These are the same old sayings, change is the only constant in life. This could be twice truer in business. From new competitors to evolving business conditions to supply chain disruption, and some new technology that will leave the competitor behind, there is always something relative to maturing businesses.
Although change is supposedly hard, breaking old habits, developing new methods, realizing that change is necessary, and also often just realising the need for change may encounter resistance. Approximately one third of the changes initiated within the organisation currently succeed.
What is the change management process?
Change management planning involves creating the systems, frameworks, or methods an enterprise sets up to design, build, implement, and manage change efforts. It might include small changes, gradual changes, or even large-scale transformational business changes concerning aspects like organisational culture, internal workflows, core product and service engineering, or even changes to communication processes.
Change management is the whole process of supporting organisational change from planning through implementation and all the way to solidifying the actual change in the organisation. It relates to how organisations introduce changes, like new technology, altered business processes, or changes in the company hierarchy. This particular process may also vary for different types of changes that you will be undertaking.
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Advantages of employing change management process for organizations
Organisations are implementing change management processes as they provide the best guideline through difficult changes, so here are some of the benefits that change management should articulate:
The main concern is minimizing disruptions: Organisations can expect and plan for likely disruptions that may arise during a change through a systemic approach to change so even the resistance is mitigated, downtime is minimised, and productive workflow is ensured throughout the transformation process.Encourage acceptance: By using an open and consistent communication framework, such an effective process will significantly increase buy-in through proactively making clear why the changes occurred, addressing pertinent concerns, and involving employees in key decision making.Enhances performance: When change is poorly managed, productive workflow becomes disrupted and morale damaged. With good change management, however, team performance and productivity usually remain similar or improve with the introduction of changes.Foster adaptability: Change management provides shape to what might otherwise feel like an unformed process. Thus, they understand the benefits of change and how effective change takes place, with the possibility that they might be more inclined to embrace new processes and technologies in the future.Improving competitiveness: Change management allows for a transformation process being systemized into an agile organisation that responds quickly. So, organisations can adapt quickly, and in doing so, they gain this edge over another competitor.Creation of a Change Management Process
The change management process entails a formalised system with considerable flexibility that seeks to address the peculiar demands and dynamics of both individual employees and the organisation as a whole. Successful change entails altering not only processes and systems but also the minds of the very people involved in the change.
To develop your own change management process, here are some steps you might find useful:
1. Diagnosing the need for change
You probably begin with convincing all involved that change is necessary.
Start by identifying and defining the challenge confronting the organisation. Attempt to be as specific as possible. In doing this, not only list the specific reasons that call for change (for instance: drop in revenue, market shift, etc.), but also look at how different parts of the organization will be affected by that change. Present the picture of what will happen if the change does not take place to the organization as an entirety versus what things will look like if it does.
Your ultimate aim should be to make factual, verifiable arguments for all leaders as well as all employees that organisational change is paramount for the organization's ongoing success.
2. Setting Goals and Objectives
Once the need for change has been established throughout the organisation, you should identify exactly how much change should occur. That is, what needs to happen for the change management process to finish?
Try to make this step as participatory as possible. Work with leadership to co create high level goals that will inform and support the organisation’s mission; then engage individual teams and stakeholders to brainstorm goals, objectives, and other milestones that would get us there. Encourage participation by inviting employees to discussions and feedback sessions, then asking for their input. With this, you are building ownership and reducing resistance: the greater their influence in decision making, the greater opportunity they will have to feel a sense of ownership in the process.
3. Define the organisational structure and roles
Dissolution of organised role aspects does not eliminate such changes in organisations models. But keen attention to such aspects might prevent confusion and bickering on its proper management. This ambiguity can, however, be removed if the picture of how the various elements of the organisation will work once an implementation of the change management plan is in place is proactively drawn.
You should look at this from the structural aspects, such as teams and departments, but you should also consider other, more specific areas, such as individual roles and relationships. For example, be explicit on how different teams and other groups of employees will work together: redefine what their new roles will be, how they will overlap and support each other. For individuals, articulate new responsibilities, levels in the hierarchy, and what their reporting structure will now look like. Such simplification will ultimately make it easy for everyone to understand exactly what he or she should be doing, and how to ask if not sure.
4. Training & Development
None expect organisational change to be much overnight; hence developing a lot of thought into the manner by which all employees will be trained to acquire new skills in readapting to the change will be of utmost importance.
With goals and objectives for the change management plan already set and clarification made on roles assigned for this change, this should be relatively easy. Assign managers and any other leaders or experts for building up a training program to disseminate this vital information. Get them to provide employees with as much detail as possible on the happenings so that every question, concern, or misunderstanding can be clarified before the changes take place. Work with management regarding the strategy for ongoing support, which may involve help desks or even individual mentoring. No one will be left out in the process.
Change Programme Planning and Implementation
One may think of breaking up the above steps into three separate phases while actually planning out every aspect of the change management process up to the level of execution implementation. It keeps one organised and not too overwhelmed and so keeps one heading to achieve prioritised results.
Stage one should be the planning and preparation period, in which everything must align to the type and level of change, including objectives set and how the typical roles and structures change within an organization, as well as any stakeholder buy-in.
Stage two is for the implementation and management of change, including activities like training and preparation immediately before execution, ongoing efforts to advance the plan, track and measure performance, identify challenges, and so forth. To ensure good progress overall, it is important to keep a close eye on the KPIs and other metrics identified, as well as hold teams and individuals accountable for their given responsibilities. Consider leveraging project management tools or other technological means to have clear, detailed insights into the performance of the organisation.
This third stage concentrates on iteration and improvement, management of successes, and finally transferring ownership of the new changes into the wider organisation. The major challenge at this stage is not just making sure the greatest changes have been effectively adopted; it will also ensure that the changes remain effective in the long run. Any goal set during the very first stage should ultimately be met during this stage, along with measurable and consistent improvement on performance.