Organizational Development and Change: Analysis and Strategies Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of organizational development and change, differentiating between voluntary and mandatory changes within a business context. It explores the dynamics of these changes, highlighting the facilitating forces, such as transformational leadership in voluntary changes, and the challenges associated with each type, including potential employee turnover in mandatory changes. The report also delves into how individuals respond to change internally and externally, and identifies obstacles to successful change implementation, such as resistance and inadequate policies. It also highlights factors that aid in adapting to change, such as emotional intelligence and the willingness to change. The report references several academic sources to support its claims.

Running head: ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE
Organization Development and Change
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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1. Part A: Major Change: Definition and Facilitating Forces
Voluntary change is the type of change in a business organization that is introduced
by transformational leaders. It is a change that the employees of a business organization are
welcome to accept and to incorporate if they feel that it is in their best interests to do so. There is
nothing mandatory or compulsory about the whole aspect of voluntary change (Ali-Ali et al.,
2017). It is something that is entirely flexible in its nature and scope and the employees of the
organization have the opportunity to reject it or to accept it as and how they deem it fit.
Voluntary change is something that is introduced in an organization when it is going through a
stage of growth and expansion and when the management of the organization is of the view that
introducing this change will only add to the benefit of the organization. A good example of the
voluntary change is when the workers of a business organization are given the option of
choosing between a day shift or night shift to do their work in (Brones et al., 2017). A business
organization that has been conducting its operations only in the day time can also choose to
extend its operations to the night time, with the scope of working in the night being open to the
employees of the organization. Those who find it more convenient to work at night rather than in
the day, will have the scope to serve the organization at this time, once the shift timings have
been introduced. It is a voluntary change, it is not mandatory in nature and the employees of the
organization will be able to decide whether or not they want to accept this change. One of the
major challenges associated with this form of change is that many people may prefer to work in
the night shift rather than in the day, and as a consequence of this the organization will be short
staffed when it comes to operations that are conducted in the morning hours (Brones et al.,
2017). If most of the employees of the organization find it more convenient to work in the night

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rather than in the day, then the organization will have to look to recruit employees who would be
willing to come and work for the business only during the day shift. Hence it will have to face
the challenge of hiring additional manpower to meet staff requirements during the day. The
opportunity or the success that comes with this voluntary change is the fact that the employees of
the organization will welcome the type of flexibility that is seen to accompany this form of
change. They will like being given the option of choosing between a day shift and a night shift
and will consequently opt for the type of shift that turns out to work for them the best both in the
long term as well as over the short term (Cameron & Greene, 2019).
Mandatory change on the other hand is something that is imposed by an autocratic
leadership style. It is the type of leadership that is exercised when the organization is in a stage
of crisis and when sudden or immediate changes need to be introduced for the business
organization to survive the difficulties that it is in (Hayes, 2018). Mandatory change is when
employees are asked to come into work and perform duties for six days in a week at a
stretch, when earlier the organization had been working only for 5 days in a week.
Employees, when such a type of change is imposed will have no choice but to come into work
for six days in a week as if they are not on board with the idea, they will have to go and look for
work elsewhere. They will have to adhere to the new rule if they want to continue working for
the organization. As such, there is no flexibility associated with this type of change and it is
being imposed on the employees of the organization (Hayes, 2018). They do not have the scope
to opt out of the change or to reject the change that is taking place and will instead have to accept
it and adapt to the change. The challenge that comes with this type of an imposition is that it can
of course get employees to leave the organization in large numbers, as it is going to be difficult
for them to suddenly adapt to six days of working in a week in the place of five. They are not

