

photo credit: Tertiary Education Union (NZTEU)

Labour Relations bargaining, demographics, unions

In academic literature, contract workers often have a bad rap. According to the popular core-periphery model, workforces have a central core of ‘‘insider’’ permanent employees in whom the organization is willing to invest and a group of ‘‘outsider’’ contingent workers regarded as peripheral.

Given that organizations invest little in these contract external workers, researchers generally believe that these outsiders are less likely to internalize the organization’s values and are less productive.

According to researchers Lapalme, Stamper, Simard, and Tremblay (U Quebec at Montreal and Western Michigan University), most studies fail to account for how agency workers perceive themselves. Is it possible for “outsiders” to perceive themselves as “insiders”? If so, what are the conditions in which that would happen?

The researchers surveyed 191 agency workers from Canadian financial firms, assessing their perceptions regarding the level of support from both their supervisors and the client firms’ permanent workers, as well as the agency workers’ level of perceived insider status and emotional attachment to the client firm. Agency worker supervisors (within the client firm) assessed the agency workers’ level of interpersonal relations.

They report three findings:
1. Agency workers can indeed experience “perceived insider status.”
2. Those perceptions grow out of perceived support from supervisors and the client firms’ permanent workers.
3. Perceptions of insider status are linked to higher levels of emotional attachment and interpersonal relations, even among workers considered marginally tied to the organization.

“As our results suggest, it is not the ‘objective’ classification of externalized worker that is associated with worker attitude and behavior, but how the workers are treated by important organizational agents that leads them to feel like an ‘insider,’ creating greater likelihood of reciprocation of higher affective commitment and interpersonal facilitation even from externalized workers.”

Implication: Smart organizations should ensure that their permanent employees understand the importance of creating a supportive environment for contract workers. Of course, that may be a tough sell. For some permanent employees, the use of agency workers may be perceived as a threat, even if it may be beneficial.

Here is how to frame the message: “In some cases, the use of agency workers actually helps provide a certain degree of job security for permanent employees,” the authors write. “By using temporary workers to expand or shrink their workforce, organizations may shield their permanent employees from layoffs caused by numerous factors such as business cycle fluctuations or downsizing. Accordingly, managers would benefit from explaining why they have chosen to use agency workers, in order to reassure their permanent employees and ensure that they are more likely to support these colleagues.”

“Bringing the outside in: Can ‘external’ workers experience insider status?” by Marie-Eve Laplame, Christina L. Stamper, Gilles Simard, and Michel Tremblay; Journal of Organizational Behaviour (30, 919-940; 2009)

If you cannot find this paper in your local library, email me for a copy: Alan [at] AlanMorantz.com

photo credit: The Other Dan

General HR contract workers, contracting out, Org Design