Familiarity is very reassuring to employees, even if this means committing themselves to practices that are now deemed inefficient.

You may be put in charge of making a large change to your workplace, such as merging two companies and several hundred workers into one successful organisation, or perhaps you're overlooking the introduction of smaller changes such as launching more environmentally-friendly ways of working.

You should never underestimate your fellow colleagues' desire to continue in old patterns and the impact their work environments and managers have on their acceptance of new protocols. Some workplaces manage change a lot better than others and there are several factors that can affect whether new ways are readily adopted or reluctantly agreed to.

Management matters

When it comes to managing a team, each person will bring their own skills, experience, strengths and weaknesses with them. The challenge is to get everybody working at their optimum within an environment that might present them with personal obstacles. Over time, colleagues learn how to get along in their roles and they hopefully feel autonomous and satisfied with their progress in the company.

Managing this kind of team is less likely to be problematic and you can busy yourself more with the academic/paperwork side of your role. However, you may encounter difficulties when you want to make changes to your colleagues' working days, especially if this means altering their contracts in some way.

This is where leadership comes in and allows you to direct your team through upheavals. Making an impact in this way requires managers to have a good degree of emotional intelligence and be willing to stretch boundaries. Leadership training is available for those who wish to expand their skills.

Status quo quarrels

When old patterns have been successful in the past you might find that many in your company are resistant to change. They know what works and prefer to stick to it, but this means that innovation and improvements are not included in policies and your business could fall behind the times.

Quite often, figures from firms are generated that highlight present successes but perhaps fail to take in the greater picture - proving to be misleading. Just because a familiar way of doing tasks has worked previously doesn't mean that new practices will fail or be less productive, making it important to always look ahead and embrace effective policies.

Chinese whispers

Company gossip and official guidelines are very different, but in environments where clear communication is deficient, they can almost seem the same. As organisations think about adopting change, there might be rumours that lead to people living in fear of losing their jobs, for example. Others may be worried their roles will change significantly or their pay and bonuses are affected.

It's very important to foster an environment where your workers are able to come and ask questions via an 'open door' policy. If you have information on future changes then release what you can to ease fears and prevent gossip from undermining the business' future plans.

Making a difference

As mentioned above, clear communication is imperative when it comes to removing obstacles to change. Also, when present working patterns seem sufficient to your colleagues they are more likely to struggle when it comes to accepting alterations to their current roles. Before these negative feelings manifest, you may be able to nip them in the bud by getting employees involved in the changes themselves and asking for their help/feedback. This gives them an arena to air their concerns, while proving to be a useful platform for you to introduce the positives of the alterations involved.