Why can changing employee behavior be so difficult? Explain and provide specific examples to support your response.

Solution-

Changing employees' behavior is difficult because the employee tends to feel disrespected and uncomfortable when someone starts monitoring and evaluate their behavior. They become habitual of something and start resisting the change in the behavior. On another side, the management wants to make a change in employee behavior for the benefits of the organization as well as that of the concerned employee. Changing behavior requires a deep analysis of the productivity of the employee because that employee in the subject may get annoyed and start misbehaving in most of the cases. The management finds it most difficult to manage the employee in such a critical situation because the employee does not coordinate in the change activity at all.

Examples-

• 1.    Upon noticing the frequent absenteeism of an employee, management wants this habit to be changed. But, when the concerned employee is addressed on this behavior, he starts resisting and shows rude behavior.
• 2.    In another example, an employee found misbehaving with other employees very often. Management gave him a warning about his behavior and asked him not to repeat the same. But, the employee took this warning personally and did not work efficiently in-office hours. He found it insulting being addressed by the management.

References

Bartlett, A. C. (1967). Changing behavior as a means to increased efficiency. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 3(3), 381-403.