CHANGE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES AND EMPLOYEE AND ADAPTABILITY AMONG CITY MUNICIPAL LINKS OF THE PANTAWID PAMILYANG PILIPINO PROGRAM IN EASTERN SAMAR

Government social protection programs operate in changing policy, technological, and administrative environments that require frontline personnel to adjust continually to evolving work demands. Although change management and employee adaptability are well established in organizational research, limited empirical evidence has examined their relationship among frontline personnel implementing government social protection programs. This study examined Perceived Change Management Practices and Employee Adaptability among City/Municipal Links of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program in Eastern Samar, Philippines. A quantitative descriptive-correlational design was employed. All 126 eligible City/Municipal Links were invited through total enumeration, of whom 74 completed the survey, yielding a 58.73% response rate. Data were collected using a researcher-developed questionnaire that underwent expert validation and pilot testing and were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Spearman's rank-order correlation. Perceived Change Management Practices were generally rated as Practiced (M = 4.02, SD = 0.53), whereas Employee Adaptability was rated as Highly Adaptable (M = 4.39, SD = 0.42). Overall Perceived Change Management Practices had a moderate positive and statistically significant relationship with overall Employee Adaptability (ρ = .510, p < .001). All five change-management dimensions were also significantly and positively associated with Employee Adaptability, with correlations ranging from ρ = .462 to .507 (all p < .001). Training and Capacity-Building showed the strongest numerical association, followed by Resource Support, Employee Participation, Leadership Support, and Change Communication. The findings indicate that favorable perceptions of organizational practices surrounding change tend to accompany higher reported adaptability, underscoring the value of considering both organizational support and employees' adaptive capacity when managing changes affecting frontline social protection implementation.