Work/Life Balance

Managing Change in the Workplace:
It’s a Challenge

Julie A. Gordon, CPA

Let’s face it. Change is a way of life and growth can’t happen without it. Managing change can be challenging at best. Changes in the workplace affect the employees and the employers. Previous articles in this column have addressed issues that are relevant to change: structuring flexible work arrangements for your employees, creative incentives to keep your best people, and attracting new recruits.

Managers and supervisors face the every day challenges of organizational change. Getting employees on board with those changes can be a difficult task. Price Pritchett, Ph.D., and Roy Pound, Ph.D., wrote Business as Unusual, The Handbook for Managing and Supervising Organizational Change. This easy-to-read handbook summarizes 27 simple guidelines to handle the challenges that happen as the result of acquisition, merger, restructuring, downsizing, and other types of major organizational change. The authors’ top three ways to manage change are: be a change agent, don’t give away your power, and keep a positive attitude.

Employees face challenges as well, but theirs is more of a change of habit. It takes some people longer to change when “we’ve been doing it that way for years.” So as an employee, you may want to refer to Price Prichett’s The Employee Handbook of New Work Habits For A Radically Changing World for help. This short handbook covers 13 ground rules for job success. One chapter covers managing your own morale.

If you can keep up morale, changehappens with less opposition and may be a motivator to some employees. There are several ways to motivate. FISH! and FISH! Tales, co-authored by Stephen C. Lundin, Ph.D., John Christensen and Harry Paul, can show you how. In FISH! the infamous Pike Place Fish Market employees have given us insight, as illustrated by the “FISH! Philosophy.”. According to the authors, four principles that should be applied to your organization are:

Play

Work made fun gets done, especially when we choose to do serious tasks in a lighthearted, spontaneous way. Play is not just an activity; it’s a state of mind that brings new energy to the tasks at hand and sparks creative solutions.

Make their day

When you “make someone’s day” (or moment) through a small kindness or unforgettable engagement, you can turn even routine encounters into special memories.

Be there

The glue in our humanity is in being fully present for one another. Being there also is a great way to practice wholeheartedness and fight burnout, for it is those halfhearted tasks you perform while juggling other things that wear you out.

Choose your attitude

When you look for the worst you will find it everywhere. When you learn you have the power to choose your response to what life brings, you can look for the best and find opportunities you never imagined possible. If you find yourself with an attitude that is not what you want it to be, you can choose a new one.

In FISH! Tales, you can see how many organizations have applied the philosophy and become successful at motivating their employees and their customers. Attitude plays a big part.

Spencer Johnson, M.D., author of Who Moved My Cheese, sums up change by asking people to see the “handwriting on the wall.” According to Johnson, people need to face change and embrace it as a part of life.

· “Change happens.” Companies are downsizing, streamlining and restructuring to stay afloat in a changing marketplace and economy.

· “Anticipate change.” Get ready for what will come. Look ahead to meet the needs of your clients, as well as your employees.

· “Monitor change.” You should be aware of changes in management of your firm, legislation effecting your profession or business, marketplace changes, and the economy.

· “Adapt quickly.” You can’t let change over take you. In order to be successful, you must adapt quickly and move forward.

· “ Change.” Make the necessary changes to move forward. If you don’t, someone else will.

· “Enjoy change.” Johnson tells people to make the best of your situation and savor the adventure.

· “Be ready to change quickly and enjoy it again and again.” Keep moving forward.

There are a lot of books and principles out there to teach us about change, but employers and employees must work together to be successful. And attitude makes all the difference!

Julie Gordon is an accounting manager in the Performance Improvement Division of Maritz in Fenton, Missouri and serves on MSCPA’s Work-Life Balance Committee. She can be reached at Julie.Gordon@Maritz.com.