ORGANIZATION OF STUDY Siddhartha Bank Limited (SBL) commenced its operations in 2002.

The Bank is promoted by a group of highly reputed Nepalese dignitaries having wide commercial experience. SBL provides various commercial banking services in Nepal including corporate banking services, trade finance services and personal and retail banking services. Further, the company provides Internet banking, cash management, any branch banking services (ABBS) as well as debit/ATM cards, utility payments, and safe deposit locker services. Vision: SBL's vision is to be financially sound, operationally efficient and keep abreast with technological developments. The Bank firmly believes customer focus is a core value, shareholder prosperity is a prime priority, employee growth is a commitment and economic welfare is a sincere concern. Mission: The Bank wants to be a leader among the banks of its age in Nepal by fulfilling the interest of the stakeholders and also aims to provide total customer satisfaction by way of offering innovative product and by developing and retaining highly motivated and committed staff. The bank has a policy that clearly states that it can transfer any employees to any branches within Nepal, if felt necessary, and the allowance, incentives and facilities will be as per the banks rule.

PHENOMENON The phenomenon which will be study in this force field analysis is the high incidence of employee reluctance to work in rural areas. It is the major reason behind the underdevelopment of economy n the rural areas due to the absence of competent working forces despite the presence of infrastructures. CHANGE GOAL This force field analysis relating to the employees high reluctance to work in rural areas will focus on the change goal which is developing willingness to work in rural areas. This change goal is the primary and the best solution to the stated phenomenon. IDENTIFICATION OF PUSHING AND PULLING FORCES In order to identify the pushing and pulling forces, the Siddhartha Bank Ltd was selected for the study. The staff of the bank was interviewed to identify forces behind the high reluctance to work in remote areas. With his co-operation and suggestions, the restraining and driving forces for the change willingness to work in rural areas were identified as shown in the figure 1.

The forces for change or driving forces were identified as follows: 1. Extra incentives (Outstation allowance) Employees get attracted to the added incentives they can get when they move to rural areas. Outstation allowances, remote area allowances (salary gets doubled) plus additional facilities including quarters drives employees preference to work in rural areas. 2. Career Development In some organizations, it is mandatory for employees to work on rural areas for some years as per the job requirement. Some organization like police and army administrations or government hospitals even employ a promotion policy which allows promotion only after an employee works in rural areas for years as specified. In order to get the desired promotion for their career development, employees get drive to work in rural areas. 3. Familiarity with a local environment People always prefer familiar work environment or social environment to hostile or new ones because of adjustment and adaptation issues. Comfort comes with the familiarity with a local environment. People prefer to work in the place which is familiar and dear to them. They feel the sense of belongingness and sense of respect for these places which is the reason why educated and skilled people from rural areas are driven to work in rural areas. 4. Experience and Exposure The experience you get in rural areas is completely different than that of cities. You are exposed to a totally new work environment where you can learn a lot. Also many people believe -Travelling is one of the greatest forms of learning. Hence, people are themselves willing to move to rural areas, sometimes in the east and sometimes in the west, sometimes in the hills and sometimes Terai. 5. Low cost of living (leading to savings) Life in cities is costly. In rural areas, the accommodation and foods is cheaper (excluding a few remotest ones.) So, if you have family responsibilities and need some savings you prefer to go to the place where you can earn a more by spending less. Figure 1: Driving and Restraining forces for willingness to work n rural areas Forces Against Change Forces For Change Extra Incentives Career Development Opportunities Familiarity with local environment Experience and Exposure Low Cost of Living Change Proposal: Willingness to Work in Rural Areas Luxuries of Living and availability of facilities Lesser opportunities to learn outside Unfamiliarity with new culture Climatic Conditions Family Responsibilities

