Change readiness in the context of a pandemic

Abstract

The business environment is changing at a rapid pace with the latest instance of rapid change being the COVID-19 pandemic. The business environment constantly undergoes change to enable organisations to respond to increased global competition, adapt to market conditions, and adjust for technological advancements. Despite the advancement of literature by academia and management consulting the failure rate of organisational change management remains high. Purpose and methodology The purpose of this study is to investigate what change readiness initiatives change agents use in addressing organisational change and how these measures are applied to instances of rapid change. This will progress change management literature by expanding on current change readiness models by viewing them in the context of rapid change. This research study was guided by an interpretivism philosophy that explained what change readiness measures deployed by change agents to organisational change in a rapidly changing environment. Data was collected from change agents across seven industries in South Africa using 13 semi-structured interviews. Findings and implications The study found that change agents did apply change readiness measures during instances of rapid change. These measures were similar to those used during normal change instances and change agents relied on these change readiness measures to bring about organisational change in response to instances of rapid change. This finding was grounded with a sense of empathy that change agents showed towards change members. This implied that role change of agents needs to be understanding of change members when implementing organisational change.