"In the light of continuing organisational change managers need a good understanding of individual differences." Discuss.

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”In the light of continuing organisational change managers need a good understanding of individual differences.” Discuss.

Physically all humans are created in the same way and appear to be similar on the exterior (skeleton). However differences do exist between all individuals. Fundamentally the individual differences are more likely to occur in the psychological and social dimensions. If in differences did not exist then it would be possible to treat all employees in the same manner and know how they would react and respond to problems. Clearly this is not the case. Thus individuals need to be treated differently in order to get the very best out of them. It is important for managers to recognise individual potential and harness talent to achieve organisational goals. Individuals differ in respect to their ability, personality, behaviour, attitudes, gender, race, values, learning, perception and biographical characteristics – Robbins (1994).

Age is a type of biographical characteristic, which mangers need to deal with. There is a belief that as age increases job performance declines. Mangers need to be sensitive to this type of problem to ensure that the employee does not feel worthless or de-motivated, as this may be perceived as prejudice and cause unnecessary tension between the employee and manager. This belief may be justified for example within car factory. The younger employees would probably be able to cope with heavy workloads more efficiently than older employees due to physique, metabolism, and concentration span. This is inevitable because as age increases theses factors deteriorate (due to time), thus not being able to perform as well.  

Another characteristic is gender. La Pierre and Henly said that women are less assertive within the workplace thus being more submissive than men, who are dominant and aggressive. Horner (1972) argued that women feared success. This was due to the stereotypes surrounding women e.g. emotional, unreliable, irrational, lack of confidence etc, thus leading to prejudices. Women have higher rates of absenteeism then men do. The most logical reason for this is society placing family and home responsibilities on the female. If a child is ill or needs to be picked up from school then it is traditionally seen as the duty of the women to take time off.

For example if the organisation decides to reduce the working hours without the loss of pay but the start and finish times change then this may be a problem for women who have responsibilities of collecting children from school, thus resisting the change as a cause of its inconvenience.

Tenure is also a distinctive difference between individuals. The main belief of this characteristic is that individuals who have been on a job longer are more productive then those with less seniority.

Despite the positive implications, change is often resisted at an individual and organisational level. Resistance to change can be a source of functional conflict. If it overt and immediate then managers can deal with it easily. For instance if a change is proposed, and employees respond quickly by voicing complaints, decrease in productivity, or threats to strike, then mangers can diffuse the problems without too many complications. Implicit resistance can be more problematic for managers as the situations are more subtle, e.g. loss of loyalty to company, loss of motivation, and an increase in errors and absenteeism (‘sickness’ which is difficult to recognise). Individual sources of resistance to change reside in basic characteristics such as perceptions, personalities and needs.

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Habit is one reason why change is resisted. Individuals respond to situations in an accustomed manner. They serve the means of comfort and security. So when confronted with change the individuals’ habits and customs are threatened. An example of this would be the relocation of an office into a new, more spacious building. The individual may be forced to travel a little further the new location, or may need to adjust to the new layout of the office, find new locations to park their car, etc. These causes inconvenience to the individual, thus not being comfortable ...

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