Managing Resistance and Stress in Organizational Change: A Case Study of Hyatt Hotels

This report analyzes the management of change resistance and stress in Hyatt Hotels and provides tactics and approaches to manage them. Learn how the management can implement fair tactics and methods to handle resistance and stress.

Organizational
behavior and
development

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Modern organizations mostly struggle to develop a meaningful and sustainable change.
Some changes are a simple deal while other change are challenging tasks. Before implementing
change leaders of the companies assess how efficiently the organization's business practices are
performing to reach their targeted market and achieving organizational goals. In this report an
analysis of the management of change resistance and stress in the Hyatt Hotels is made. The
tactics, knowledge and approaches to manage resistance and stress is described (Stouten and
et.al, 2018). Also, how should management will have to implement fair tactics and methods that
manage change resistance and stress are provided.
MAIN BODY
Organizations rise and fall on the basis of how well it introduces, manage and the control
of change. The management of the organizations have to fully understand the challenging
environment and availability of the resources. They have to go through increasing pressure to
actively take charge and respond to changes occurred. The success of the organization is
depended upon the management's ability to understand the change and its implications, then
device a clear vision and strategies to align change for achievement of objectives and goals
(Ahmed and Siddiqui, 2020). One of the organization is Hyatt Hotels that had implemented
change in their business structure. As no organization in the present era have seen a stable
economic environment and has to frequently bring and adapt change in the Hyatt Hotels. The
management of the Hyatt Hotels started to bring the change by taking into account the
information about the personnel and their perception on the change. Management try to
understand the policies and process of the Hyatt Hotels bring effect on the employees of the
organization. The management of the Hyatt Hotels had found out that the changes are not
connecting with the perceptions and employees were resisting the change. The employees later
understand with the time that breaking rules will be result in the loss of jobs. The management
made an inspection and found out that the employees had joined the Hyatt Hotels because of the
culture of the organization. But the Hyatt Hotel's management could not mould the policies
because of the legal formalities. The Hyatt Hotels have to maintain its commitment towards
following and adopting change is a challenge. Not all the locations of the Hyatt Hotels have the
same resources while countries has their own regulations to follow (Moyson and et.al, 2017).

There was not any sort of strategies or solutions that help the Hyatt Hotels to implement the
change at the same time while contributing to the organizations corporate social responsibility
activities. Implementation of change in the Hyatt Hotels is unavoidable for the organization as
they need to maintain their position in the market. The resistance to change arises from the
perception that the change is a threat. Resistance to change can be positive if it presented and
discussed by the employees. This can help Hyatt Hotel's management to monitor and modify the
change as per the preference. The management can handle easily resistance like complaints, slow
down of work and threat of strike. More challenging for the Hyatt Hotel's management is to
handle loss of motivation and absenteeism of the employees. Forces of the resistance to change
inhabit in human characteristics that are perceptions, egos, needs and personalities (Shimoni,
2017). Management can use strategies that help to deal with the resistance to change i.e.
communication within the management and employees, development of positive relationships,
manipulation or coercion. Several behavioural scientists have provided theories by performing
studies on human behaviour and propounded theories and models. One of the model is Kurt
Lewin's three step model in which he argued about successful organizations that had taken steps
to successfully implement changes. The steps followed are unfreezing, movement and refreezing.
John Kotter another psychologist has given eight step plans for implementation of change. These
steps are built on the basis of Lewin's three step model. Kotter argued that the managers of the
organization declare successful implementation of change too soon without effectively
communicate change (Rajan and Ganesan, 2017). Hyatt Hotel's Management by applying
different approaches i.e. action research, organization development, sensitivity training, survey
feedback, process consultation, group development and team building will be able to manage
change within the organization. Not only employees but the organization also has to adapt with
changes. Hyatt Hotels through managing paradox which means balancing tensions across
different action plans. The management have to find paradoxes like learning, organizing,
belonging and performing, etc. that requires transformation. The managers have to learn from the
existing paradoxes and try to adapt the organization accordingly. Also, by carry-out culture of
innovation which help Hyatt Hotels to adapt with the change. Innovation means developing
solutions for the issues and challenges that arises. Innovative organizations promote both
experimentation and failures to achieve success. These organizations also provide continuous
training and development to the human capital, so that they adapt easily and did not fear to losing

