Organisational change management: How to manage change in your organisation

The term change management is not new. Organisations have known the importance of effective change systems for a long time, as they have realised change can have a strong and averse effect on employees.

Managing organisational change is something many organisations need to deal with. Organisational changes may be necessary due to internal developments, external innovations, growth or downsizing of the business or when there is a need for the automation of processes.

Due to constant innovations in technology managing organisational change in businesses has become even more necessary.

Why organisational change needs to be managed properly

Notable change to your organisation will have a strong effect on your employees. Effective management can deal with many of the challenges companies will face when implementing such substantial changes.

The negative effect of poor use of change management tools can deteriorate employee engagement and motivation.

Change management challenges

People are generally resistant to change as change often makes people feel uncomfortable.

Displeasure of staff may not be the first thing you think of when you decide to implement organisational change. However, failing to address the resistance to change amongst your staff may stop your changes to be implemented at all.

Planning your organisational change strategy

Before you start making substantial changes to your organisation you will need to plan exactly what you are going to do. You will need to plan who is going to be involved and what their part will be.

Organisational change will affect every person in your organisation. Each person needs to be fully aware of what the company expects from them. You will need to consider how you will communicate the changes to your organisation as a whole, to individual teams and individual staff members.

Furthermore, you will need to plan how you will monitor closely how each step of your change management plan is executed by your staff.

How to positively affect the attitude towards change in your organisation

As a business manager you may not be able to reach each person in your organisation. In addition, you will likely find that not everyone is instantly on board with the proposed change management plan.

Use your management team

Use your management team to positively affect the attitude towards organisational change.

Map out the positive changes for each team and direct managers to promote these positive elements to their staff.

Allow feedback on your change management plan

Be open to feedback. Listen to the feedback you get, from managers and staff members and answer any questions your staff may have. There may be issues you did not consider, that will come up in questions or feedback that you can use to optimise your change management plan.

Furthermore, being asked for feedback will help feel staff engage in the process. This will make them more likely to be an active part in the change process.

Be patient

People need time to adapt to organisational change. That includes your management team.

Give your staff plenty of notice to acclimatise to the idea of change. Use time wisely and teach employees what the company will require from them. This will help lower the resistance towards your organisational change management plan.

Prepare for setbacks

Not everything will go to plan. Ensure you have contingency plans set out for each step of your change management strategy. Anything can go wrong, but you don’t want one small setback to make your entire change management plan crumble.

Involve your staff to manage organisational change

As previously mentioned, getting your staff involved will help you manage resistance to your change management strategy much better. It will allow staff to feel more in control of their future in your organisation and are much more adaptable to change.

Ensure the right support structure is in place

Who will your staff members speak to when they worry about the upcoming organisational changes? And furthermore, who will monitor employee performance and engagement throughout the change management process?

You can use change or interim managers to assist you with your change management strategy. However, this is can easily become very expensive. Getting a temporary and unknown manager in place can also further add to the fear of change.

Using HR consultancy services to lead your change management plans

Change management is complex and many issues can occur that you have not been able to foresee or plan for. HR consultancy services offer companies the change management tools they will need to be able to meet set goals and expectations with minimum setbacks and without the negative impact of change on staff.

Recruiting, training and managing HR professionals is costly and doesn’t allow for much flexibility. Outsourcing HR consultancy services such as PeoplePointHR offer you HR support services by phone, email and onsite and completely integrate processes to your organisation to manage your employee needs.

We treat your organisation as it’s our own. We use our commercially minded approach for optimal HR processes to optimise your organisations culture, productivity and services.