This research report provides a critical review of the literature revolving around the role of human resources in managing change in organizations. Change is inevitable in any business, which means in order to develop a business or rescue it from market threats, the organization deals with the dynamic business environment. Due to the internal issue, the organization is left with no option but to apply change. However, the question is, how change will be applied and who takes the initiatives to make the change happen?. Thus, typically, human resources has a great role in dealing with or managing change in the organization. This review of literature helps to learn the role of human resource of the organizations in managing change. The purpose of the report is to evaluate the role of human resource in change management. This review of literature has been undertaken by emphasizing on some particular departments of management including change management and human resources.
This review of literature deals with the role of human resources in change management in businesses. This means that the review mainly includes how human resource department of an organization manages change. The area of the review particularly includes HR policies, the concept and importance of change management in business. In order to conduct the review, twenty one journal articles on human resource and change management have been used and analysed. Every critical fact and statement have been supported with evidence and citation. However, the review only considers the dataset of large and multinational organizations; no fact has been taken as an example, from small businesses or the enterprises. In addition, this review is limited to the recent studies that have been conducted in the last five years.
In a general sense or the mostly defined concept of HR is the technique of managing people in an organization in a structured manner. Such process may include the areas of staffing, retention of people, pay and payment structure, performance management, change management and supervising other activities of the business to keep and maintain a smooth operation. This is the mostly used definition of HR; however, Kuipers et al. (2014) argued that human resource management mainly encompasses the management of people in the business particularly from a macro perspective, which refers to the action of managing people in the form of the collective relationship between the employees and the management. Nonetheless, this definition is further supported by a study on human resource management conducted by Van der Voet (2014), and the authors reveal that such an approach mainly focuses on the objectives as well as outcome of HRM functions. This means that Human Resource function in the contemporary business is concerned with the aim of human development and employment relationship for both management and the employees.
On the other side, Brewster (2017) commented that human resource management is defined as the action or the art of procuring, maintaining and developing a competent workforce to accomplish the goals of a business in an effective manner. Conversely, Baum (2015) performed a study on HRM and defined it as a particular function in business that provides the most efficient use of people to accomplish organizational and individual goals. In another study, Helfat, and Martin (2015) when defining HRM, focuses on three core elements such as organization, people and management. According to this author, HRM process consists of planning, attracting, developing as well as retaining human resource of the business. Thus, on the basis of the definitions provided by the authors above, it can be mentioned that HRM is certainly referred to the management of people at work and it is rather a process which helps to bind people with the organization to accomplish each other’s goals. All of the definitions here indicate the fact is a broad process, each function involved in the process is highly necessary to be assessed. For example Helfat, and Martin (2015) mentioned about organization and people, while Brewster (2017) said HRM is an art of procuring and developing a competent workforce; so, here the common fact is that whatever the functions may be, people management and overall organizational development remains as the major focus in HRM.
When it comes to change management, Hornstein (2015) mentioned that change management is referred to the adoption of an idea, procedure as well as the behaviour that is new to a business. On the other side, Cullen et al. (2014) defined change management as the persistent technique of aligning a business with its respective market place and performing it a more responsively as well as effectively than the competitors in that market place. However, this definition does not say why this persistent change management technique will focus only on the competitors in the market. This means that there may be some situations in which the business may experience internal operational issues and change may be required but hence competitors’ performance may not hold any significant position in the process implementation. Conversely, Kuipers et al. (2014) mentioned that change management is particularly a movement of a business from existing state of being toward a desired future state to enhance organizational efficiency. However, this definition of change management does not indicate the fact that why an organization or business would prefer to apply change in the process. In addition, the major weakness of this definition is that it does not clarify the fact that why a continuous process of shifting business to another state is required if a business is already profitable.
