Organizational change and its effect on employee well-being

Abstract

The aim with this thesis was to study the relationship between workplace changes and employee well-being and work engagement to find out in what way the organization and its management can support and contribute to their employee’s well-being and work engagement in the change process. The research questions that I sought answer for were: In what way do organizational changes affect the employees’ well-being and work engagement? In what way can the organisation and its management support the employees in the change process?

Given the aim with the thesis and the research questions a qualitative research method was used, with interview as data collecting method and content analysis as data analysis method. A total of seven interviews were conducted. The literature in the theoretical framework circulated around topics such as organizational change and the impact of change on employee, as well as leadership and managing change.

The results showed that the merger that Luna went through affected the employees’ well-being and work engagement in that way that it caused stress, especially in the beginning when there were many new tasks for the employees to learn and there was also a language barrier that caused communication problems. The result also showed that no one at Luna had gone through a merger before and, therefore there was a lack of experience and that caused confusion and uncertainty among the personnel. The result showed that the leaders’ role in a change process was to create a positive work climate, where the employees could feel that they were being listened to, freely could speak their mind, and felt that they got support from their leaders and management.