HR Has a Major Role in Change Management in Sri Lankan Garment Factories


HR Has a Major Role in Change Management in Sri Lankan Garment Factories

Figure 1: Training at one Sri Lankan Factory


Sri Lankan apparel industry is very much in a topsy-turvi condition with the global shrinkage of apparel business, rising labour cost and labour shortage. Only way out for small and medium scale manufactures to survive is the continues search for more productive and cost effective management & operational practices while the strong holders will persist with their reputation and customer base. Constant search for improvements driving the companies endure change management battles within their organizations. If the right time change not happened, it will be too late for them to realize that they are out of the competition.
Change management has been defined as “the process of continually renewing an organization’s direction, structure, and capabilities to serve the ever-changing needs of external and internal customers” (Moran & Brightman 2000).  Kanter (1992) states that we live in a constantly changing world, and change has an impact on the individuals and the organization as a whole.  In this context, organizations have to look into the future to find new advantages. New technologies, new products, new competitors, new regulations, and new people with new values and experience is the order of the modern organization.
In Sri Lankan context the change management is extra challenging as the resistance to change is high in nature. Role of Human resources persons in change management is extremely important as the mediocrity independent parties are always accepted by labour groups. The HR department within the organization is involved in recruiting, training, developing and monitoring the performance of the employees i.e. takes into consideration the various aspects that are related to the employees together with their level of motivation and job satisfaction and thus it can be said that it tends to play a major role in change management (Farndale & Paauwe, 2010). So in this context the HR department strives to provide various resources that facilitate an organization to identify the processes which are essential in managing change and this reveals the fact that HR department involves in formulating strategies in order to ensure that the members of the organization readily and successfully adapts the change (Murray et al., 2008).
Figure 2: Role of HR in Change Management
Source: https://myassignmenthelp.com/free-samples/role-of-hr-in-change-management






Cohen, D (2016) stated that she believes HR should act respectfully as change agent in any change circumstances such as required, requested or right. Further she emphasis that HR has a major role in ensuring that change is identified, developed and carried out in a respectful way. The behavioral competencies required by HR professionals allow them, through things like relationship management, critical evaluation, consultation and leadership and navigation, to engage employees in the needed change at hand.

Perrin, O (2019) has summarized more HR roles in change management as,

Role of watch dog
Guaranteeing the company culture’s integrity and making sure that processes are coherent and harmonious.
Establishing a change agenda      
 Recommend a calendar and define specific milestones to be reached by both the organization and its employees
Proposing adopted solutions
HR should be able to come up with a strategy that is suited to the context in which change needs to happen.
Training Managers
Train Managers towards change in advance
Taking time to communicate
Rather than going too fast and neglecting some important levels of management, taking time to communicate.
Anticipating emotional road blocks
Anticipate negative reactions as much as possible


References:

Ø  Cohen, D. (2016) What is HR's Role in Managing Change? [Online] Available at; https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/trends-and-forecasting/special-reports-and-expert-views/pages/deb-cohen.aspx Accessed on; 10th January 2020
Ø  Perrin, O. (2019)  Role of HR in managing change in workplace[Online] Available at; https://www.employeeconnect.com/blog/hr-role-change-management/
Ø  Moran, W, & Brightman, B K, (2000). Leading Organizational Change, Journal of Workplace Learning, 12(2) 66-74. doi: 10.1108/13665620010316226
Ø  Kanter, R M, Stein, B. A. & Jick, T D, (1992) The Challenge of Organizational Change (New York: The Free Press) 
Ø  Farndale, E. & Paauwe, J. (2010) Context-bound configurations of corporate HR functions in multinational corporations. Human Resource Management, 49 (1), 45-66.
Ø  Murray, J., Markides, C., & Galavan, R. (Eds.) (2008). HR Dreams: Where Human Resource Management is Headed to Deliver Value. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Comments

  1. As we you explained well HR team has to play a major roll to attract the people to approval industry
    This is a good article

    ReplyDelete
  2. You have done critical evaluation in clear manner. Good work Kelum.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It is really well anlysis kasthuri as importance of HR is always challenge and best practices will sustain

    ReplyDelete
  4. Appreciate your blog as you are trying to link the basics with your trade.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Nicely written article relating to your job

    ReplyDelete
  6. The HR department has to ensure that employees are motivated to undertake the change and participate in the change management program very well explained about.clearly explained

    ReplyDelete
  7. Many organizations think about change management for large-scale implementations like bringing a new technology solution in house or adding a new product line. But what about the small changes like a new policy or procedure? Those are often the changes that frustrate employees the most. Not because the change is bad or wrong, but because employees weren’t adequately prepared.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How CSR Activities Changed the Perspectives and perception of Sri Lankan Apparel Industry?

A Comparison between Taylorisim & Fordism and their Contributions to Modern HR