When an organization decides to make
While it's no secret which is the best approach, an effective change management strategy can streamline a company's transition from "the current state to the future state," says April Callis-Birchmeier, a change management expert and CEO of Springboard Consulting. Her firm helps organizations
"It's an assessment of how this is going to impact others, and how we need to teach [and] develop people to be able to do their jobs in the changed environment," she says.
Read more:
With all the turbulence in today's work world, from staff restructuring to AI adoption, there is no better time for employers to consider how to make any upcoming adjustments smooth, rather than a scramble. Establishing a change management practice can help avoid the employee frustration and stress that stems from a lack of information and involvement, says Callis-Birchmeier.
"Many times, we create our own problems [in our] workplace culture by not talking about sharing, training and engaging with our stakeholders through change," she says. "A lot of leaders at organizations are afraid to communicate because they want everything to be perfect. But if you hold the communication until it's perfect, you'll never get it."
Callis-Birchmeier's framework for change initiatives begins with giving employees a relevant way to understand what they change is, and how it will lead to improvement. While working to help the University of Michigan put their first ERP (software that helps employers manage their business's core processes) in place, she discovered that, especially when introducing something employees have never heard of, the best way to get them engaged is to give them a relatable connection.
"I ended up talking with the unit liaisons, who were our change agent network, about running errands with my children," she says. "I would have to go to multiple stores and take them in and out of the car seats, and that's what they were doing at work: going to multiple departments and trying to find data. And what I found was, if I took my kids to a one-stop-shop like a superstore, we got everything we needed in one trip. When I compared our ERP to [that], everybody got excited, they understood the change and they got on board."
Read more:
But putting change into effect is only a portion of the process. Callis-Birchmeier spoke with EBN about some of the major things employers need to keep in mind — and actionable examples — that lead to the successful adoption of any change.
Why do companies need to be thinking about ways to support their employees both during and after a change has been made?
The goal is not to make a change — the goal is to sustain the change, and when we don't put any time or effort into sustaining people through support activities and opportunities after that change, and we're not checking in with them or having any type of feedback loop for them to reach out and ask for help, then we can't sustain it.
If you've ever been through a change that was reversed, it's really, really painful, because everybody's spent so much time, but we can't get to adoption. And part of the reason that adoption is failing is that we're not sustaining the effort to help people through that change.
What are some examples of ways employers sustain change successfully?
The very basic thing that you can do is ensure your help desk is well trained.
For one project I worked on, we met with any of the employees who were really struggling or just had questions. We would have people sit in the conference room and log into their system on their laptop, and trainers would answer any questions they had and watch them go through the process and assist them in ensuring that they were doing everything correctly. The employees really appreciated that level of effort.
A lot of times, I'll use the sponsors in creative ways. [For another] company, I ended up doing a series of four-minute videos with the senior VP of HR and the VP of HR, just chatting together about the change informally. Then once a quarter we would do a live session. So employees were getting these videos every other week of the two of them talking, then the two of them would show up on a live zoom session, and they would chat with people. It was a big help in sustaining the change.
There should always be a website dedicated to an organizational change of some type, with a FAQ [section] that's consistently updated. And we should have a live chat available so that questions can be answered very quickly. Now it's so simple with AI — you can upload your entire FAQ into a chat bot, your chat bot can assist, and if they can't assist, they take it up a level to a help desk specialist in that area.
Read more:
Why is a multi-tiered support strategy so important?
Part of organizational change is recognition that both individuals have to change their mind set and their skill set in order for the organization to successfully adapt. You can't separate the two, and it's important to have various modes of access for support, because everybody prefers things in a different way. Some people are really happy to go to a chat bot and find an answer, or go to a website to find an answer. Other people really learn by talking with others. Sometimes I find even having a coffee chat about our change on a weekly basis. [Employees] are invited, and you sit and ask them questions [about how the change is going].
