It is against human nature to be receptive to the disturbance caused by the process of change. Continuous progress entails constant change, and change forces people to confront their worries.
Changes in the workplace and life are produced by external events – such as recent global change caused by COVID-19, new corporate objectives, new technology, new processes and procedures, new leadership, and other changes in the functioning of businesses.
With the unsettling nature of change recognized worldwide, companies must ensure they have set processes and practices in place to mitigate and minimize disruptions. In this article, we help you with certain processes and tactics that can help you accomplish this.
- Building and Nurturing Relationships
Developing and maintaining relationships with internal and external stakeholders is critical to success. Trust is built via relationships among employees, consumers, and vendors which make a change and transition easier. Any individual that leads an organizational change needs to have a public persona and presence. When you build relationships, it involves a genuine interest in your colleague and a genuine comprehension of their concerns. The trust that you build allows individuals to be more open and honest about their worries and concerns. Eventually, it creates an environment in which people are more inclined to provide the type of data and feedback required to develop successful solutions for positive change or to establish a new normal and a better future.
- Watching and listening keenly
As part of the management, you are bound to be aware of the imminent changes. Therefore, whenever such a situation arises, it’s always a good idea, and takes time to observe and listen carefully to your personnel. Whether it’s a significant reorganization or an adjustment to established practice, or even the anticipation of future change, it can unnerve your employees and have a bad influence on the workplace. Employees may express their concerns openly to you, or they may manifest themselves through changes in their behavior or performance. This is especially true when change poses a danger to their familiar and stable habits. Take time to monitor and listen to your organization’s pulse, and then take steps to address any uneasiness that may be detected.
- Embracing change
To counter the inconvenience and grief caused by process innovation, changes must be viewed as a learning opportunity. Those who feel more productive and involved in the process of change are more likely to accept it. The management needs to remember that iteration is the only way to discover a path while it’s uncertain. Leaders of a business must present a vision and engage in issue-solving with their subordinates. Workers on the front lines must be given broad authority so that they can solve problems with little bureaucracy.
- Developing skills and refining the approach
Make time for your employees to develop new skills if you have the opportunity and the resources. Allow them to tackle change by gaining new qualifications or knowledge. Preparation and training can help them move more smoothly into new roles, as well as figure out how they can be of help to the company. While your vision of the future may not be able to predict what is around the corner, reviewing the steps above and putting them into action as soon as possible will help everyone cope better with change. Spending a little time on this as soon as possible will save you and the business a lot of time later.
- Putting in the effort
Changing one’s behavior does not happen simply by checking boxes. It occurs as a result of committed individuals devoting the necessary time and effort to dealing with workplace interruptions and transitions, as well as planning and putting in the necessary personal and organizational effort to ensure that change is effective. It takes effort to learn and demonstrate new habits that promote and encourage positive change, especially when you are personally touched, but it is well worth it in the long run. It is the role of business leaders to ensure that they lead by example and put in the effort they expect from the workforce.
- Assessing the available resources
After identifying signals of radical technologies, assess your team’s resources to determine how you can remain adaptable and satisfy consumer expectations. This enables you to determine which assets in your firm are adaptable to a new environment and which may need to be repurposed. Conduct a resource analysis to ensure that your business invests in the appropriate areas of its infrastructure.
- Express real concern to employees
Great employers know they can’t achieve their goals until their employees do their best. Employees look to managers for solutions during stressful times. They seek assistance when they are hesitant and powerless over organizational decisions. Begin by modeling transparency and honesty. Improve management-employee communication. Encourage open dialogue about what you know. Show you care about your people’s welfare by listening to their issues and helping them. This not only helps you handle any problems you directly impact but also them by allowing them to freely express their concerns.
- Fixing what you can in the short-term
This happens after hearing complaints and obtaining input and addressing the issues within your control. Frequently, insecurity arises among employees as a result of miscommunication or misunderstandings. If you uncover an easy way to alleviate your employees’ anxiety after listening to them, take the initiative to solve anything you can as quickly as possible. In times of uncertainty, a reassuring word or counsel from management can have a profoundly good effect on employees. If you discover that the challenges generated by the change are beyond your scope, avoid promising the staff things you cannot fulfill or have no business delivering.
- Be positive and look for an opportunity
Encourage your employees to take the initiative and look for answers, fresh ideas, or cost-cutting measures. Examine standard operating processes and policies and remodel them or propose alternatives with a focus on mitigating the damage caused by change. When times are uncertain, employees may feel as though their efforts are unappreciated by management. By encouraging them to take the initiative, you are assisting them in staying focused on what can or could be done, rather than on situations over which they have no control. Come up with innovative answers to the new issues caused by change as a group.
- Segmenting your messaging
Communication, both timely and accurate, is essential for successfully moving through transition and implementing change. It all comes down to the type of change that is taking place within your firm. However, in most circumstances, various messages must be communicated to different audience groups at different times. To get people to buy into change, you must tell them what they need to hear and how they need to hear it. To ensure that you can target messaging appropriately, you’ll want these audience groups divided from the start, as well as the requirements and concerns of these various audience groups defined. And you must give your people a voice, and that voice must be heard.
- Diversification of efforts
Having many ongoing initiatives that test new ideas is one of the best ways to keep up with disruptive change. If a disruptive shift affects one of your primary projects, you will have already conducted some research and development on potential alternative opportunities, making it easier to adjust. Although this is a preemptive measure to tackle organizational change, it is an effective one.
- Make yourself available and accessible
If you’re a change sponsor or champion, you should be comfortable being exposed and have an approachable demeanor. You can’t merely be a name or a ‘title’ on a company’s organizational structure. Organizations frequently make the mistake of assigning sponsors based solely on their function and title, rather than their personality or drive to lead change. The less visible you are as a sponsor, the less active you promote the change. And the less it appears you are genuinely concerned with issues and impacts raised by your people, the less likely stakeholders are to be comfortable with disruptions that require transition or to engage and commit to changes. Therefore, try and set a good example. The behavior that individuals observe is what they think is acceptable, and it is this behavior that they will either follow or not follow. You must be present on the ground. You must take an active part, demonstrate empathy, and be visible.
- Follow through
Following through is critical to success. Inadequate follow-through undermines trust, delivers a negative message, hinders the transformation process, and inhibits relationship growth. Failure to follow through on promises creates distrust, delays timeframes, and adds to increased project costs and poor performance from parties. This has a detrimental influence on both the employee and customer experience.
The outcome of implementing change in your organization depends on the way you go about it. Planning and taking the steps mentioned above can be an opportunity for growth and progress. At the same time, drastic and sudden changes without any leadership involvement can be tumultuous. Therefore, businesses should do all they can and work on the steps mentioned above to mitigate the damage.
