Employee resistance to organizational change is a natural behavior as it requires new ways of thinking and doing work. Organizational change tends to bring a sense of uncertainty and fear of not knowing how life will look like after the change is implemented. Resistance happens when the change is introduced in the organization and therefore, it has to be viewed normally. The impact of resistance depends on the type of change.

What are the best ways to handle employee resistance to organizational change?

Let us take a look at the top 5 ways to handle employee resistance

1. Plan the change: Have a clear change plan in hand even before introducing it to the employees. Take help of a core team to design and implement the change. Predict the employee behavior and natural resistance that might occur. Have a well set strategy ready to confront it.

2. Take one step at a time: The organizational change could be huge, but never announce as it is to the employees. Big announcements of change alert the employees to resist. Therefore, it has to be opened quietly one after the other. This allows the employees to accept the change without resisting to it.

3. Let your plan come out as the employees’ idea: When you know what changes are to be introduced, hold a meeting. Well, the meeting will not be to project the changes, but to discuss the scenario. Put forth the current state of the organization before the employees. Give them cues that will lead them to suggest ideas that exactly match your already planned changes. This is an easy way; however this strategy is unlikely to work always.

4. Tap on the right switch: Employees would never resist without a reason, and the reasons could be plenty. Therefore, stabilize your relationship with these employees by listening to them with endurance. Know the exact reason of their resistance and tackle it respectively. If this includes any kind of assurances, then make sure you keep up your words.

5. Pick the hard way: If you think that your employees would never allow you take charge on the changes required to the organization, then the last option would be to take the hard curve. Have the changes introduced in terms of laws and regulations so that the employees have no option to resist but to accept it.

Dealing with employee resistance to organizational change is tricky and challenging as the employee behavior cannot be anticipated. But once the initiated change gets rooted, the employee resistance to organizational change fades.

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