Employees often show resistance to change due to fear of the unknown. When employees are accustom to their ways of doing things, new procedures or ideas may make them feel uneasy. In order for a company to stay up float, it is inevitable for changes to occur. Companies over the years have elaborated multiple tactics to turn resistance into collaboration.

One popular way to avoid resistance within the organization is participation. Participation makes employees and upper management feel involved. Because design requires information from all participants, cooperation keeps everyone committed to the change. For example, a company decides to implement staggering work shifts effective immediately to improve logistics for the work place; however, employees show resistance given that they were never consulted or involved in such decisions. Participation can also be time consuming, so different approaches may be necessary.

Even though coercion is the most commonly use approach for change implementation, it is not the best tactic as employees feel like victims. Coercion could even complicate or prolong change. In some instances, coercion may be optimal for rapid results in urgent matters. A good example for coercion could be a board of directors terminating the CEO for a terrible performance.

Communication and education may be the most expensive approach to implement changes as it may require huge amounts of training and communication. Nevertheless, it is the most efficient for drastic or large transformations within a company. For example, an insurance company is changing the process in which customers’ policies are processed daily. Therefore, a great amount of training will have to be implemented for all employees in that specific roll. The insurance company has to communicate effectively and efficiently educate employees for new procedures.

Cooperation is