The forces against change or restraining forces were identified as follows: 1. Luxuries Employees are not ready to get out of their comfort zones. Shifting to rural areas needs commitment and compromises. They need to compromise with the better standard of living, better life and better opportunities of the cities. There will be absence of malls, theatres and restaurants and health and education facilities. People who are used to the luxury of urban areas will find it impossible to imagine their life without it in rural areas. 2. Unfamiliarity with new culture Inability to adapt to new culture or deal with cultural shock restrains an employee from going to places where cultures newer to her exists. Culture can be related to the local or work. Employees find it difficult to work in an environment that has a different culture. Example: Brahmins from Parbat might not be able to work with the Sherpa community culture of Solukhumbu, or people from Madhes might be unable to adjust in the work culture of hills. 3. Climatic Conditions Unfavorable climatic condition could be another reason why employees dont want to work in rural areas. Example An employee from Birgunj might be unable to work on negative degree Celsius of Jomsom or an employee from Kathmandu may not be able to tolerate 43 degree heat of Nepalgunj. There are several health related issues that demands suitable climatic conditions for employees. 4. Family pressures If you are single, you are not entangled much by family issues but if you have a family to look after, you have to manage work and family. Working in rural areas away from your family poses dire straits where one can either chose to stay with you family or go to rural areas. If one chooses to go to rural areas, he or she has to juggle the time between family visits and works which are tiring. You can either go with your entire family or you remain separated for some period of time, both of these decisions are hard to take. This acts as a restraining force in willingness to work in rural areas.

FORCE FIELD ANALYSIS OF FORCES Figure 2: Scaling each force out of five

Forces Change

For Score 5 4 Change Proposal: Willingness to Work in Rural Areas

Forces Change

Against Score 5

Extra Incentives Career Development Opportunities Familiarity with local environment Experience and Exposure Low Cost of Living Total

2 1 14

Luxuries of Living and availability of facilities Unfamiliarity with new culture Climatic Conditions Family Responsibilities Total

2 3 4 14

Forces for change are also known as driving or pushing forces and the forces against the change are also known as restraining forces. Each force is scored out of five based on their intensity and strength as given in figure 2 where one represents the weakest force and five represents the strongest force. Reasons for scoring each force based on their importance and intensity as a forces are as follows: Forces against Change 1. Luxuries (5) It is scored five out of five because people always demand luxury of living they are used to. Habits die hard which is why people often find it hard to give up their luxuries just to work in rural areas. Lack of proper health and education facilities restrain employees to go to urban areas. This is the strongest force against the change proposal. 2. Difficulty in working on cross-cultural environment (2) Working in new culture can be very difficult. Humans tend to be hostile to foreign culture and practices which is why it is scored two out of five. 3. Climatic Conditions (3) It is scored three out of five because it is the force which can be very strong in the absence of motivation like extra incentives and career growth but which can be eliminated with the help of right source of motivation. 4. Family responsibilities (4) Nepali culture still values the family being together and forever which is why people do anything to be with the family which is why it is scored four out of five.

Forces for Change 1. Extra incentives (Outstation allowance) (5) It is scored high because people value incentives. People can justify the hardship of rural areas with the right kind of incentives. It can easily drive people to work in rural areas. It is a strong force for change. 2. Career Development (4) It is scored four because career oriented people are large in number and career development opportunities can certainly gives them a reason to go to rural areas. 3. Familiarity with local environment (2) Knowing a place very well can drive a comfort-seeking people to go to that place where adaptation and adjustment are easy issues. However, it cant sufficiently drive people for rural works like money and career opportunities does. 4. Experience and Exposure (2) It is ranked three out of five because opportunity to travel and learn can drive people to rural areas. Rural areas reveal many facts about economy of the country. 5. Low cost of living (leading to savings) (1) A low cost of living attracts people but at the same time, absence of basic necessities can drive people out of rural areas. It is one out of five because in the absence of growth and development of urban areas, the low cost of living fails to persuade people to work in rural areas. From the overall force field analysis, we have come to the conclusion that for the change of willingness to work in rural areas, the forces against the change scores higher (14) than the forces for change (14). There is a need to unfreeze, moving and refreeze forces to implement changes. IDENTIFYING FREEZING, MOVING AND UNFREEZING STAGES Certain behavior is due to two forces i.e. Pushing forces and Restraining forces in equilibrium. To bring about change in status quo we need to break the equilibrium. Lewin has suggested that change happens in three steps viz. Unfreezing, Moving and Refreezing. Four forces are identified on which change efforts will be made in three steps to meet the goal of change. y y y y Familiarity with local environment (Pushing Force, 2) Experience and exposure(Pushing Force, 2) Family responsibilities (Restraining Force, 4) Climatic Condition(Restraining Force, 3)

