07. How HRM complexities in change management shaped the future of Nokia?

Strategic planning and Human Resources management are interconnected. HRM complexities could rewrite the fate of an organization (Armstrong, 2006). Among many examples, Nokia is a company that failed due to their inability to adopt to market changes. One of the reasons that Nokia was unable to swiftly adopt change is due to employee resistance.

Nokia grew rapidly as a brand from the 1990 to the 2000s. Nokia was a market leader with majority market share by 2007 (Häikiö, 2002). This success was disappearing by 2013. 

Nokia changed its management and the employees were not responding well. Many changes were brought about including: laying off staff, introducing new technology and so on. Employees did not have faith in the management thus, they were not confident to follow the leadership. Employees rebelled and strike against the changes. The mistrust mainly rooted from uncertainty and they felt threatened.

Nokia were to change their platform and this spurred up distress with the developers. This is because, the system developers and the network administrator were threatened as they felt their skills were becoming obsolete at Nokia. If this was better understood, Nokia could have given due training and development to avoid this situation.

Furthermore, Nokia partnered with Microsoft. This brought about cultural clash and also employees were confused over the sudden shift in the organizational change.

Another concern with Nokia was that they did not encourage innovation within employees. This lead towards organizational failure as well.

Nokia was not responsive to change and underestimated its competition. This was one reason why Nokia could not prepare for change. Nokia should have paid more attention to the voices of the employees and also to the changes of the market (Khan, Raza and George, 2017).

Development of technology that the public needed should have been the priority.

When considering the Greif model:

Shock and denial: Nokia’s employees were surprised and shocked at the initial announcement. They were not give prior notice or communication.

Anger: employees protested against the change and they were cross with the company’s abrupt changes (Lam, 2013). 

Bargaining: employees were negotiating terms with the management.

Depression: the management of Nokia was stubborn and they did not pay much attention to the needs of the employees. This lead to distress.

Acceptance: employees were coming to terms and even the consumers started to adopt new products. However this did not last long.

Conclusion

Nokia was a market leader and they did not understand the underlying threat available. Employee needs were not heard and the change management process was not smooth. This lead to poor implementation of change and they had to eventually lose their status.

References:

• Armstrong, M., 2006. Strategic human resource management. 
• General Motors and Nokia. International Journal of Research in Management, Economics and Commerce, 7(1), pp.16-25.
• Häikiö, M., 2002. Nokia-the inside story.
• Khan, S.T., Raza, S.S. and George, S., 2017. Resistance to Change in Organizations: A Case of
• Lam, A.H., 2013. Change management at Nokia. Warwick University Master of Science Programme and Project Management Study.