5 strategies to effective workplace change management

Many are the times when introducing and succeeding at workplace change management has posed a headache for many workplaces. Many business leaders have tried without success to implement changes they believe would make their workplaces more productive, ending up with up to millions of dollars in spending, and only major failures to show. Therefore, in this segment of our knowledge base, we seek to explore how such leaders can introduce and manage changes within their workplaces in order to change this narrative.

There are more than a few methods suggested for the purpose, including; use of group forces, being the example, sharing rewards, working with unions, and being concerned for employees.

A. Use the Group Forces

In a normal workplace where more than one individual is involved, group dynamics plays a critical role in determining how members behave. It is often said that individual behavior is a sum of their group behavior, meaning that a person is more likely to adopt behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, and values that aligns to the group they interact with most. An individual’s level of cooperation, aggressiveness, self-respect and conscience, productivity and other factors are more likely than not positively correlated to similar attributes of the group they relate with most. With this in mind, when introducing change, it is important to study the work groups, develop effective ways of working with them to make workplace change management successful, instead of ignoring them and fighting them without a plan. This also means being able to identify and enlist the help of group leaders in implementing the change, instead of getting rid of them hoping to kill their influence.

C. Share benefits due to the change

One of the most effective ways of making workplace change management effective is to ensure that the rewards of that process of change are as inclusive as possible, meaning that many stakeholders will have self-motivation to see that the change succeeds in order to earn benefits. For example, when employees know that they stand to earn more leave days by adopting a more robotized workplace, they are likely to see the introduction of robots in the workplace as beneficial. Otherwise, employees would most likely feel that the robots are going to render humans jobless, and would thus fight their introduction to the workplace.

D. Embrace employee unions

Many business leaders loath the word trade unions, because they most often than not relate unions to strikes, pay rises and demands for unrealistically better conditions. However, strategic business leaders also know that employee unions can be the most effective change agents that can be used to implement change within the organization. Instead of fearing trade unions, maybe it is time to decide to invest in cultivating positive and productive relationships with them and enlisting them as your change partners.

E. Be genuinely concerned about your employees

If you want change management to be effective and long lasting, try and find a way to make the employees feel the change is meant to make their working conditions better. If the employees feel the changes introduced help to ease their burden by addressing their most pressing concerns, they will be at the forefront of ensuring the changes last. However, if you introduce one-sided changes that tend to oppress or disregard the concerns of employees, you are only but sitting on ticking time-bomb that can explode at any time. In as much as business leaders should not just accept everything demanded by their employees, they should also put in place meticulous balance not to ignore issues of greatest concern to their employees.

We hope you are set for strategic implementation of your next project at your workplace Keep learning and improving.