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.