The business world is constantly changing so it only seems logical that organizations (and individuals) will need to change with it. Human resources departments play a key role in helping organizations change, whether those changes are small or large-scale. HR also has a role when the changes are wanted (or not).
Change is necessary…and it’s hard. One of the things that HR departments can do to help organizations manage change is embrace and implement a change model. The purpose of doing so is so employees at every level of the organization have a proven tool and can use it at any time. The change model can be introduced during onboarding. It can be reinforced during training sessions. Managers can encourage employees to use it for individual goals.
Organizations should identify a proven change model.
If the organization currently has a change model in place that works, great! If not, a common change model is Kotter’s 8-Step Model for Leading Change. This model was introduced by John Kotter Ph.D., Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership, Emeritus, at the Harvard Business School. He is the author of “Leading Change.” Here are the eight steps in Kotter’s change model and how HR departments can use them to help the organization manage change.
Step one: Create a sense of urgency
When organizations are planning a change, they need the organization to focus and prioritize that change. That often starts with a clear communication plan.
The change communication plan should provide information about the change initiative. It will include regular updates about changes, timelines, and the impact on employees. Providing regular communications reduces uncertainty and resistance.
Step two: Build a Guiding Coalition
Sometimes when the organization is considering a change, the entire leadership team isn’t involved. That’s not a criticism; it’s just reality. Sometimes changes are decided by smaller groups.
But once the change is decided, it’s imperative to get the leadership and management team involved early to ensure they are aligned and willing advocates for the change.
Step three: Form a strategic vision
Speaking of the leadership and management teams, they need to understand why the change is happening and how it aligns with the company’s strategic goals. They also need to be able to clearly articulate it.
Companies often have all-employee meetings to announce large-scale changes. But sometimes, employees will ask questions of their manager in a one-on-one setting. Managers should be able to speak to the change in casual, conversational terms.
Step four: Enlist a volunteer army
While having the leadership and management team on board is imperative, it’s equally important to have employee buy-in. Sometimes employees can derail a change effort because they don’t understand it, or they’re upset that they weren’t involved.
Realistically speaking, the entire organization cannot be involved in every change. But that doesn’t mean the company shouldn’t get feedback. HR departments and managers will want to regularly gather employee feedback to address concerns and adjust plans if necessary.
Step five: Enable action by removing barriers
When organizations implement a change, they often identify metrics or measures that will be a result of the change. Examples could be changes in key performance indicators (KPIs) such as employee productivity, morale, and retention.
As organizations are going through their change effort, they will want to regularly monitor the numbers and adjust accordingly.
Step six: Generate short-term wins
Change efforts – especially ones that involve a lot of resources or take a long time – can weigh on an organization and its culture. Don’t discount the value of celebrating micro victories.
To maintain momentum for the change, organizations should publicly celebrate small wins and successes during the process. While we don’t like talking about setbacks, celebrating the small wins can make handling the setbacks a little easier to manage.
Step seven: Sustain acceleration
Organizations (and individuals) have to remember that change is constant. So, when we’re talking about change, we have to think about the next change as well. HR departments should provide training on new tools, processes, or skills needed for the change. The organization can also ensure continued learning through internal workshops, webinars, and/or mentoring.
Step eight: Institute change
Once the organization feels that the change has been implemented, hold post-change discussions to reflect on what went well and what could be improved for future changes. Think of this like a debrief.
- What did we do well? It’s guaranteed that the organization did things well during the change effort. Don’t forget to document them for future reference.
- What could we do differently next time? Please note: This isn’t about something being bad or wrong. It’s possible that the change process went well but there might be different things that the organization would like to try next time.
Change in action
Let’s apply these eight change management steps to a business scenario. The CEO of an organization realizes that they have a problem with customer service. The CEO has heard about frustrations from a couple of long-term customers and knows that if they don’t address their concerns, they might lose them. That would hurt the bottom-line and possibly cause layoffs, which the CEO doesn’t want to do.
The CEO meets with HR to explain the situation. The CEO wants to conduct company-wide customer service training and give employees empowerment tools to handle customer concerns faster. HR suggests putting together a communications strategy to address the change (step one) and having a meeting with the entire leadership team (step two) to discuss changes.
When the CEO meets with the leadership team, they express concerns about employee empowerment - “What if they give away all our profits?!” The CEO explains that the leadership team must trust that employees will do the right thing and that reducing the amount of time a customer is frustrated will be good for the company (step three).
The company conducts an all-employee meeting to discuss the upcoming training sessions. HR recommends having a small group of employees pilot the training so they can offer suggestions before the official program launch (step four). The customer service training program is launched. Training evaluations are good, but HR realizes that the sessions could be better with co-facilitators (i.e., one person from HR and the other from operations) (step five).
The organization’s goal was to have all employees complete training over a six-month time frame. HR was happy to report that the training was completed over five -months (step six). Moving forward, HR has proposed that all managers receive formal “train the trainer” training so more co-facilitation can take place (step seven). The CEO and HR conduct focus group debrief meetings with managers and employees to document their feedback for future reference (step eight). The CEO follows up with the long-term customers to see if they have noticed a change in customer service and they were pleased.
HR has an important role in change management.
Whether you’re a generalist or specialist, human resources professionals play an important role in advising and guiding the organization through a change process. Finding a change model – like Kotter’s 8-steps – can assist with guiding the process. But the time to introduce a change model isn’t when you need one.
Make managing change a normal part of business, then when the model is necessary, everyone is familiar with it.
