How do you feel about change in organizational settings? Why do you feel that way?
Too many at one time is too much…
Change in organizations is inevitable and the manner in which it is managed can either’ make it or break it’. I am in the role of Director of Corporate Human Resources and Organizational Effectiveness for a global organization in the transportation industry. A big part of my role is to help the organization manage through change in away that allows for the highest support at the associate level. Each of the different operational product lines (maintenance, sales, and rental) are typically engaged in multiple initiatives at any given point in time, and many of them are enormous, enterprise-wide initiatives. The one thing I know for sure is that regardless of the initiative (whether it is related to technology, a new product, or a new process), it will inevitably impact our associates in one way or another. It may be a huge impact- like requiring their jobs to change completely. Or, it may be a smaller impact- like using a different part to fix a truck than they had been using. But regardless, the initiative will require a good amount of preparation and organization around a communication / training plan.
That’s my job. My job is to gain a good understanding of the initiative so that I can help them put together a communication and training plan to ensure associate support for the change.
Our organization is passionate about process improvement and with that, comes a push to do better for our associates, for our customers, for the environment, and for the industry. The result? A plethora of initiatives, at various stages, that are going on at any given moment in time. Because each of the different functions have their own initiatives, they don’t have as much insight, (and nor do they necessarily care) about competing initiatives in other functions. The associates, however, feel the impact of this. They are impacted by all initiatives, and fairly often, there are changes being implemented all at once. This phenomenon has big impact on our communication and training plans. My biggest learning is that associates can take only so much change at once. Asking them to digest too much change can lead to resistance that leads to burnout & exhaustion, turnover, low morale, higher cost, and sometimes an initiative that fails because of this.
Because I’ve seen this occur, I work hard to create more transparency across the functions so that they understand what other changes are occurring and how those other changes might either complement or contradict what they are trying to achieve. Modifications in the communication and training plans happen as a result. Additionally, we have become more mindful of having too much happen at one time.