Members of SAP SuccessFactors’ Value Realization Research team are constantly reading up on the topics most important to you, your employees, and your managers. Each week we will be sharing an interesting finding we’ve read about to give you innovative and data-based ideas on how to better structure your HR processes and more effectively manage your workforce.
This week: Minimize employee threat appraisal to ensure effective organizational change-- New Year's Edition!
The new year may be time for new change in your organization, but research suggests that anything less than excellent change management can have far-reaching implications for the productivity of your workforce. One potential negative impact is employee threat appraisal, or the perception that things employees like about their jobs, such as their relationships with coworkers, job security, and pay and benefits, may be threatened as a result of the change. In their recent study published in the Journal of Management, Fugate (Cox School of Business, Southern Methodist University) and colleagues found that threat appraisal strongly predicts the extent to which employees will be absent, intend to quit, and actually leave an organization, but that threat appraisal can be minimized when employees have positive change attitudes, perceived control over the change, and positive impressions of change-related fairness. This suggests that companies that design their change management initiatives to focus on fair, positive employee impressions will enjoy better outcomes (and fewer disastrous ones!) from their employees during a time of organizational change.
For more information, access the research abstract and full article here.