6 Reasons Why Change In The Workplace Is Always A Good Thing

Ask yourself. Is change good? More often than not, the assumption people make is that change is bad – it is unpredictable, it brings instability, it can be scary. And it’s all too easy to accept these arguments against change.

However, all those points revolve around one thing – our comfort zone. We all know that breaking out of our comfort zone is how we progress. Change, by definition, is breaking out of the comfort zone and there’s a lot of good that can come from it.

In a world that is constantly changing, the need to keep up and adapt has never been more important.

Whether it’s encouraging managers to complete a change management course online or teaching your team new technologies, there’s many ways to bring change into the workplace and many benefits that come with it.

That’s why we’re going to break down for you six reasons why change in the workplace is always a good thing.

1. Change Encourages You to Break Out of the Comfort Zone

Here’s the thing, while stability can make you feel safe and comfortable, it’s also something that makes you stagnant, and stagnancy makes you both psychologically and professionally inflexible.

Simply put, experiencing change at work increases your ability to act and react to new situations, which are vital strengths in a workplace.

When you’re forced to try or learn something new, you’re forced to adapt. Adaptation not only brings about professional growth and development, it also breaks barriers within the workplace.

Encouraging employees to break out of their comfort zone is essential for strengthening a workplace both in terms of efficiency and workplace dynamics. When individual employees become better, the whole team benefits.

Even small incremental changes can have this effect and that is worth having in a workplace.

2. Change Can Improve Workplace Procedures

Change fosters new experiences and the type of experiences that it creates directly impacts both worker and business needs.

The result? If something in the business is faulty, then in a closed, unchanging system, the fault may be allowed to build for months and months before it is finally exposed.

But identifying these issues and facilitating change forces issues to the surface, and it gives every employee the chance to not only experience the change but also tackle the issues for a more productive, streamlined workplace.

Not only is this better than letting the issue fester and go ignored for months, but it also creates openings for both businesses and workers to problem-solve and correct the issue before it gets out of hand.

Continually reviewing workplace procedures and their effectiveness is crucial for good performance. Just because you’ve always done things one way, doesn’t mean that it’s right or that there isn’t room for improvement.

3. Change is Necessary for Employee Mental Health

It’s a truth both in psychology and in workplaces, change is necessary for health and survival.

We’re not going to talk much about the health and psychology side of things but the short of it is that not only is learning from our mistakes beneficial, but we are psychologically built to adapt.

Stability is important, but so is change. If nothing changes in our lives it erodes our mental wellbeing and can cause mental health issues such as depression.

Change brings many psychological benefits, such as confidence, motivation, and the adaptability we mentioned earlier. 

It also brings about a greater sense of camaraderie with other people affected by the change, and as humans are social animals, anything that brings the benefits of our social psychology into our workplace is endlessly beneficial.

For a workplace to retain its employees and get the best out of them, it’s necessary to ensure they’re feeling confident, motivated, and inspired to learn and work every day.

When employees are getting the best out of themselves, the business can operate more efficiently and in turn get the best results.

4. Change Supports Mental Acuity

Change actively helps employees to learn new skills, stay focused and embrace new systems and technologies.

While kids experience change every day, adults come by change less and less, which is part of the reason we find it more difficult to adapt to change.

By keeping up a certain amount of regular change, education and testing throughout our lives, we improve all of these skills.

By experiencing change in the workplace, employees can improve their ability to reason, think on their feet, and recall important information.

5. Change is Necessary for Businesses to Survive

This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, but the business world goes through regular upheavals all the time. So to survive in the ever-changing field of business, you need to be constantly adapting to stay on top of the latest developments and technology.

Forty years ago the internet and mobile phones were barely a thing. Fax machines and postal services were a thing.

Many of our international trade routes, trading partners, and key resources were fundamentally different, and even some things like our minimum wage laws and worker protection laws were different.

Depending on your business, these things would impact you more or less, but in today’s world, a cyber attack on a business could mean losing the trust of your customers.

The world changes, all the time, and a company that is inflexible and unable to change will find itself unable to survive when up against other companies that can constantly adapt.

Change in the business world happens all the time, and a business that embraces change has a far greater ability to thrive.

6. Change Keeps Issues Under Control

Incremental or planned change can minimize, or even eliminate, potential negative issues. Small changes here and there are not only easier to implement and control but better prepare workplaces for the large, sweeping changes that occur in the natural movements of the business world as a whole.

Change should always be looked at as an opportunity, a place where good things can blossom, but no matter the positives we’ve been mentioning – teamwork, adaptability, camaraderie, mental health, problem-identification, problem-solving – it does need to be properly managed to emphasize those benefits and ensure net positive outcomes. 

Good change brings a team together, enhances their strengths, and bulwarks against their weaknesses, and all change can create that if it is properly managed and executed.

So try a little change in your workplace, start small, and eventually you’ll be able to handle the big things that will inevitably come your way, no matter what those big things are.