Change as the New Normal

Change as the New Normal

Takeaways

“Change before you have to.” Jack Welch

Change as the New Normal

What it Means

The ultimate test of a change initiative is to see if the new systems or behaviors it ushered in become entrenched in the operations and procedures of the organization. Effective change agents leave their legacy when the improvements remain intact or continue to evolve long after the project or initiative was launched.

Why it Matters

·         The vision of the future was created to make the organization in some way better. Experiencing failure at the end of the process results in minimum waste of the human resources, funds and time that were spent on the initiative.

·         In today’s environment, there is not much time to focus on maintaining a change once the initiative is complete. If the new behaviors aren’t embedded into the organization’s workflow, systems, HR practices, and structure, the likelihood of sustained change diminishes.

·         Being the change leader of a successful initiative brings positive visibility and opportunities to share your best practices.

“Change takes time, change takes commitment, change buy-in from lots of people for meaningful and lasting success.” Jack Welch

Action Plan

Change as the New Normal

Here I’ll cover how to put the final pieces in place to transition from an initiative into the new norm. There are four areas that must be managed to ensure long term, sustainable change. If you successfully work through these areas, the desired behaviors will become the new habits of associates and your initiative will survive after the change team has completed their work:

·         Human Resources in the areas of hiring, training and performance evaluation

·         Organizational design in creating the structure to support new processes

·         Workflow in optimizing processes across the organization

·         IT systems in automating non-value added and reinforcing new behaviors

Your Starting Point

1.       What are the job descriptions that will need to be revised or created to define expected new associate behaviors?

2.       What processes have been (or need to be) redesigned to facilitate the change and who needs to be trained on these processes?

3.       Is a re-organization required to support the new normal?

4.       When you finish, who will own the sustained change?

Quick Wins for Managing Change

The following three simple actions can help solidify the new normal and help others learn from the experience.

1.       Have an event to punctuate the start of the new way. For example, if a business has gone paperless, have a clean-up day to dispose of, or scan, the remaining paper in the office.

2.       Do a post-project evaluation with the team to identify:

·         Best practices – What worked well

·         Lessons learned – What could have been improved upon

·         Next steps – What was uncovered that may require future effort or spin off projects

3.       Celebrate to show appreciation for the effort of the team and associates that made the change happen.

The People Equation

Finding a partner in Human Resources is critical in supporting all aspects of people management. This includes hiring, training, rewarding and promoting.

·         It may be necessary to hire people with new skills. Updating hiring criteria, including job descriptions, ensures that new associates are selected for the skills and behaviors that will be needed for the future, not the past.

·         Training existing associates is a necessary step to make change the new normal. Consider both what they will now need to do differently and what they need to know that wasn’t required previously.

·         Rewards and celebrations can be large or small, but they should be a part of your human capital plan. Retaining your talent is important, and retention increases with associates who feel appreciated for their work.

Deliver your message by “walking the walk.” If adopting the desired behavers is truly important, then show it by rewarding those who engage with opportunities, promotions and other incentives. Your best employees will catch on quickly and will find ways to adopt and enhance the new normal.

Action Plan

The Org Chart

New skills and redesigned processes require a fresh look at your organization’s structure. As you consider the changes being implemented, you have one question to discuss with HR and your team: “What is the best way to organize associates and groups to support the new processes?”

·         Streamlining process often redefines the lines of management. If the organization didn’t previously exist, define the natural lines of responsibility and ownership. Consider if physical moves are required and if remote offices are realistic.

·         Are Centers of Excellence the best approach for associates who deliver similar services and share the same skill sets and goals, such as Finance, Payroll, Accounting and Procurement? By joining forces, they are able to more efficiently and consistently serve their internal or external customers.

·         Is the flexibility of a matrix organization, virtual organization or flat organization the structure for the new normal?

·         Sometimes, there is nothing that needs to be done organizationally and that’s okay. Reorganizing creates a temporary disruption and should only be done when the value outweighs the cost.

Design organizations to best meet the customer’s needs, optimize processes and to highlight the new behaviors of the associate. It rarely works to design around a particular manager. If a manager will not fit in the new organization because of their skills or attitude, now is the time to face the facts and move them into a more appropriate role or determine a respectful exit strategy.

Workflow

In today’s world, where people move frequently, it’s important to ensure that your workflows are not disrupted or knowledge lost as associates change roles. Sustainable processes with training and documentation safeguard the institutional knowledge.

All organizations need established workflows, also called process flows. Building a change initiative into a new workflow enables you to make change last. And this is a place that fits the saying, “start slow to finish fast.” Every associate engaged in the process should have training or clear instructions that detail the exact steps and behaviors they should follow. If needed, a testing phase with practice and coaching can be added before the new workflow goes live.

As you implement your change initiative, strive to make the new workflow as easy and intuitive as possible. Focus Groups composed of spokespersons from different areas doing the work can help perfect workflows that meet everyone’s key needs. Getting associates’ assistance in testing the workflow also facilitates identification of issues and gaps quickly. The more the new workflow is accepted by everyone involved, the easier it is to make long term, sustainable change.

Finally, check your workflow by walking the process backwards from the customer’s perspective and into your organization to the starting point. You may find additional opportunities for change that will enable you to eliminate unnecessary steps, address weak spots and ultimately improve the customer experience.