Decentralization of the organization leads to resistance to change. When authority is delegated from upper level management to lower level employees, resistance to change is likely effected from both individual and organizational levels.
Some individuals may worry they lack the adequate skills to meet new job requirements. Others may see an increased level of responsibilities as being an unfair assignment of duties. Still, others may become overwhelmed by a sudden transition from routine tasks towards ones entailing more autonomy and discretion.
In delegating decision making authority, upper level management should consider first, those employees who are not too distant in the chain of command. A department head could delegate duties to her assistant manager who is similarly experienced. This reduces the risk of assigning power to less qualified individuals.
To reduce individual resistance to change, HP should offer training programs to those unsure about their skills. Upper management from which power was delegated should instruct these training programs. For those who prefer fewer duties, or who prefer routine tasks, they should be encouraged to try out new job tasks in a trial period and afterwards given the choice to opt out.
Research on the Job Characteristics Model (JCM) shows those jobs containing intrinsic elements, increase satisfaction and performance; jobs requiring greater discretion score high on these intrinsic elements: a variety of interpersonal skills is required to manage others; increased autonomy is required in making judgment calls; and feedback is continuously received from lower levels. Individuals with high growth need strength will be most suitable for empowerment.
For conservative employees who resist enriched jobs, extrinsic rewards such as higher pay may be tied to assuming more duties: employees may receive a base level of pay supplemented by skill based pay. Management may also try to “sell the job” by communicating the job duties’ uniqueness and meaningfulness to the organization to improve perception; by persuasion, the critical psychological states of the JCM are artificially promoted while the core job dimensions remain unchanged.
In contrast to those who resist assuming more authority, higher level management may resist relinquishing power. CEOs and Chairpersons are accustomed to making big company decisions without input from lower levels; high level executives possess the training and experience to make critical judgment calls, ones that not many are qualified to make. With these considerations, upper level management may resist delegating their authority for they perceive the lower levels to be unqualified decision makers who could become harmful for the organization.
To solve this concern, management must be sure to not delegate tasks that are too far distant in power to unqualified persons; the person delegating power should be allowed participation to conduct interviews and screen candidates using his judgment.
From an organizational standpoint, any redistribution of authority would likely threaten power held in long entrenched roles, compromising accompanying privileges and benefits. Upper management may perceive their roles as having less importance and unwelcome a loss of control over people, and resources.
To address this concern, the drafting of a proposal is needed to document changes to duties and their resultant impacts. The concerned party would be allowed to participate in a transparent process of extensive discussion to alleviate concerns of fairness. Lastly, concerns over loss of control and resources may be mistakenly perceived; the corporation could assure the concerned party that no losses in pay or reputation would result from changes.
The formation of cross functional teams requires mutual trust and pooling of expertise. To build an effective cross functional team, various departments must devote their staff with applicable skills. This could be a challenge if HP does not have the necessary departments containing personnel with the relevant skills. The sharing of resources among departments could also be problematic when each represents a silo; departments may become territorial and restrict their knowledge and personnel to themselves.
HP can remedy this perception by providing an abundance of resources for department usage; when departments are well equipped with company funds, and manned with enough staff, then the sharing of resources among departments would amount to no significant loss. Cross-functional teamwork may be rewarded with gainsharing. They can also be formed to fulfill long-term goals that encourage stronger commitments than ones for short term assignments.
Anonymous feedback systems could lead to abuse and high screening costs. Employees could use anonymous feedback as a venue for constructive criticism or one for unruly behavior. Careful monitoring and auditing of responses must be conducted to filter out slanderous and abusive messages. Another drawback would be many labor hours required to process large volumes of responses in the effort to pick out important feedback.
To combat abuse, submissions should be made electronically and a computer system could screen out abusive language and automatically set aside questionable entries. Employees should also be well informed about the purpose of the feedback system and how it should be used appropriately.
Social events may lack participation. Employees who feel alienated from their superiors or who feel disconnected from the upper levels in high power distance structures may be uncomfortable in attending social events. They may fear revealing incongruence between their informal, casual selves from their more professional, workplace image; they fear risking unnecessary scrutiny from their bosses.
Social events should be well promoted in advance of their launch dates. Information on which departments are attending and the purpose of the celebration should be communicated. Large social events may ensure that an adequate mix of participants would attend and match up to any sub-groups-even the shy group-would be accommodated. Events should be company funded and lavishly provided with food, drink and entertainment. Upper management could also reach out to lower levels and personally make the invitation on behalf of the company. These prior engagements enhance trust and encourage participation.
An ombudsperson may be perceived as a spy or a company watchdog. Middle level management and employees may feel reluctant to communicate their concerns despite having an ombudsperson at their disposal. They may mistakenly perceive the ombudsperson as performing a surveillance role to gather confidential information and report exclusively to shareholders or to top-most management. In this distorted view, employees may feel they are being closely monitored; as a consequence, the employment of an ombudsperson may discourage dispute resolution.
The ombudsperson should be aware of potential misperceptions and provide an lengthy and informative introduction to clarify his role. The ombudsperson should clearly communicate his or her impartiality and make promises that information would be kept confidential. HP could also hire an optimal number of ombudspersons to provide more choice to serve various departments.
Monthly newsletters may be perceived as biased. Monthly newsletters should fairly reflect the activities of each organizational level. To achieve this representation, company writers must access enough quality feedback from enough employees to write articles that accurately concern them. The primary difficulty is surveying the many thousands of HP employees. Employees, who choose to submit their comments on the company website, represent a more motivated sub-population of the labor pool; comments likely, frequently come from those who hold strong opinions. Garnering enough participation from less enthusiastic individuals could be challenging.
As successive issues of the company publication are successfully completed, increasingly more employees may be prompted to participate. Company stories on company history, industry achievements, and employee awards could be appealing categories to include in the newsletter. Employee feedback submissions could also be published in newsletters to let them know their feedback is valued.
Ethical training could be ineffective due to individuals’ characteristics. The extent to which employees identify with the beliefs and values advocated by HP’s code of ethics is important in determining the Code’s effectiveness. Some employees may feel they have higher moral standards and hold different views on what is morally acceptable. Others may disregard the value of being ethical and decide to act in a manner to serve self interests; for these individuals, they will do the minimum to avoid immediate punishment but actively usurp ethical rules to work under the table.
To ensure that employees are likely to relate positively to company ethics, HP should first, be sure to explain the rationale behind ethical principles. Disagreements in moral standards could be debated with those who feel they know better and be allowed in participative design in ethical policies. These activities would be possible through company workshops.
Management must also lead by example and actively discourage violations of ethical standards. Performance appraisals should include evaluations on ethics by examining both accomplishments (outcomes) and the methods (means) employed.
International business transactions are especially prone to ethical ambiguities when other nations have differing ethical standards. Management must clearly communicate no tolerance policies against bribery which may be the norm in other countries.
Having an ethical system in place is no guarantee in preventing immoral behavior. At best, a well designed and promoted ethical code encourages employees to act in good faith and cohesively, under a uniform company culture.