2022 is a year that you must focus on all the ways you can prepare, support, and help your teams, employees, and even the organization to undergo a change; which is what change management is all about. After all, the digital transformation which is no longer a hype, borders on change management, and if you don’t embark on digital transformation initiatives, your business may have to struggle in the highly competitive global market.
The focus must be on change management, but to ensure you can remain relevant in the global market, you must have an effective change management plan. So, how do you go about having an effective change management plan?
The very first step to having a change management plan is to create an effective change management strategy; this ensures that you have a focus on the way you want the change to proceed. The change management strategy also ensures that you have smooth and efficient transitions, while you will be abreast with the benefits, risks, and possible resistances you will face from your employees.
A lot of people need to contribute to the success of any change management, and your change management strategy must consider this, spelling out what each team or individual needs to do. This is very important since no two changes are exactly the same.
Your change management strategy must consider how to handle employees, customers, processes, terms of adoption, and rate of utilization, all of which that will be affected by the change; it’s only when you have a full grasp of all these that you can start thinking of a change management plan.
Change Management Plan
Since your change management plan is the process you need to ensure that you can effectively implement changes across the organization, you can use it to prepare your organization for significant or complex organizational changes. A change management plan is very necessary as a strategic approach that will cushion any negative impact of the change on employees and the organization.
Since no two changes are the same, your change management plan must also be unique for the type of change you want to implement, and this to a large extent depends on your change management strategy. Once you have created the change management strategy you need for a particular change, you can then go on to create the change management plan based on your budget, the time frame for the change, the extent of the change, resources needed, and communication.
To prepare an effective change management plan, you need to go through the following steps:
1. Clearly state and define the reasons for the change
The change initiative must start with someone, but that does not mean that every other person has also seen the need for this change; you must endeavor to make sure that the reason for the change is clearly understood by everyone that will be affected by the change. You need the input of everyone that will be impacted by this change, and you can only see positive results and cooperation if all hands are on the deck.
When people understand that the change will improve their overall output and welfare, they will be more willing to support and advocate for the change instead of resisting it.
2. Determine the extent of the change
The success of any change management depends on clarity; from the onset, you must determine the scope of the change. What is the extent of the change? Is the change going to be holistic?
How many people will it affect? Is it targeted at the employees or the customers? What organizational policies, structures, processes, systems, and job roles will be affected?
Before coming up with your change management plan, you must consider how employees or particular groups will be affected and how they will react to the change.
3. Map out stakeholders and pick the change management team
There must be provision for a task force; this is the team that will be in charge of the change and ensures that the change will scale through. It’s not just enough to put up a task force team, the team must be able to enhance a thorough change that will benefit, customers, employees, and the organization.
The leader of the team must be resourceful and credible; this will ensure that everyone who is going to partake in the change will understand the strategy put in place. The size of the team may not be that important, what you must focus on is to ensure you have the right caliber of people in the team that effectively work with stakeholders, address concerns, and lead the transition.
Every member f the team must understand the specific role to play to ensure the success of the change. If it becomes necessary, there may be the need for a highly tactical change advisory board (CAB) that will facilitate approvals, oversees change processes, and offers guidance.
4. Outline expected benefits
Change management focuses on improving customer experience, ensuring that employees fare better, and enhancing the relevance of your organization. To this end, the primary partakers are your employees.
If your employees understand and see the benefits that will accrue to them if your change management plan succeeds, they will put in every effort to ensure its success. Your change management plan must clearly specify the benefits you expect to see.
If everyone that’s playing a role in the change management understands the benefits, they will be more disposed to ensure the success of the change. Explicitly understanding what you project as the outcomes of the change is the game-changer.
5. Set out achievable milestones and the corresponding costs
What drives a change is when your employees see that their efforts are yielding positive results. The milestones you have set up are very vital to the success of your change.
You must ensure that your milestones are achievable to encourage your employees to do more. Nothing must be shielded in secrecy; they need to understand how they are faring with the efforts they are putting into the change.
Transparency is of utmost importance; it will ginger them to put in the extra effort. Set out yardsticks and metrics to measure your performance. Once a milestone has been achieved, employees see that their efforts are not in vain and realize that the plan is working.
It’s also important that as you are thinking about the milestone, you must consider the costs necessary to achieve each milestone; it can be depressing if after all the efforts, everything becomes an abysmal waste.
