Strategies for Managing Change and Employee Resistance: Panda Retail

This essay delves into the critical topic of organizational change and the inherent resistance often encountered from employees. Using Panda Retail Company in Saudi Arabia as a case study, the essay examines the challenges faced by the company when implementing changes in its operational systems and HR policies. The essay highlights the importance of proper planning, employee involvement, and transparent communication as key strategies to mitigate resistance. It emphasizes the need for management to clearly articulate the reasons for change, its potential benefits, and any associated drawbacks. Furthermore, the essay stresses the significance of providing adequate training to employees to equip them for the new changes. By addressing these aspects, the essay proposes practical methods for Panda Retail to successfully navigate organizational change, reduce employee turnover, and ensure a smoother transition for its workforce.

Running head: MANAGING DYNAMIC ENVIRONMENTS
Managing Dynamic Environments
Name of the Student:
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Abstract
The essay aims at discussing the organizational change and the resistance to change.
Organizational change is a very important phenomenon in an organization. It has been observed
that in an organization the employees often resist change. The following essay focuses on the
methods that can be used within an organization to combat the resistance to change. The
organization for which recommendations are given is Panda Retail Company of Saudi Arabia. It
is a retail company and the second largest. The retail is 39 years old and the parent company of
the retail is Savola group. The organization recently planned to bring some changes in its
operational system and human resource related policies, but it was seen that the employees of the
retail were not ready for the change. Therefore, the essay suggest certain methods to combat the
employee resistance.

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Change in an organization is defined as the adoption of new ways, methods or policies
within the system of the organization. Change is a very important phenomenon and needs to be
adopted as per the requirement of the organization. The change in the organization can take place
in many ways. Any organization can implement any new policy for any department, at times, the
organization introduces certain technology, machineries, or it entirely changes the methodology
for its operations (Vom Brocke et al., 2014). Anything new that has been introduced in the
organization as a strategy. Change is an essential phenomenon, all organization requires change,
it is for growth and for some special requirements in an organization. A planned change brought
within an organization with an aim of growth is always beneficial for the organization.
Organizational change requires proper planning so that the desired results can be achieved
(Langley et al., 2013).
It is the nature of human beings to hate change, they generally try to resist change at all
costs. Human beings want things to be the same and hence they are reluctant to change because
they find it very difficult to adapt to the changes. That is the reason why employees of any
organization resist change. It is not liked by most of the people. Employees generally try to resist
the process of change as much as possible. Resistance to change from the employees is one of
the biggest issues that are faced by the organizations and management have to take a number or
steps to make sure that they successfully implement their strategies for the welfare of the
organization. It is very natural for the employees to resist change, what the management do is
motivate the employees (Mitchell, 2013).

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Panda Retail Company is one of the top retail companies in Saudi Arabia. It is basically a
grocery retail company. It is a very old company which has been operating since 39 years. The
parent company of Panda Retail is Savola group. The organization is very old and hence it is
planning to bring about certain changes within the organization, the changes are related to
operations of the staff members of the company. They are planning to digitalize most of its
operations. They are planning to change the software they earlier used for database management
and billing purposes. The organization received a lot of resistance from the staffs who were
comfortable working with the previous software (Investments, Retail & Company, 2017). They
are also planning to bring certain changes regarding the promotion and appraisal of the
employees. Some of the employees have even left the company because they think that the new
promotion method and the changes brought in the organization are not in their favor. Though the
management is yet to disclose the changes it is about to bring but the information has been
communicated to the employees (Cawsey et al., 2016).
In order to manage the situation the company can take a number of steps that will help its
employees to accept the change and the employee turnover is reduced.
Firstly, it is very important for the management to plan the entire change process, they
need to make a blueprint so that it can be easily explained to the employees. Planning is the most
important thing that the management of the Retail. For efficiency for their planning they should
consult and take advice of some experts (Xu et al., 2016).
It is very important that the employees are made a part of the planning process so that
there is very less resistance from the employees. Their suggestions are to be taken and given

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importance. This is a two way process so the employees should also participate and give their
suggestions so that later there are no grievances (Investments, Retail & Company, 2017).
The process is needed to the employees, communication is very important, the
management is required to communicate the entire process to employees unless they do not
understand the process they will not be ready to accept the change. For this the management
needs to answer some of the most important questions related to the change in the organization
What are the changes to be brought- firstly they will have to explain to their employees
what are the changes that are to be brought in the operations and the human resource department
of the organization.
Why is the change taking place- The management of Panda Retail needs to explain to its
employees the reason for the change, they are to be explained why it is important to take a
particular step (Petrou, Demerouti & Schaufeli, 2016).
What are the affected departments- They should explain to their staff members the
departments that would be affected by the change process. All the departments that come under
the change should be communicated, in this case they need to tell them that the organization is
bringing certain changes in the operations department and the human resource department
(Karim & Arif-Uz-Zaman, 2013).
What are the benefits of the change- They should communicate the benefits of change to
their employees, how would it be beneficial for them. If the employees are not communicated
about the benefits they will always be reluctant about the entire process and will not participate
or show interest.

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What can be the demerits of the change- It is equally important that the demerits of the
change to be brought be communicated to the employees so that they do not have any confusion,
and transparency is maintained. Communicating only the positives of the change might not
always be helpful because in later stages of execution problems might arise (Burnes, 2015).
Motivating the employees should be done so that they are mentally ready for accepting
the changes. They should be told about the benefits of the change and why it is necessary for
any organization to bring changes within its operations and policies.
The Panda Retail should not implement any changes that are against the interest of the
employees because those changes are bound to be resisted by the employees (Dawson &
Andriopoulos, 2014).
After the communication of the change process, it is very important to provide training to
the employees to prepare them for the change that is going to take place. The Panda Retail is
planning to change the software of its operations so they need to arrange a training program for
their staff members to make them acquainted to the new changes that are to be implemented
within the organization.
It can be concluded that, resistance to change is a very natural phenomena and hence it is
often seen in the big organizations that the employees resist the new changes that are brought in
the organization. Panda Retail is one of the oldest and biggest companies in Saudi Arabia. For
such a big organization, it is very important that they bring changes in their operations and
policies. Following the same methods might keep them unaware about the benefits of other
methods that can bring more profit to the organization. Combating change requires proper
planning, because proper planning it would be impossible to execute any changes in the

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organization. They should consider the employee suggestions and involve them in the planning
process so that a better plan can be made. Communication here is very important, they need to
maintain transparency in the process and hence it is very important that they communicate about
the changes that are about to take place. Panda Retail then needs to provide training to its
employees so that they can be prepared for the new changes so that they can work with
maximum efficiency. They are to be motivated by communicating the benefits the new change
can bring, the benefit should be correlated to their career and growth in the organization then
only they will be ready to accept the change.

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