Change is difficult and sometimes it can feel like it’s all happening at once. Latest Orgvue Research with 700 senior decision makers shows how overwhelming it can be: two in five CEOs say they would rather quit than lead a major workforce transformation, with resistance to change, a lack of clear vision and management’s reluctance to make tough decisions like theirs the top takes care. And Orgvue isn’t the only one sounding the alarm.
John Dedman, director of Cloudhouse, echoes this sentiment. He explains: “Change management quite rigid in nature – it relies on a framework to manage risk and plan for change. But this structure often makes the process feel regimented and difficult, forcing people to find “workarounds” or steps of control that ultimately undermine the integrity of the entire process.”
So how can you prepare your organization for change, especially when budgets are tight? the economy is in recessionor layoffs happening? We asked IT leaders to share their insights on how to help teams remain resilient and make change management more manageable and cost-effective, even during challenging times.
Create a People-Centered “Muscle Change”
For change management to truly succeed, companies need to move from change resistance to change readiness. This means building the “change muscle”—helping teams adapt and feel comfortable with change over the long term.
According to Mel Burke, vice president of U.S. operations for Grayce, the key to successful change is communicating with both the “head” and the “heart” of stakeholders. Involve employees in the change process by giving them a voice and the ability to shape the process as it happens. Use real-time tools such as pulse polls and chatbots with artificial intelligence to get instant feedback on how teams are performing and assess each employee’s readiness for change.
You can also introduce “agile organizational structures,” in which teams dynamically form and break up based on role needs, based on change-based thinking skills and flexible, context-sensitive org charts. However, these approaches are best suited for short-term changes, such as when you implement a new HR system or transition to a new HR system. hybrid cloud.
Over the past few years, more businesses have either hired change leaders or added transformation responsibilities to their responsibilities. technical directors as a long term plan. BCG even says their transformation initiatives have an 80% success rate with CCO involvement.
These employees play a key role in initiatives such as two-week innovation sprints, during which employees can work on interesting projects, collaborate across teams, and pitch bold ideas directly to executives. This may involve more resources at first, but the results may be worth it – just ask Gmailwhich came from one of Google Innovation Sprint. To keep things running, CCOs often partner with PeopleOps to set an “innovation quotient” KPI and reward employees during evaluations for fresh ideas and creative execution.
“While there’s a lot of focus on technology and new processes, it’s easy to forget the people who are actually making the changes,” Burke comments. Don’t forget your people, people!”
Assess risks with effective change opportunities
Change management works best when you focus on the biggest risks first and reduce the likelihood serious failures. Dedman calls this strategy “change capability,” in which change initiatives are evaluated and scored on critical factors such as team experience, system dependencies, and potential impact on customers. Those with high scores are marked in red for immediate attention, while those with low risk remain green for regular monitoring to ensure the process is targeted and effective.
For each high-risk initiative, create a detailed RMAP including specific actions, timelines, and contingency plans, with regular feedback from Top manager and department heads to ensure mitigation efforts are consistent with the current status of the project. If adoption of a new tool is slow, your RAMP could include adding training sessions, selecting “tool ambassadors,” or even rewards to improve your employees’ experience. Combine this process with scenario planning and change modeling to predict where the change process might break down during execution.
Dedman recommends automating the review process to eliminate tedious manual tasks. “Ultimately, this process should create a virtuous cycle of trust in the assessment process and make future change management easier and faster.”
But Gavin Connolly, field technical director at Nerdio, cautions not to lose sight of the importance of identifying key stakeholders. “Appointing risk owners, whether business leaders, project managers or security teams, ensures clear accountability and ensures risk mitigation actions are tracked and implemented.”
Track change progress with actionable metrics
How can you determine whether your change initiative is succeeding or failing? Or will it really impact team collaboration and your bottom line? This is where change management metrics come in handy: to give you a clear picture of progress, identify obstacles early, quickly correct course, optimize team workload, and reduce burnout in digital transformation.
Peter Wood, CTO of Spectrum Search, vows to create a “success signaling system” that combines data-driven metrics with culture-focused indicators. “System uptime and user adoption rates are critical,” he notes, “but so are team satisfaction surveys and employee retention 12 to 18 months after the change.” It was Wood’s metrics-driven approach that helped ensure the recent successful deployment of an AI recruiting platform, despite several implementation challenges.
“Tracking candidate satisfaction and sentiment analysis based on employee feedback allowed us to stay on top of how well the changes were ingrained into daily work.” He also advises creating or outsourcing a real-time dashboard that collects data from the HR department. project management toolsand performance metrics to gain insight into how changes are being implemented, rather than relying on static, reactive surveys.
Hans De Visser, director of operations at Mendix, shares Wood’s views on tracking both results and costs. “Success is achieved by breaking down big goals into SMART key results—specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound,” he shares. “This allows the entire team to be cohesive and accountable.” He adds that establishing a regular check-in rhythm, such as weekly or monthly check-ins, helps maintain momentum and make quick adjustments when things aren’t going well.
At the end of the day, these initiatives won’t make much difference if change management doesn’t solve real business problems. “There is no one-size-fits-all approach, especially with changes as large as the move from on-premises to the cloud,” says Tara McGeehan, president of CGI UK and Australia. “Frames such as ISO 44001 will go a long way in building a strong foundation and developing a trusted partnership that will help both clients and partners more effectively achieve their change management goals.”