Following Steps will be taken to bring in change in the status quo. UNFREEZING Unfreezing is the first of Lewin's change transition stages, where people are taken from a state of being unready to change to being ready and willing to make the first step. Following are the ways to make it happen:

a. Creating Crisis: Creating (controlled) crisis is necessary to prepare the organization to accept that change is necessary. It is necessary to develop a message to show why existing things of doing things cannot work. Employees need to inform the rules and regulation of the government that branches in cities can not be opened without opening baranches in rural area. So employees need to go to rural branches to help organization expand. b. Shaking people of their comfort zone: People need to be taken out of their comfort zone. It is needed to convey to employees that present attitude towards rural area is not acceptable. For their growth and development they must serve the rural branches as well. c. Challenge: Organization can inspire its employees to achieve remarkable things. Working in new area can be challenging. Organization can put challenge to work in new environment. Organization can make arrangement to give employees more responsibilities and authority that choose to work in rural areas. d. Education: It is necessary for the company to teach its employee the need for change. Company need to make its employees that working in rural area is an opportunity to learn. It is also necessary to convey to its employees that in this competing market rural branches can help a lot to grow the organization as rural areas are untapped market and the organization needs to tap those markets. Employees serving such market will get better experience and can apply their creativity. e. Restructuring: The organization may need to restructure to force change. The organization can have mandatory for the employees to serve in the rural area to get placement in urban branches. Strategy: A mixture of Power-Coercive strategy and normative reeducative strategy will help to bring in change in the status quo. The organization need to make some rules regarding rural placement and at the same time making people themselves realize that why rural branches are necessary for the organization, organization can change the current belief, value and behavior. MOVING Once we have unfreeze the people, the next question is how you keep them going. The second step in organizational change is moving them towards new goal. Time and communication are the two keys to success for the changes to occur. People need time to understand the changes and they also need to feel highly connected to the organization throughout the transition period. Following are the ways to happen: a. Challenge: When employees are given big challenges they accept it as their opportunity to develop. Employees working in rural areas can be given one post higher that present post in cities with higher work responisibitlities and power. New challenge will motivate them to work in new environment. b. Coach: Employees can be provided psychological support to work in rural areas. c. Command: Sometimes employees need to be told what to do. It can be mandatory for employees to work in rural areas. Employees need to be commanded to behave in a particular manner.

d. Facilitation: Employees working in rural areas can be provided with higher facilities. Higher pays, incentives and benefits can be arranged to motivate employees to work in rural areas. Other intangible benefits can also be arranged for employees working in rural areas. Strategy: A mixture of Power-Coercive strategy and Empirical Rational strategy can help the organization to move towards the change. At some point, organization will command its employee to work in rural areas and at the same time it will help employees to see the benefits they will get if participate in change. REFREEZING Refreezing is the third of Lewin's change transition stages, where people are taken from a state of being in transition and moved to a stable and productive state. Following are the ways to happen: a. Golden Handcuffs: Employees working in rural areas for certain period of time can have better facilities and more promotional opportunities. They may get first preference on various matters. b. Institutionalization: The change should be build into formal system and structure. Employees should get motivated and voluntarily come forward to serve in the rural areas. c. Reward alignment: Working in rural area can be attached with awards. Higher reward system can be arranged to make rural placement attractive. Strategy: Empirical-Rational strategy will help the organization to refreeze the new behavior and institutionalize the change goal in the organizational culture. These approaches can help to unfreeze the present behavior of the employees, move towards desired goal and refreeze the goal. Pre-information about the place the employees are being sent and increase their familiarity with the new environment. This will move the pushing force from 2 to 4 thus increasing two points in forces for change. Few people love travelling and for such people exposure and experience can be a motivating reason to move to rural areas. This will increase the pushing force from 2 to 4. Selecting similar employees who are from or able to work in the condition similar to the offered rural climatic condition will help to reduce the restraining due to climatic condition. This can decrease thethis restraining force form 3 to one. Sharing some of the family responsibilities of the employee like arrangement of good school for employees child can decrease the restraining force from 4 to 2. In this way these change will swing the balance from 14: 14 (against plan) to 10: 18 (in favor of the plan). Thus by recognizing these three distinct stages of change, we can plan to implement the change required. we start by creating the motivation to change (unfreeze). We then move through the change process by promoting effective communications and empowering people to embrace new ways of working (change). And the process ends when we return the organization to a sense of stability (refreeze), which is so necessary for creating the confidence from which to embark on the next, inevitable change.