The rapid pace of change and increasing turbulence that leaders have been facing over the last few years is set to continue, with what seems like a growing number of unforeseen and high-impact events like the outbreak of war or a pandemic. This is driving more ‘emergent’ change that organisations may need to respond to which wasn’t necessarily planned.
Image: Vlada Karpovich, Pexels
In this type of environment, it can feel like resource and financial planning are even trickier so when leaders are embarking on change – scoping out or introducing a solution like a new technology, process or way of working for example – they’ll be considering investments in time, energy and money. Making these sorts of decisions at any time, never mind when there’s more emergent change on the horizon, can feel unsteadying.
But regardless of the context in which decisions are being made, there are some things you can focus on to help reduce the potential for wasting money and resources in times of change.
Here are just three ideas you can use time and time again…
1. Being – and staying - aware of where resources could be lost
Identifying potential pitfalls is crucial right at the outset of planning any project or programme of change. The most common issues I look for that can signify that things might go awry include unclear objectives and project scope, a lack of stakeholder engagement (and particularly with employees) and poor implementation of projects.
It's essential to have a clear plan determined from the start that aligns to a set of regularly reviewed objectives and which includes a defined stakeholder engagement and communications plan. This can help with…
2. Keeping disengagement down and avoiding overload
If your employees are not engaged in your change, it can seriously derail your efforts. There are too many aspects to explore around this topic in a short blog post, but the priority is to involve people in change – whatever shape that change might take.
When people feel excluded and that communication isn’t working well, uncertainty (and the rumour mill) increases. As a result, engagement in doing the ‘day job’ and doing it well, drops.
A second perspective to consider is how you can best keep a 360-degree view across your business to avoid siloing teams and projects and inadvertently overloading people with change.
The average employee experienced 10 planned changes in 2022 which had risen from two in 2016. And other research suggests that employees’ ability to cope with change is now 50% of pre-pandemic levels. It’s not hard to see how overload can happen very quickly, so people switch off and engagement levels plummet.
3. Focusing on retention
During change initiatives, there can be a greater risk for employees to leave organisations – data from Gartner revealed that employees’ willingness to support organisational change fell to 43% in 2022, compared to 74% in 2016.
Unless there’s a real focus on employees, recognising their contributions, and making sure that you’re communicating well, regularly and transparently especially in times of change, good people will walk.
When you consider that (according to CultureAmp) the estimated cost of replacing a team member starts at 30% of an average employee’s salary, rising to 200% for top performers, this is a very expensive exercise too.
It's ironic that the aim of most organisational change is to improve efficiency. But by approaching change with eyes wide open, pinpointing those areas for potential losses of money, resources and energy by staying focused on your employees, it’s much more likely that change will succeed and you’ll maintain productivity.
If you’d like to explore how you could potentially save costs, resources, time and energy by focusing on people if you’re embarking on change, let’s talk.