So, it can be mentioned that scholars have made attempts to define change management from their individual perspectives; however, Van der Voet (2014) particularly, shed light on the need for organizational change to handle the environmental pressure, as well as to achieve the objectives of persistent survival and growth. Conversely, Hornstein (2015) argued that change is highly required to deal with the unexpected shifts in a business environment. Nonetheless, a recent study performed by Hornstein (2015) reveals the fact that change is essentially a driven method, which highlights the needs on how a business could respond and adapt to their environment to enhance its legitimacy and the possibility for sustainability. On the basis of the facts and findings of the studies presented above, it can be mentioned that organizational change may include changes with respect to employee involvement, products and services, the market where the business is active and the approaches it applies to interact with the suppliers, customers or others. This can be treated as the core of the theoretical concern of change management on employee performance.
Hon, Bloom and Crant (2014) mentioned that when an organization is determined to win something or gain a positive value, it can apply change but this gain may not always be financial. The authors have stated that the focus could be to enhance the interpersonal relationship, speed up the growth of internal process or leverage the involvement of the employees in the new project. According to those author, the possibilities of applying change could be many and this could take up the time and money to accomplish the goals. Nevertheless, in most of the cases, the desired outcome could be far away. Too and Weaver (2014) performed a study and found that businesses are facing faster more complex as well as more cross-functional change than ever. Business gains the ability to produce more outcome on multiple change which is allowing organizations to accomplish their strategic visions and thrive in today’s dynamic environment. Likewise, Kuipers et al. (2014) also mentioned the similar fact that implementation of change management could enable organizations to deliver outcomes on the change more efficiently and develop competence that increase capacity of the organisations to deal with the changes at one time. Hornstein (2015) performed an experimental study, and provided clear data that the more a business applies change management, more it is to deliver on the initiatives. The authors provided the correlation data from over 2000 data set of individuals and long eight years demonstrate that the efforts with appropriate change management are six time more likely to fulfil the objectives compared to those with poor change management implementation. On the basis of the facts provided by the author, by shifting from “poor” to “fair” change management could enhance the possibility of meeting objectives by three fold. According to the author, here poor change management refers to action of implementing change in which areas such as estimated outcome of change, employee involvement, speedy decision making are not involved in the process. The author defined fair change management as the process of maintaining fairness in which each party involved in the process will be benefitted. Under this similar context, Hornstein (2015) provided the data that ROI captured from an outstanding change management process, which is better than the poor initiatives of change management. The author of this article concluded by stating that if the change is applied effectively in a business, the chances are high to achieve success.
Figure 1: Phases of Change
Baum (2015) mentioned that business managers who wish to undertake major transformation to remain competitive should have to work with the HR staff to receive employee acceptance and support. However, hence, human resource plays a role in managing change by initiating, dealing the change as well as serving as the facilitator for change that other executives and departments initiated. Purce (2014) argued that HR not only plays the role of managing the internal environment, there could be some situations where HR has to carry out change, as it is required by the outside forces. On the other side, Kuipers et al. (2014) mentioned that HR is supposed to facilitate the change because it is requested by other internal stakeholders. Although, each of the definitions include a contradictory fact that but as an implication it can be ascertained that HR department is widely involved in managing or applying change in the process. In fact, if the change is applied by operational department or the change agent, HR must be informed about change process. The authors have also stated the fact that sometimes HR is bound to enable change as it appears as the right thing to do for the future of the business. For example, in the case of car manufacturing firm Toyota, senior HR department in US had to take the decision of applying a bureaucratic management system because there was a clear communication gap between branches in US and the headquarters in Japan. This gap delays the business decisions because the management in Japan would look into the matter and order commands which was time consuming (Chiarini and Vagnoni 2015). So, Toyota’s scenario clearly indicate that HR can go on applying change being influenced by the internal environment. Concepts and the reasons given by these two authors help to further state that Human Resource has a great role in making sure that the changes are properly identified, developed and performed in a particular and respectable way.