their jobs. By execute learning within the Hyatt Hotels functions, it will be able to improve its
performance. Learning organization shares common visions upon which everyone is agreed and
work for the achievement of the same goals. People openly communicate with each other and try
to find out the solutions to the problems together. Stress is a factor caused by bringing change
into the organization for many people. It has been seen that leadership is a main element that
affects the employees' perspective about the change. Mangers are leaders in the Hyatt Hotels as
they influence the employees to accept change and do not see as a stressful matter. Also, positive
introduction of the change before implementation of change will help in creation of positive
perspective among the employees. Hyatt Hotel's management must conduct research to find out
the mental state of the employees and when the stage of development of stress born, the
management should introduce techniques of stress management to facilitate employees to adapt
to the change and reduce stress (Seaward, 2017). At work stress can be developed from factors
like uncertainty or change in the economy or technology, increase in the expectations and
problems whether it is personal or family. Also, perception, incident at jobs, social acceptance,
personality attribute and difference in the culture can be factors that may develop stress in
people. With the increase in the stress the consequences arises and also started to develop
physiological, psychological and behavioural symptoms. The physiological symptoms include
metabolism change, heart rates increases, headaches, blood-pressure and heart attacks. The
psychological symptoms include tension, irritation, anxiety, delaying and boredom. The
behavioural symptoms include low productivity, absenteeism and reduced turnover. Also,
change in the habits like smoking, consumption of alcohol, rapid speech and sleeping disorders
are also forms behavioural symptoms. Low and moderate stress levels are not that fatal as these
level will result in the increase in the performance of the employees. Hyatt hotel's management
will implement stress management techniques that includes individual outlook and
organizational outlook. The individual outlook contains strategies devised by the employee
himself to reduce the stress. These strategies include management of time, application of mind
relaxation methods, support from the peers and exercise that will help the individual to reduce
stress during the work (Dye and et.al, 2021). While organizational outlook contains strategies
devised by the organizations to help in reduce stress of the employees which are redesign jobs,
goal-setting, placement and training of employees, involvement of employees, employee
wellness programs, additional perks, channelizing communication and so on. These techniques

not only help the employees and individual to improve and ease at work but also help
organization to create an environment in which the employees provide optimum results and
comfortable to work in. Adoption of change within the organization is a crucial activity as
economies, technologies and regulations are changing frequently in current period. Organization
like Hyatt Hotels has to introduce change to compete and survive in the ever-changing
environment. Changes may be stressful for some people but to obtain success it has to
implemented within the organization.
CONCLUSION
From the above study it has been observed that the management of the resistance and
stress due to change is important. The study of the Hyatt Hotel's change implementation and the
use of the tactics by the management is analysed. It has been seen that the employees show
resistance to the change of the business structure and started to form stress due to change
process. Although the Hyatt Hotel's management is made it compulsory because of the change in
the regulation, but the employees are not ready to accept the change (Ferdman, 2017). Various
techniques of resistance and stress management are discussed that might help in to decrease
resistance and reduce stress. By applying these techniques the organization's management will be
able to overcome resistance to change and managing stress at work.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Ahmed, Z. and Siddiqui, D.A., 2020. Organisations Ethical environment, Change Management
and Commitment: The Role of Change Readiness, Resistance, and Employees’
Withdrawal. Change Management and Commitment: The Role of Change Readiness,
Resistance, and Employees’ Withdrawal (August 29, 2020).
Dye and et.al, 2021. Mindful Strategies for Helping College Students Manage Stress: A Guide
for Higher Education Professionals. Routledge.
Ferdman, B.M., 2017. Paradoxes of inclusion: Understanding and managing the tensions of
diversity and multiculturalism. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 53(2), pp.235-
263.
Moyson and et.al, 2017. Policy learning and policy change: Theorizing their relations from
different perspectives. Policy and society, 36(2), pp.161-177.
Rajan, R. and Ganesan, R., 2017. A critical analysis of John P. Kotter's change management
framework. Asian Journal of Research in Business Economics and Management, 7(7),
pp.181-203.
Seaward, B.L., 2017. Managing stress. Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Shimoni, B., 2017. What is resistance to change? A habitus-oriented approach. Academy of
Management Perspectives, 31(4), pp.257-270.
Stouten and et.al, 2018. Successful organizational change: Integrating the management practice
and scholarly literatures. Academy of Management Annals, 12(2), pp.752-788.
Online
What Is Organizational Behavior and Why Is It Important?, 2021. [Online]. Available through:
<https://online.rider.edu/blog/what-is-organizational-behavior-why-is-it-important/>