The ultimate guide to Change Management in 2022
All around us, the business world is changing. Are you prepared for what’s to come?
As of 2022:
- 62% of staff members work remotely at least once a week.
- Digital transformation has become a necessity for survival.
- Advancements in technology are rewriting the future of work.
Before, change was a slow process that slowly trickled into the workplace. Now, businesses are being forced to adapt to changing market demands and strive for continuous improvement.
At the end of the day, an organization’s agility grants an incomparable competitive advantage, but, detrimentally, change doesn’t come easy to everyone.
Table of Contents
What is Change Management?
Change management is the process where relevant business stakeholders (including employees and customers) are prepared for and supported through organizational change, whether that be the introduction of an unfamiliar system or a complete overhaul of how a business operates.
Types of Change Management
According to almost every change management definition in existence, there are three different types of change management:
- developmental
- transitional
- transformational
What is Developmental Change Management?
Developmental change management looks to improve on the work procedures that are already in place. This could involve providing employees with the opportunity to advance their skillsets – ultimately improving productivity and performance standards.
What is Transitional Change Management?
Transitional change management replaces one structure with another, such as swapping from Zoom to Microsoft Teams for virtual work meetings. An advanced transitional change could lead to the restructuring of a corporation.
What is Transformational Change Management?
Transformational change management completely reshapes your business from the ground up. Instead of simply adopting a new system to be more efficient, you may implement a detailed strategy or process that rewrites how work should be, and is, completed.
Why is Change Management important?
Change is never easy, and, in corporate environments, this is especially true. It often causes high levels of stress for your employees and therefore needs to be managed appropriately.
Change management procedures take an employee-centric approach to change, ensuring you keep the needs of your staff members a priority even as your business continues to evolve. When you implement change management, you can put the right resources and procedures in place to support staff when they are struggling.
The consequences of not having Change Management
Surveys taken in the past few years have shown that 75% of change initiatives fail due to poor planning.
So, without change management:
- Employees and customers resist change.
- An organization goes largely over budget and hurts its bottom line.
- The wrong procedures are implemented and productivity gets damaged.
Only 66.5% of employees are kept up-to-date about change happening in their organization, and it’s these same companies that struggle to adapt to the market around them.
What are the benefits of Change Management?
Currently, there is a clear divide between what a company needs to do to survive, and how much support is provided to employees when undergoing structural change.
Change management aims to reduce this gap, increase the levels of communication, and provide employees and customers with the opportunity to ask questions. The other main benefits of change management include:
- Assessing how much change is needed.
- Educating stakeholders on the need for change.
- Staying within budget for change.
- Managing how much change is done at once.
- Reducing the time of implementation for change.
- Pointing your organization toward a common goal.
Essentially, instead of blindly closing your eyes and hoping a new initiative will succeed – implementing change management techniques ensures it does.
Change management gives you clear guidelines to follow when introducing software or transforming your business processes, and gets people on board with change.
The 4 steps in Change Management
When a change management theory is executed correctly, business leaders would approach change by:
Step 1: Conducting analysis
In order to encourage your organization to accept change, you need to make sure you are actively providing solutions to the issues they are facing.
Many of your employees will be of the belief “why change what works?”, and will be reluctant to adopt another piece of technology or a different process when they are already comfortable with what exists.
Assess different weak points that are directly harming your bottom line and speak to employees to see what they think can be improved on. Take a look at your strategies, leadership, and the systems you have in place.
Step 2: Create your goals
Change management without a specific focus or goal makes successful change difficult to measure.
- Are you wanting to increase your product output by 50%?
- Are you hoping to cut costs by 23%?
- Are you trying to scale your revenue by 100%?
Create a clear goal and vision for the changes you want to implement so you can measure data and track your progress along the way.
Step 3: Prepare for change
One fundamental change management technique is to design a clear internal communication strategy that alerts your employees of an upcoming change. This would:
- Educate staff/customers about why the change is happening.
- Tell them exactly what is happening and when.
Once this information has been provided, you can offer affected parties the chance to learn more.
Step 4: Introduce the change
Once you have provided time for individuals to reframe their mindset, you can start introducing a new system, adapt how jobs are completed, or restructure your entire organization.
