CIICPD 2023

3.1.2 Status Quo Bias Although change is key to progress, resistance to change seems to be a typical human trait as change requires a willingness to step out of one’s comfort zone. To succeed in business, however, change is key to the environment of growing competition. It is even more important for corporations characterised by a great diversity of their human resources, management and processes, as an adjustment to differences and adoption of novelties is one of the prerequisites for their functioning. Yet, managers responsible for progress face status quo attitudes not only of their employees but frequently their own. Unsurprisingly, it was found that status quo bias represents the second most frequently perceived prejudice in the data and predominated the discussions as well. The participants shared rich experience with resistance to change in their practices, using varied expressions to describe the attitude of their employees or colleagues. Most frequently, the managers mentioned a tendency of their people to stick to the “well established processes” and refuse a change based on the arguments their routines have been “ functional” and therefore “the best” . Some of the situations discussed during the training even showed that resisting change sometimes assumed resisting progress. The tendency to oppose novelty, even in situations when innovation would improve the employee working conditions, is evident from the following extract: They in fact built a new hall. For almost 25 years, we used to be in one place. Then we moved into a totally different place, into a new building that simply was on a very high level, built on a top level and the people who moved there, who used to spend 25 years in the same spot, simply about half of them did not accept it. They do not want to accept it even if it is much better, nicer, cleaner, and so on. They simply did not accept it. The discussion among managers highlighted varied situations that helped to identify several factors that were causes of people’s reluctance to change. First, and typical of the current times, was digitalisation. A few of the managers pointed out the speed at which new technology “sweeps over” them, for example, “varied systems and software” that have been developed and implemented in companies caused great difficulties and confusion for their employees, especially, but not exclusively, as others agreed, for people in a higher age. Some managers mentioned the Covid-19 pandemic was not ideal for implementing changes either. In time of crises that “limited access to resources”, people were tired of problems requiring too many changes in their everyday routines in other areas of their lives and “naturally” tended to seek stability at least at work. Sometimes, getting a new manager means a change of well-set routines, as recalled by one of the managers who dealt with great resistance from her new team when replacing the previous supervisor after 15 years. Last but not least, a few of the participants expressed their understanding for their people who, in their own words, “had no interest to change things” , “are settled in routine work” , or are “slaves to routines” , pointing out that change, of course, brings them stress or more work. In a few cases, the respondents again talked about sociocultural aspects between the local communities and Germany, the country of origin for many of the managers

90