Is your business ready for the effects of change on employees?

According to the 2016 Advanced Employment Issues Symposium (AEIS):

“Traditionally, when employers have sought to prepare their work teams for big upcoming changes — e.g., new processes, a new organizational structure, new software, etc. — in the workplace, the focus has been on ‘change management.’ Speaking to an audience of human resources (HR) and employers at BLR’s Advanced Employment Issues Symposium (AEIS), keynote speaker Kelli Hinshaw of Reality-Based Leadership, argues that change management is a transactional concept that helps people cope with and survive change, placing burden on the leadership team to do the heavy lifting.”

“What employers should focus on instead, says Hinshaw, is ‘business readiness’ –a transformational process that aims to make change less disruptive to the business and requires employees to quickly align and adapt. In this video, Hinshaw provides business leaders and HR with advice on how to both reduce resistance to change and turn your employees into advocates and drivers of change.”

 

 

19 Replies to “Business Readiness”

  1. This post reminds me how the world of business has been related to the concept of survival of the fittest. You need to quickly adapt and change in order for your business to survive. The strongest companies always survive so I think that Kelli Hinshaw’s reasoning is correct. Employers should focus on business readiness so they can quickly adapt to new changes in the workforce.

  2. This post does an awesome job explaining how 21st century employees must be more innovative and active, hence the business readiness. Employees must be able to adapt but this ability comes from the employers. They must make any changes as smooth as possible for the well being of everyone. The company should not be in a transition period for an extended period of time. Employers must learn to adapt and make changes as easy as possible for the best of everyone.

  3. This post really made me think differently about what a business needs to do to survive in the forever changing and advancing business world. An important thing to keep up with is technology, and making sure that you have the right system and ideas in place to help you move forward. Employers must focus on making changes to the company go smoothly and try not to disturb their employees. Making strides in the right direction for a business doesn’t mean there needs to be large changes to it, it just means you have to have the efficient process in place to get the job done correctly.

  4. I think for a company, the most difficult chang in management to make is to reducing staff when it’s trying to save cost and increase efficiency. I was working in a global IT company and witnessed our company been through this tough process. For a company, it’s just a process of management but for an employee, it’s very painful and even a turning point in life. What’s more, it seems to be an internal change of the company but sometimes it changes people’s perception of the company, losing stockholders’ and consumers’ confidence of the company. So change management is far more complicated than just let emplyees embrance it, it also needs to let the people outside the company understand it.

  5. This is a great post for all of us going into into the business field! It gives a heads up on how important it is going to be in keeping up with technology but more importantly keeping up with the new quicker way of adapting to change when working at a company

  6. This video really inspired me a lot. After watching this video, I noticed that “20% theory” works everywhere not only for business, but also for the whole world. Companies are focusing these top 20% outstanding people and the world is run by these 20% of people.

    As the video showed us, companies should focus on these 20% well-performed people, however, why they are keeping a80% of all these rest of the employees? In my opinion, the reason is because someone should take care of brainless job.

    I might overthink of this, but what if we can come up with machine that can solve this brainless job faster without any mistakes? If I remember correctly, we actually watched a video about robotic warehouse. This might lead the bigger gap between rich and poor.

    Anyway, we have to be the 20%!

  7. Some people are ambitious to encounter the change of the world, but some are not. When it comes to management, management requires moving employees from one environment or mindset to another. So the change is always stressful for these employees, such as new technology and the new strategy. You need to quickly adapt and acquire the basic skills in the change in order to survive in the more and more serve competition environment. So I need to keep studying in or order to survive in the future. Be the survivors and keep going.

  8. We live in an ever changing world. People always have to be ready for something new to come up. New management, new location, or new computer programs are all things that a company should be ready for. Not being ready for change could cause a company to fall behind and not be able to adapt properly. Every company should have some training to be prepared for any form of change.

  9. In this modern era, change is inevitable. Employees have to deal with more changes then ever, whether it is technology, personnel, or restrictions. Being able to quick adjust to these changes will give companies the advantage when it comes to staying ahead of the competition. Business readiness allows companies to gain this competitive edge.

  10. This blog was about change management which is considered a transactional concept. People hate change and leadership needs to take charge and get the employees ready to accept change. The speaker talked about people spending two hours of the working day talking about hating change. This resistance to change needs to be dealt with by upper management.

  11. Arguing with reality is a common distraction that many workers experience. For any workplace to be successful, workers need to be inspired and excited about doing the work, otherwise the vibe can be very negative. One of the most important responsibilities of any business is to adapt to quick changes in the market / economy. People, specifically employees, sometimes demonstrate resentment towards internal change, however the people who hold leadership positions must create an environment where everyone has the same mindset about accepting these changes. It is a waste of time to complain about change because gossiping wastes valuable time. Instead, workers need to be inspired by their leaders.

  12. As Hinshaw said,” Cange management is a transactional concept that helps people cope with and survive change” while ‘business readiness’ is a transformational process that requires employees to align quickly and adapt .”So for leaders, they should grasp how to help their employees quickly adapt the change, and stimulate them to perform well during the revolution by providing efficient trainings and improving their bonus systems. And for employees, they need to adjust their mind to the change, prepare more, and learn the skills to meet the change. In these way, leaders can also reduce resistance to change.

  13. This article really makes me think a lot and have better understanding of the business world since I do not have working experience. I learn that the ability to adopt changes is essential in business, not only for employees, leaders, but also for the company.

  14. Implementing change is very strenuous in the workplace. As stated in the video, in what Kelli called “change management”, previous theories of implementing change had put a large amount of responsibility on the leaders of the changing organization, rather than the employees. I have even learned about these theories in my current Management 101 class, and a majority of the responsibility of the leaders is making sure employees are able to cope and get on board with organizational change. Employee resistance makes it incredibly hard to implement change, and only stands as an unnecessary obstacle. Kelly talks about how a majority of this employee resistance is just employees resisting just so they can complain. Therefore, her idea of having employees be business ready, having retained skills and competencies that make them much more open for change if it means success, is a great idea. It creates more valuable and involved employees, rather than a passive, resistant employee who’s complaining stunts productivity. This change in employee type can only benefit an organization, immensely.

  15. A traditional Chinese proverb says, “Chances are only for people with readiness.” It fits the business world as well. People like us have to be ready for entering the business world and adapt to it as the climate changes. Thus, we will survive in this loop.

  16. I enjoyed this post mainly because I can agree fully on the definition of business readiness because it reminded me of the ever-changing IT business world. Although many businesses should implement this among their workers, one sector in the business world that needs it the most are IT professionals. The world of IT is constantly changing so business readiness has been applied so far that schools are rapidly changing courses that are being taught to students in order to keep them in touch with the current programs. Being able to adapt seems to be an important part of the IT world.

  17. The marketing perspective in this paper makes an emphasis on the transformational process rather than changing management as the best way to help employees to cope with changes and adapt to them. In this way, the resistance to the changes will be reduced and the employees become a driving force of these changes.

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