Generational perspectives on organizational change

Abstract

Change is ubiquitous, being a constant element that impacts both individuals and organizations. This article makes a brief foray into the concept of organizational change and generations. It also elucidated the factors that influence the workforce’s response to organizational change: personal interest (personal costs of adapting to change), psychological reasons (fear of the unknown, fear of not adapting to change), emotional reasons (loss of motivation, denial of the need for change), approach to change (lack of communication, non-participation), perception of change (lack of understanding of what needs to be done and expected results, negative experiences related to change), cultural biases (change in habits of doing things, conflict between change vs values and beliefs of recipients), historical organizational relationships (nature of employee-manager relationship, internal rivalries). In this article, the perspective of different generations of employees on the phenomenon is examined as a matter of priority. The literature reports rather equivocal results regarding the degree of openness or resistance to change of the various generations, but somewhat shifts the difficulty of understanding the phenomenon. The work aims to support managers in increasing their ability to cope with the ever-changing environment, as well as the skills to effectively manage different generations of employees along the way.