Dear All,

Off late there has been a lot of talk on Value systems and attitudes within organization. Behavioral training programes are conducted to bring about a change in the attitude of employees and efforts are made to align the value system of employees with the company's vision.

My question to the group?

Is it possible to bring about a change in attitudes?
Does outside change agents or OD specialist can really bring about a change?
Last and important - how does employees take these programs ? seriously or a picnic ?

Thanks

Kumar

1. Yes it is possible. I am telling you on the basis my own experience. However it is not easy. To bring a change in attitude one needs to accept and become aware of his attitude.It is very painful process. But with determination and dedication one can bring change in his attitude. It is much easier in young age than at older age say 35 and above or depends upon every individual.

2. To some extent yes. At least they help us to become aware of our attitude - positive or negative. But my experience with majority of employees is negative. I feel the best
way to bring change in employees is to practice the values by leaders.

3. Since they talk lot many good things about life-value system-attitude, employee after attending program give good feedback. However they continue to behave as they were behaving earlier. The knowledge acquired not put in practice is waste. So employees take it seriously, but turns it out in picnic.

Hi kumar,

Our organization places a lot of emphasis on Attitudes and environment. Though the first checkpoint is while recruiting new staff, we still do behavioural workshops in-house regularly.

The main thrust of these workshops is to highlight the benefits of having the correct attitude, and this is done through game play and interactive discussions, with HR playing a facilitators role. This is followed up with continuous counselling and coaching. The gist is that the participants themselves come up with ways and means to improve rather than someone prescribing the bitter pill, and are more open to implementation of the
arrived at POA. HR helps with Counselling and coaching.

The answers to your questions are :-

1 Yes and No. It is possible to bring about a change in attitudes but organisational commitment to reward "correct" attitudes has to be there and visible.

2 Theory books do prescribe outside OD change agents, but you know your guys the best and would be able to communicate in a language and tone which they'd understand better.

3 If the employees see the organisation/Management ( I hate this word though) taking the whole thing seriously, they'll be sharp enough to take it seriously for their own growth.

Hope this helps..

Regards,

Mukundan

Behaviour and attitude is something which you cannot change in a day or two, or by putting together 15- 20 people in one room with a person they hardly know. It is a continuous process.

Constant communication is a way of maybe at least knowing what has caused a particular attitude in an employee. You see, there could be 10 different reasons for 10 different attitudes in 10 different people. In a training program, do u think we would be able to address all these issues? What we as HR persons need to do is first listen, without trying to justify the organization. Believe me, I try to do this practically, and it really helps.

Dear members,

We are sharing about change in attitudes through behavioural programs. My experience and opinion is as follows:

1- Change in personal beliefs, values and attitudes is a personal matter and therefore is directly related to the need that the person has felt and the intensity of the same. If the participant does not feel the need to change he will simply not change.

2- Role of consultant and the organisation is to expose the participant to the data about what effect his personal attitude has generated. Therefore trainer and HR professional act merely as mirrors.If the employee likes the image then he will not change but if he feels a need to comb hair and look good he will do so.

3- Employees will take such initiative as picnic or serious effort depending upon hw he sees the institutional involvement. If this done merely as pomp and show, top mgt. does display care and concern and in general the actions of the people in organisation do not show that this important activity, employees will treat this as picnic.

4- Organisational change is a different matter and this needs not just employee training program but a lot more. That's not the agenda here I suppose. Alignment of people's values to the values of the company is very much the job of HR professional. Say if the people believe in economic values or money and the company believes in excellence, it will be very much the job of HR Professional to make a policy that
will take care of both this. If he does not then sure enough people will generate a lot more work for HR department.

Awaiting for more views ??

Shaili