Is frequent organisational change affecting employee output? Part 1

The desire for organisational change

In a world of constant change, the need for City employees to adapt to new ways of working is essential; it’s the modern way of conducting business. Every job description now features the words ‘agile’, ‘adaptable’ and ‘flexible’ as necessary skills. Granted, these are desirable skills, someone who can quickly adjust to new ideas and structures is without a doubt, very valuable, the problem arises when change is so frequent and often unforeseen that it causes uncertainty and results in directionless working.  

Taken by Matt on Flickr

When frequent change becomes a problem: role confusion

The word ‘role’ suggests a fixed position, a defined way of working with expected outcomes. This is how the world always worked, people were hired to perform a specific role and to stay firmly within those boundaries in order to be eligible for financial reward. In today’s fluid working environment people are expected to be adaptable to frequent change and their roles are less defined than ever. This has resulted in many employees feeling confused about what is expected of them and how they will be rewarded for the work they do. This beggars the questions: how can we measure performance when people are always unsure of how they need to perform? And, if people are unsure of what is required of them, how can orgainsations evaluate if their investment in that person is worthwhile and conducive to their overall goals?

As a friend of mine once said to me: wasting time figuring out what to do and what not to do is your biggest competitor.

In addition to this uncertainly, creating an environment that is conducive to such work requires the type of individual that will invest time and effort in building networks that allow them to deliver on changing outcomes, along with the appropriate technology, systems and processes put in place to achieve ever changing and often increasing targets. This can result in huge expense, be very time consuming and frankly, is far from easy to create!

So, are we expecting too much from our employees? Are our City workplaces really set up for the new way in which our people are expected to work? What can we do to create efficient workplaces without spending a fortune on new talent and complex new systems?

In part 2, I'll be talking about what employees can do to help regain direction and control in their work and produce efficient and desirable outputs. 

The gift of feedback

Feedback is all around us. Everywhere we look there are people, animals and machines ready to give us feedback - to tell us what we've done well and where we can improve. I've always been a strong believer in the value of feedback, even the most self aware person cannot always know the impact they have on others unless they are told how their efforts have been received. I'm still a strong believer in feedback, but I have to admit, sometimes it can be tough to give and even tougher to take.

A few years ago I wrote my thesis on the factors that influence giving, seeking and responding to feedback and although I didn't find anything other researchers hadn't already discovered, I learnt first hand the importance of receiving feedback from trusted sources, structured in a particular way.  

I can't say after all that learning that I'm excellent at either giving or receiving feedback, but as I grow my career I'm learning how valuable feedback is for growth and sadly, how potentially crushing it can be if it is not given or received with someone's best interests in mind. I've also learnt that there are many other factors that can influence the effectiveness of feedback; such as the giver/receivers mood, their level of confidence and self esteem and how able they feel to act upon feedback and make changes. 

Now I am going to make a statement that I believe many may disagree with: change is hard. 

Some will disagree believing that change is only hard if a person doesn't want to change. Others will say it's only hard because making changes means we need to exert effort and therefore not wanting to change just makes us lazy. I believe change is hard because fundamentally, we dislike being wrong. 

Receiving feedback which suggests we need to change ultimately means we are acting incorrectly in something we are doing. Being the giver of such feedback, transpires in that person being correct. Wanting to be right and disliking being wrong is human nature. Being the receiver of feedback which begs you to change is therefore hard to accept. However, the simple act of giving change inducing feedback gives us the opportunity to be right and who doesn't want to be right?! 

This is what makes change hard: admitting that we are not always right, that there could be a better way and allowing someone else to take the limelight.

So, before you reject what you're told and retreat to your burrow to lick your wounds, truly look at the feedback you have been given, evaluate it and work with it. It might not be useful, it may even be coming from a bad place, but, especially if the feedback you're receiving is becoming a theme, it may actually hold weight and perhaps, however hard, it's time to make changes.