Question

Often organizations are faced with the necessity of changing the direction or focus of their organization – due to competition, due to new technology, due to environmental issues, regulations, etc. In these situations, uncomfortable changes are sometimes required.

a) Would younger or older employees be more likely to embrace change?

b) Would successful or less successful organizations be more likely to embrace change?

c) One element in reinforcing change within an organization is to replace people and hire outsiders. Even if done with a great deal of care and understanding, this can often come across as a somewhat cruel undertaking. Why is it necessary?

Answer 1

Answer a= If we compare the younger employees and the older employees, it is quite evident that the younger employees are more dynamic in nature they tend to enjoy learning new things and they want to experiment with many new things during their work life. On the other hand, the older employees tend to play safe and thy feel more comfortable with the status quo and a set pattern of doing the things. This is because of the age and the learning inclination of the individuals. Therefore we can state that the younger employees are more inclined to accept and embrace the changes than their older counterparts.

Answer b= Successful organizations are the ones that are dynamic in nature, more organic, and keep on changing as per the external requirement and market forces. On the other hand, unsuccessful organizations are manly unsuccessful as they are static in nature, and they find it quite difficult to accommodate any change in the environment. Thus these are the successful organizations that are more likely to adopt the change in their organization.

Answer c= It has been seen that replacing the older employees with the new ones can be a good strategy to have the change in the organization. This is due to the fact that the older employees are more comfortable with the given set of processes, working styles, and work culture of the organization; They have created a comfort zone with the existing set of processes and methods. Any change in the organization can result in the discomfort among them and thus they tend to either oppose any change or do not support it.

As a way out the management can think to replace these employees with the new ones as they will be the new members of the organizations and are not aware of the processes and working styles of the organization, so they are more likely to accept the change as they are still going through the learning of processes and methods of the organization. The management can easily promote the proposed change with the new employees as compared with the older ones.