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Tips on Managing Change
Why is change management important, you say? Change is inevitable and it is important in life and in business, yet there is always that fear of change. Whether you embrace or fear change, the unknown is something we all fear. Getting a new job is exciting, but we all worry about how well we can do the job, how well we will fit in, and how well we will like our new boss. All valid worries or fears, but sometimes they overshadow the excitement of getting a new job. Don’t do that to yourself. It pays off to embrace change, accept change, and learn how to manage change.
Unlike the example of accepting a new job, in business you typically do not have control of when change occurs. For example, going through a corporate buy-out, getting a new boss, team or project, or implementing new processes can happen at any time. Prepared or not.
Let’s look at the new process example. You need to rollout a new system to all employees that automates the tracking of hours, projects, scheduled time-off and time-off balances, point tracking, overtime, schedules, etc. This is important to the company for several reasons, such as ensuring labor law compliance, reducing costs, tracking the workforce, enforcing business rules, and increasing productivity to keep up with the competition, but all an employee may see is that it could affect his or her paycheck. An on-time and accurate paycheck is one of the most important aspects of an employee’s compensation, so implementing a new process can leave employees apprehensive with the unknown.
Five Tips to Implementing Change
When you are the one who is responsible for implementing the change, these five tips can help you successfully manage change.
- Acceptance. You need to accept the change yourself and understand the benefits of the change. If you do not accept the change, then how can you expect to get others to believe in it?
- What’s in it for me? You need to let them know what is in it for them and how it will affect their job, their role, their paycheck. Using the example from above, the employee self-service feature is a major benefit to employees. It empowers them to access their information, including schedules, time-off balances, request time-off, and more. The employees need to be able to imagine the benefits of the change to accept it.
- Communication, communication, communication. You cannot have too much communication when implementing change. You need to communicate the plan to everyone involved, and keep everyone up-to-date on the status of the plan. Get people excited with frequent updates on the project. If you are implementing a system, like the previous example, then let them know the implementation schedule, the training schedule, and the going live schedule.
- Ask the questions. You are implementing change, so you already know there is apprehension. Now you need to know why people are not comfortable with the change so you can ease their fears. A person who works on several projects in a day with different pay rates and incentives may feel like they are losing control of their hours by relying on a system to track those hours. This is an opportunity for you to manage the change and let them know how the system will ensure the employee is paid accurately by automating the process. No room for human error.
- Involvement. Get others involved in the project. Find out who is interested and delegate tasks. When someone is part of a change, they are more willing to accept the change.
Five Tips to Accepting Change
You heard the announcement that changes are coming. You start going through your stages of loss: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. But, how do you get to the acceptance phase when you are afraid of the change yourself? Here are five tips to prepare for, and eventually accept, the change.
- Be receptive. Often the first instinct of change is denial, but change is going to happen whether you want it or not. Having an open mind eases the transition and makes it less stressful.
- Be optimistic. Most changes will bring about some positive results, so do not focus on the negative. Imagine the benefits to build up your confidence to move on. There may be new opportunities for you!
- Ask questions. What makes you uneasy about the change? Ask questions until you feel confident about the change. Whoever is managing the change should welcome questions, because we all fear the unknown. Information is important to move forward.
- Take action. Find out what you can do to help implement the change. No matter what the task is, being part of the change will help you learn about the positive benefits so you can help others accept it. Taking action also helps you take control of the situation rather than feel as though it is controlling you.
- Anticipate change. Change is constant, especially in the competitive world of business, so it is never a good idea to get too comfortable with any process, team, boss, etc. You never know when change is right around the corner.
The key to implementing change in business is to get people involved, from the stakeholders to the employees. Once you have buy-in from the team, the easier the transition will be.
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