Van der Voet (2014) conducted an article and mentioned that the HR department of an organisation or business plays a great role in reconsidering organizational design to bring about change and guide the implementation of the new techniques. So, according to this author, HR has a significant monitoring role because particularly during the change phase, the HR leadership could be expressed by guaranteeing the organization culture’s integrity and ensuring that the processes are harmonious and coherent. Nonetheless, the author did not mention that when a change is applied, all parties or stakeholder groups are involved who probably take the equal amount of responsibilities to ensure the processes are coherent. Helfat and Martin (2015) arguably mentioned that as HR staff gain expertise as well as the business intelligence, it is significant for them to share their strategic vision with the marketing, finance and other necessary department of the business. Furthermore, Albrecht et al. (2015) categorizes human resource development change agents in four dimensions which includes transformational, incremental, human resource vision and human resource and expertise. Human Resource Development expertise remains as human knowledge and skills that define special contribution that HR professionals can make for the effective people management. Thus, Jackson, Schuler and Jiang (2014) particularly, mentioned that the role of change agent could be performed by HRD professional who work as the change champions and change consultant.
Change Champions and change consultants: Buono and Subbiah (2014, p.41) mentioned that change champions are required to align the entire human resources of an organization with the business strategy and delivery of “sponsorship for a strategic change”. They have credibility and analytical skills as well as the political skills which could inspire people and make them aware of the requirement for change. Likewise, Leck and Roberts (2015) performed a study and particularly mentioned that change consultants have a crucial role in managing change. According to the author, as a consultant the change agents could guide the workers to create data from within and as well as outside the business premises. Nonetheless, this statement does not include the fact that change agents do not work against the guidelines set by human resources department. The authors could have demonstrated a clear alignment between of change agents and human resource department. Conversely, Albrecht et al. (2015) argued that the work on a project or particular stages of Human Resources requires specialised knowledge or the technical experts, consulting skills and project management expertise and the capability to meet the demanding timescales.
However, Ali and Zia-ur-Rehman (2014) argued that such approach may not be applicable for the FMCG sector. According to the authors the large FMCG organizations like Unilever applies an autocratic leadership style, where the board’s decisions are aligned with the initiatives taken by HR, which means the employees at the general levels do not have much to say on the context. In most of the cases, the employees are left with no option but to accept the change (Tangthong 2014). In this context, Meyer (2015) elaborated the fact by saying when the conflict remains unresolved after several attempts, HR department should treat compromise as the solution if parties could come together on the aspects of driving the conflict that required to be changed against those that are less essential. Brewster (2017) argued that sometime these mentioned that one of these techniques may work and hence requiring an HR manager to deliver a proper context for both the sides.
Meyer (2015) particularly stated the fact that interpersonally conflicts may take place between the individuals due to variety of causes including office politics and personality clashes; hence, HR plays the ultimate role in addressing the conflicts. According to this author, HR members need to encourage people to deal with their own response to the context and they need to find out why others’ behaviour spark negativity and then find solutions which would help to avoid reaction instead of exacerbating the issue or the situation. In addition, involved individuals should be encouraged not to blame others, as it accomplishes nothing. For example, once oil and gas giant Shell got into a big internal clash between the branch supervisor and employees because of being influenced by the employee union head, the employees at Shell Nigeria started a public protest against the HR policies of Shell (Hennchen 2015). This clash led to shut down of operation for three days. Eventually, the senior HR executive brought them together and let both side expressed their opinions and finally developed a common solution of making a slight change in the pay structure.
The review of the existing papers indicate the fact that previous studies have mainly focussed on how change is applied to organizational context and some significant reasons but the studies hardly talk about any particular HR policies that HR professionals apply to manage change in the business. Most of the studies skip the fact that resistance to change is a possible scenario in almost every business and here HR plays a significant role in dealing with that resistance. Every business has some particular individuals working in HR department who play separate role in dealing with the change but the chosen articles did not say much about those initiatives. In addition, the papers performed on human resource management mainly talk about the role HR department as a whole but the outcome would have been more relevant, had the papers specify some roles of individuals in HR department. On the other side, in the field of change management, no papers in the literature particularly mentioned about the technique of managing change. This is required because change is a broad aspect of management.
