While change is inevitable in an ever-evolving business environment, it is commonly a stressful and undesirable process for both employees and management. Indeed, resistance to change is a standard reaction to a shift in the ordinary and already familiar way of functioning. As the case of the Nestle Company demonstrates, resistance to organizational change has had a significant impact on the company’s performance. Indeed, the employees’ unawareness of the company’s plans to change and the lack of information about the scope of change and its steps have hindered the corporate culture and amplified resistance to change. As with any other organization, Nestle might identify some advantages and disadvantages of the employees’ resistance to change, which should further be implemented in the improvement of the change management process.
The benefits of resistance to change for Nestle are implied in the opportunity to use the employees’ argumentation for resistance as feedback for future improvements. When taking into consideration the opinions of the opposing individuals or departments, the leadership of the company might obtain a large amount of data on the weaknesses of the change plan. It might be done in the form of a questionnaire or a launch of a feedback service through which the information could be gathered. Another benefit of resistance to change is that Nestle can adjust its leadership strategies to the requirements of the employees. Indeed, the very scope of resistance in Nestle is indicative of the wrongful or incomplete change management from the leaders’ perspective. Thus, resistance might become an empowering and motivational tool.
As for the disadvantages of resistance to change, they might be characterized as the causes of diminishing employee loyalty since so many turnover cases in Nestle have been reported. Moreover, resistance to change demonstrates a low level of agility in the company, which might be indicative of poor crisis readiness. Therefore, it is imperative for Nestle to collect data from the opinions of the employees opposing the change to adjust the change management plan accordingly.