How to improve your Change Management process
Be warned, though.
One of the main considerations to bear in mind for improving your change management process is remembering not to bite off more than you can chew.
Where possible, approach change management with a step-by-step procedure in order to give employees time to adapt and adjust to the requests you are making of them.
Remember that it’s not easy to learn how to navigate different software platforms, for example, and especially for staff who are less digitally proficient. By taking your time and being patient, you can avoid frustrating and upsetting your team – which would eventually lead to change initiative failure.
What are the key principles in Change Management?
Included in the very definition of change management are four key principles.
They explain that:
- To embrace change, people have to understand it.
- To prepare for change, there needs to be a clear plan.
- To implement change, the right resources need to be in place.
- To maintain change, there needs to be communication.
What is Organizational Change Management?
In today’s rapidly changing environments, organizational change management allows teams to leverage change and reach their goals – which is closely aligned with the concept of “continuous improvement”. It requires so much more than simply introducing a different system every so often. It requires ongoing flexibility to adapt workflow processes and improve both employee experiences (which is a number 1 priority for 92% of HR leaders in 2022) and efficiency at the same time.
What are the different Change Management models?
Are you preparing to undergo vast organizational changes like the ones required for digital transformation? One of these change management models may be of use.
Kotter’s 8-step Change Management model
Dr John Kotter is a well-regarded researcher and speaker. His 8-step change management model focuses on the success factors that lead to change in an organization:
- Creating a sense of urgency.
- Building a guide coalition.
- Forming a strategic vision.
- Enlisting a volunteer army.
- Enabling action by removing barriers.
- Generating short-term wins.
- Sustaining acceleration.
- Instituting change.
ADKAR Change Management model
Prosci’s ADKAR® Model was developed to help organizations concentrate on the five outcomes needed for change to be successful: awareness, desire, knowledge, ability and reinforcement.
Lewin Change Management model
Kurt Lewin designed a change management model that incorporates just three simple steps: unfreezing, changing and refreezing. This involves moving slowly towards the new ideal behavior and “pausing” as it becomes the norm.
Example of Change Management
Netflix
One of the most famous examples of change management is Netflix.
If you think back to the old days when you could walk into a Blockbuster and rent a movie for a week or two, 2022’s movie-rental service has a completely different structure.
First, Netflix started mailing out DVDs to their customers and now, 222 million people worldwide pay an annual fee for constant access to its portfolio of movies and TV series. Today, it even produces exclusive shows.
Time and time again, Netflix has adapted to the demands of the market and its consumers – delivering convenience and entertainment in easily digestible packages.
Their employees have had to experience change after change in both the services they provide and the systems they’ve needed to execute standard business transactions.
What is Change Management? – FAQs
Are you starting to understand what change management is and why it’s important? If you still have a few questions bouncing around, here are some of Google’s most frequently asked…
What are the basics of change management?
When you are preparing to undertake a structural change in your business, you should review the 4 basic principles of change management: projects, people, processes, and particulars.
How long is the change management process?
Most change management models suggest that a period of 3 months is sufficient for you to implement change. However, in today’s ever-changing digital landscapes, you may want to speed up the process of software adoption. In this case, try using different tools like Digital Adoption Platforms to help.
When should you start change management?
Change management should be part of your organization’s plans for change from the very beginning if you want to maximize its chance of success. Skipping the research and information steps will cause issues and lead to a change failing to be implemented.
Why is change management important in an organization?
Change management allows employees to continue working effectively while an organization changes around them. This means that, no matter what happens, your staff will still be delivering high-quality work – protecting your reputation and bottom line.
What is the definition of change management?
Change management has been defined as the process businesses use to prepare individuals and teams for change.
Change Management with Userlane
Userlane’s Digital Adoption Platforms are one of the top change management software solutions. They overlay new systems that you want to introduce to your employees and provide real-time guidance on how to navigate a dashboard and all its different functions.
By navigating change risks with Userlane, you can increase your software adoption rate by 500% and reduce the time it takes for employees (or customers) to learn the different platforms you want to use.
For more information on how you can move your company to the future, reach out to our team today.