Conclusion
This review of literature includes twenty one different journal articles on human resource and change management. The findings of the review indicates that organizational change can take place for a variety of reasons and the role of Human Resource is undeniable. The literature say that change management is particularly a movement of a business from an existing state of being toward a desired future state to enhance organizational efficiency However, that findings would have been more relevant and effective if the chosen studies would mention about particular HR policies and approaches that is mostly used to manage change in the organization.
References
Albrecht, S. L., Bakker, A. B., Gruman, J. A., Macey, W. H., and Saks, A. M. (2015). ‘Employee engagement, human resource management practices and competitive advantage: An integrated approach’. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance, 2(1), 7-35.
Ali, N. and Zia-ur-Rehman, M., (2014). ‘Impact of job design on employee performance, mediating role of job satisfaction: A study of FMCG’s sector in Pakistan’. International Journal of Business and Management, 9(2), p.70.
Baum, T., 2015. ‘Human resources in tourism: Still waiting for change?–A (2015) reprise’. Tourism Management, 50, pp.204-212.
Brewster, C. (2017). ‘The integration of human resource management and corporate strategy’. In Policy and practice in European human resource management (pp. 22-35). Routledge.
Buono, A.F. and Subbiah, K., (2014). ‘Internal consultants as change agents: Roles, responsibilities and organizational change capacity’. Organizational Development Journal, 32(2), pp.35-53.
Chiarini, A. and Vagnoni, E., (2015). ‘World-class manufacturing by Fiat. Comparison with Toyota production system from a strategic management, management accounting, operations management and performance measurement dimension’. International Journal of Production Research, 53(2), pp.590-606.
Cullen, K. L., Edwards, B. D., Casper, W. C., and Gue, K. R. (2014). ‘Employees’ adaptability and perceptions of change-related uncertainty: Implications for perceived organizational support, job satisfaction, and performance’. Journal of Business and Psychology, 29(2), 269-280.
Helfat, C. E., and Martin, J. A. (2015). ‘Dynamic managerial capabilities: Review and assessment of managerial impact on strategic change’. Journal of Management, 41(5), 1281-1312.
Hennchen, E., (2015). ‘’Royal Dutch Shell in Nigeria: where do responsibilities end?’. Journal of Business Ethics, 129(1), pp.1-25.
Hon, A.H., Bloom, M. and Crant, J.M., (2014). ‘Overcoming resistance to change and enhancing creative performance’. Journal of Management, 40(3), pp.919-941.
Hornstein, H. A. (2015). ‘The integration of project management and organizational change management is now a necessity’. International Journal of Project Management, 33(2), 291-298.
Jackson, S.E., Schuler, R.S. and Jiang, K., (2014). ‘An aspirational framework for strategic human resource management’. The Academy of Management Annals, 8(1), pp.1-56.
Kuipers, B. S., Higgs, M., Kickert, W., Tummers, L., Grandia, J., and Van der Voet, J. (2014). ‘The management of change in public organizations:’ A literature review. Public administration, 92(1), 1-20.
Leck, H. and Roberts, D., (2015). ‘What lies beneath: understanding the invisible aspects of municipal climate change governance’. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 13, pp.61-67.
Meyer, K.E., (2015). Context in management research in emerging economies.’ Management and Organization Review, 11(3), pp.369-377.
Purce, J., (2014). The impact of corporate strategy on human resource management’. New Perspectives on Human Resource Management (Routledge Revivals), 67.
Tangthong, S., (2014). ‘The effects of human resource management practices on employee retention in Thailand’s multinational corporations’. International Journal of Economics, Commerce and Management, 2(10), pp.1-30.
Too, E.G. and Weaver, P., (2014). ‘The management of project management: A conceptual framework for project governance’. International Journal of Project Management, 32(8), pp.1382-1394.
Van der Voet, J. (2014). ‘The effectiveness and specificity of change management in a public organization: Transformational leadership and a bureaucratic organizational structure’. European Management Journal, 32(3), 373-382.
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