| When you think about the millions of
dollars organizations spend each year on IT programs of work, wouldn't it be prudent
knowing that employees actually understand and most importantly embrace the reason behind
the changes? There is one way of ensuring that employees and their managers have got the
message and truly understand the reasons for the new system implementation. And that is
the means that you communicate change.
Let's start with reviewing how most organizations manage
technology based change. If your organization's approach to this type of change is new
skills training and employee communication strategies that include stakeholder management
(translated briefings), intranet and email updates then that's not managing change, rather
it is focussed on information. So what is the difference and why do we need to do anything
more than provide information?
IT systems are not introduced for the sake of a new system
itself, they are introduced because there are benefits to be realized from a business
management perspective. This may include more information on customer profiles and
identifying other products or services clients may be interested in purchasing, the
changes might focus on back office systems such as greater information for human resources
management or accounting or they may focus on the supply chain and logistics. Whatever the
reason there is a business reason for change and this is what employees need to understand
if the full benefits of any system implementation is going to be realized.
Let's look at an example.
This financial services organization was introducing a new
back office system. In the past employees worked in separate divisions so customers were
transferred from one area to another to process their request. The new system meant that
all of the customer details were now available to employees and that they would now work
in teams and "own" the customer from the commencement to end of transaction. It
was a complete system and work style change so before specific system training was
introduced a simulated work area was established and employees were taken through the
customer experience. It was important that they understood the benefits to the customer by
looking at the changes through the eyes of the customer. This way we created the
"Aha" moment, employees got the message better than any intranet, information
session or email bulletin could have conveyed it. And when employees went into system
training they clearly understood the benefits and business reasons behind the changes.
The five key things to remember when communicating
technology changes.
1. Be very clear about the business reasons for the changes
– who will benefit and what will those benefits be?
2. Establish why those benefits are important? What will the impact be on the
organization?
3. Decide the key messages for your information strategy – what will you need to
communicate, to whom and when?
4. Concurrently design an engagement strategy at key points in your project plan that will
engage employees at all levels in the reason for the technology changes.
5. Remember to ensure engagement the message is not about the system itself but about the
business reasons for the changes.
Finally, as change management professionals can we take the
same approach to managing system changes and apply it to every new organization? The
answer is clearly no because as every organization's culture is different, so it follows
that every approach to change management and employee communication must be different to
maximize the investment and potential of the system changes that are implemented. |
