(Image courtesy of Thomas Umstattd)
There are only a few things that you can count on happening and that’s learning and change. Businesses have had to adapted to the fast-paced business world which has required organizational learning and change. As a state employee usually after the legislative session there is a new rule that requires us to have to change and learn new skills. As a result of the session our processes and procedures will inevitably change. Being in the local government environment, it has taught me that I need to adapt and be open-minded.
In our environment, we never really know what the change will be so we are forced to be more reactive. According to Moran, Abramson, & Moran (2014), “Reactive change is usually the stage where companies realize that they need to change before a crisis can develop” (p. 108). Our stakeholders demand for a more critical thinking environment as the need for our services increase. As an agency we can request for a rule to pass to enhance our program.
When I was with my previous agency, we managed the medical transportation services for the whole state of Texas. Due to many variables involved with getting qualified only Medicaid eligible clients could use our program. In 2016, a new rule passed by the legislature that required that we verify that minors where traveling with a parent or a legal guardian.
Our processes and procedures changed over night. Many of use learned the ways of the new rule by observation and by watching all of the other people members. According to Bandura (2018), “Many of the things people seek are achievable only by working together through group effort. In the exercise of collective agency, they pool their knowledge, skills, and resources and act in concert to shape their future” (p. 131). As a team we where drafting forms that required signatures, dashboards were provided to supervisors and manager to see the incoming flow of work, we also extended our hours to accommodate the late evening request.We successfully transitioned to the new rule by working together as a team.
References
Bandura, A. (2018). Toward a psychology of human agency: Pathways and reflection. Association for Psychological Science, pp. Vol. 13 (2), 130-136.
Moran, R., Abramson, N., & Moran, S. (2014). Managing Cultural Differences (Ninth Edition). Oxford: Routledge.
I spent a number of years as a legislative staffer in Idaho. One of the unique things about Idaho is we have an administrative rule review process – every legislative session, new rules and amendments to rules are brought before the appropriate legislative committees and examined, debated, and approved or not. An interesting thing about this is that rules are able to be implemented prior to the session – so if the rule has already been implemented, and is then rejected, the old process or procedure is restored – then the agency personnel have to make yet another change in the way they’re doing things. I feel for you! Change is hard, but yes, as you point out, it is inevitable – and it seems like the more we’re forced to accept changes, the better we become at changing – I hope that’s true, anyway!
In any case, I appreciate how your blog post shows a very real way change in the workplace is occurring regularly, and impacting workers and the surrounding community.