EMPLOYEE STRESS MANAGEMENT DURING ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE - A Case Study of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS)

In the current global scenario, organizations are being faced with consistent change. These changes vary in terms of demographics, nature of activity, industry, etc. Changes in an organization has very strong effects on various stakeholders of an organization, including employees, customers, competitors, investors, etc Some changes are successful and tend to be beneficial for the organization while others become unsuccessful. To ensure better performance and competitiveness of an organization, it is essential for managers to plan changes. But realistically, most drastic changes are those that are emergent and, managers also need to be well prepared to deal with emergent factors. To enhance productivity, managers at all levels should be able to cope with change and help their subordinates in doing the same. Lack of ability to handle change may result in stress on the employees as well as the managers and that in turn leads to lower productivity and affects the bottom line of the company. This study examines the change management process of ABN AMRO to Royal Bank of Scotland and analyzes the impact of organizational change on employee stress level. For this purpose, quantitative research was conducted using hypothesis testing and qualitative research was conducted through in-depth interviews and questionnaire. The findings of the survey revealed that majority of the employees rated the management ability below average in implementing the change successfully. None of the employees reported high stress before the change. However, few employees were highly stressed out after the acquisition by RBS. The hypothesis test proves that employee stress after change is dependent on employment tenure. This means that employees who worked in bank for many years faced higher level of stress after the acquisition of ABN AMRO by RBS as compared to those employees who have served the bank for few years.