If properly designed, learning and development programs will naturally fit around the changes your organization makes at both micro and macro levels. Nevertheless, 70% of change initiatives fail in organizations because they don’t have change management learning programs in place.
What is a Change Management Program?
A change management program is a program designed to prepare and equip individuals, departments, and entire enterprises for changes both large and small. Changes can include everything from a new procedure regarding a technology platform that will need to be used, to an entirely new product line of manufacturing equipment that employees will need to learn how to use for new products. Oftentimes change management falls within its own jurisdiction, but to be truly effective it must lie within the purview of the training and learning and development teams who have access to learning methods and various resources.
Why You Need a Change Management Program
Builds Transparency and Trust
When making changes in your organization, you can expect a lot of confusion and pushback from employees if you simply send out an e-mail on Friday regarding new changes that will be implemented on Monday. You can’t just mandate a change to take place and expect everyone to get it, like it, and understand exactly what they need to do about it and how it affects them. You’ll need to coach your employees through any changes, so they really get a sense for why they’re being made and how they’re a part of it. If you coach your employees through changes, they will trust your decisions more often and appreciate the transparency behind why and how you make the decisions that you do.
Encourages Collaboration and Engagement
Everyone copes with change in different ways. When you leave the floor open for employees to understand why a change is being made, you give them an opportunity to approach change in the best ways that they know how on a personal basis. You give them an opportunity to be engaged in the changes that are being made. You’ll be giving them an opportunity to collaborate with you on your venture, to ensure changes go smoothly—instead of you assuming they will be able to embrace changes the way you understand them, while meanwhile they’re feeling completely lost and overwhelmed. You’ll also see a lot of employees help others embrace change once they understand how to manage it, and this will encourage employees to work together as they explore uncharted territory.
Ensures Product and Service Quality
If employees fully understand what’s expected of them when changes are being made, and they’re trained and coached properly through the changes, they’ll be able to continue producing quality products and services without missing a beat. If they’re not coached through changes, the quality of products they make or the services they provide to your customers could suffer because employees will be focusing on the logistics and proper execution of a change instead. Sometimes employees may ignore delegated changes altogether because the changes don’t make sense to them or they don’t understand the value such changes have in relation to what they’re making for or providing to customers.
Bottom line? If you don’t want changes across your organization to fail, consider implementing a change management program.