There was always a blame game happening within the company. The workers held the management responsible for the decline in the performance and the issues that they had to face at work and on the other hand, the management believed that it was the labor union that was hindering the improvement in the financial performance of the company (Barton, 1991)
In order to gain the confidence of the employees, the company decided to adopt an open-book approach, which meant that the workers were given access to the entire data pertaining to the accounts of the company. Later on, this exercise became the norm of Ajax Minerals, since the supervisors, employees and managers started to share the data amongst themselves in order to bring about improvised strategies (Blawett, 2011)
The relations between the labor union and the management were such that the workers were always suspicious that any changes in the company would mean that there would be cut offs in their salary. The second resistance that the management had to face was that they were of the view that if the management brings out a reference to the problems on the horizon, then the labor union will consider that reference a ploy against them (Businessweek.com, 2014)
For example, if the management would take an initiative to lay down the current workforce and recruit more skilled and efficient workforce then this might lead towards the reduction in the powers of the union as the new workforce may not join the union and instead favor the initiatives and strategies of the management. (Blackard, 2000) Approaches for Managing Resistance to Change The Perrier Company can manage resistance to change in an effective manner by implementing a strategy that involves the following steps; Education and Communication; the organization can eliminate the resistance of the employees by clear communicating the rationale for change at all the levels of hierarchy
The employees, therefore, were not ready to support the strategies and initiatives of the management in relation to the change. (Lunenburg, 2010) Another factor that contributed towards the resistance of change was the low level of trust that prevailed among the employees and the management
This was because of the fact that most of the steps taken by the management in relation to change proved out to be a failure. (Yuh-Shy, 2010) Apart from that, the management did not communicate its plans in an effective manner
It is natural for employees to have concerns when this process occurs, especially if they do not understand why the change is occurring and are unable to assess what impact it will have on their job. The change process has the potential to result in fear and resistance (Buchanan and Huczynski, 2010, p561)
HRM Change Management - Perrier Case Study In any organization there is a need for change, otherwise organizations will stagnate and fail to adapt to changing environments. There are many drivers to change; changes in the competitive environment that result from the lowering of barriers to trade, such as increasing use of technology to facilitate trade, especially over international boarders and transportation technology increasing the level of competition faced in market (Salawu and Agboola, 2011, p235)
Generally, employees dislike change. Resistance from employees can make change hard to implement, can increase the time taken for the change to take place, increase the associated costs and resource use and may even result in a change failure (Thomas and Hardy, 2011, p322; Buchanan and Huczynski, 2010, p562)