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going to get much time to easily adapt to the change that is taking place and it is more than likely
that the introduction of such a change will lead to a high rate of employee turnover. Employee
turnover is something that organizations around the world can ill afford. Employee turnover
leads to difficulties for a business organization in the area of competition, with rivals often
getting ahead of the business organization because they have a stable human resource base with
which to meet their business goals and objectives (Lewis et al., 2016). The opportunity or the
benefit that is associated with the imposition of a mandatory change is it will lead the
organization and its employees to becoming a lot more productive than it had previously been.
When employees are made to work for six days in the week in place of five, then it is more than
likely that the goals and objectives of the business organization will be achieved in a faster time
frame and the organization will end up doing quite well in the market or the industry in which it
is seen to operate (Stouten et al., 2018). Employees when they work for six days in a week will
also get the scope to earn a higher salary than they had when they had been working for five days
in the week and consequently they will feel motivated to do the work that they are assigned to do
as they are earning more now (Stouten et al., 2018).
There are five specific factors that can help a person to adapt to change and these are
the process of understanding the change, emotional intelligence, listening to feedback, the
willingness to change and the readiness to accept a challenge. All of these factors put an
individual in a position to accept the change that is taking place. When understanding the
change, the individual gets an idea of why the change is taking place and why it is important to
adapt to the change (Van der Moent & Vermereen, 2018). By deploying emotional intelligence,
an individual allows oneself not to get carried away by the negativity of change, listening to
feedback again helps the person to understand why the change is occurring, the willingness to

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change helps the individual to make a move in forward direction and while the readiness to
change prepares the individual to accept and absorb the change that is taking place (Cameron &
Greene, 2019).
2. Part B: Major Change: Dynamics and Constraining Forces
There are internal and external ways by which people are seen to respond to change.
One internal way of responding to change would be to accept within oneself, the change
that is taking place and working in a way that this adaptation to change shows. For
instance, when a business organization announces that it will operate day as well as night shifts,
those who accept the change internally, will consider whether or not to opt for the night shift,
will discuss with family members about the change and try and process the change internally
(Lewis et al., 2016). An external form of responding to this change would be to actually opt to
work in the night shift or showcase a refusal to do so, to the higher management of the business
organization. Both forms of response can impede the process of change is the internal or external
responses are against the change that is taking place instead of being in favor of it (Brones et al.,
2017).
Resistance to change is something that can be commonly experienced from employees
in a business organization where a change management policy has been introduced. Employees
can find it difficult to accept that changes are being introduced and may show resistance to the
change by refusing to go along with what is being asked of them, holding strikes etc. They may
also show resistance to the change by resigning from the organization and going to work for a
new business organization (Brones et al., 2017).

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Five obstacles to change are resistance to change, inadequate policies to implement
change, lack of funds, lack of support and lack of infrastructure to implement the change.
Managers implementing a change management plan can be obstructed by these challenges as
they will find it difficult to convince employees that the change is good for them, the absence of
a good policy will not help in getting the changes to fall through as desired, lack of fund can
keep certain aspects of the change initiative from being implemented, the lack of support implies
that the employees are likely to remain resistant to the change for the most part while lack of
infrastructure will also keep the change initiatives from being implemented as desired (Al-Ali et
al., 2016).

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References
Al-Ali, A. A., Singh, S. K., Al-Nahyan, M., & Sohal, A. S. (2017). Change management through
leadership: the mediating role of organizational culture. International Journal of
Organizational Analysis.
Brones, F. A., de Carvalho, M. M., & de Senzi Zancul, E. (2017). Reviews, action and learning
on change management for ecodesign transition. Journal of Cleaner Production, 142, 8-
22.
Cameron, E., & Green, M. (2019). Making sense of change management: A complete guide to
the models, tools and techniques of organizational change. Kogan Page Publishers
Cummings, S., Bridgman, T., & Brown, K. G. (2016). Unfreezing change as three steps:
Rethinking Kurt Lewin’s legacy for change management. Human relations, 69(1), 33-60.
Hayes, J. (2018). The theory and practice of change management. Palgrave
Lewis, S., Cantore, S., & Passmore, J. (2016). Appreciative inquiry for change management:
Using AI to facilitate organizational development. Kogan Page Publishers
Stouten, J., Rousseau, D. M., & De Cremer, D. (2018). Successful organizational change:
Integrating the management practice and scholarly literatures. Academy of Management
Annals, 12(2), 752-788.
Van der Voet, J., & Vermeeren, B. (2017). Change management in hard times: Can change
management mitigate the negative relationship between cutbacks and the organizational

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commitment and work engagement of public sector employees?. The American Review of
Public Administration, 47(2), 230-252.