How can human resources teams help manage change?

In a rapidly changing business landscape, organisations must adapt, or risk being left behind. To that end, the average firm has carried out five major, business-wide change management programmes in the past three years, according to Gartner.

The pace of change is set to increase further, with Gartner’s research showing that almost three-quarters of organisations expect to increase the types of major change initiatives they undertake over the next three years. Yet, despite this appetite for change, only one in three initiatives are an unqualified success.

HR teams have a key role to play in ensuring the success of change management programmes. After all, change management is ultimately about people and their ability to adapt to change, and the HR department’s role revolves around recruiting the right people and giving them the tools to perform at their best.

With that in mind, we will set out six steps that answer the question: “How can human resources help manage change?”

Maintaining a people-first focus

People are central to the success or failure of change management projects. Unfortunately, frontline employees are often naturally resistant to change, with 45% agreeing with the statement: “People generally like to remain in the status quo.”

As such, it pays to have someone – or a team of people – concentrating on the impact of your change management plans for the people it will affect most: your employees. The HR team is an obvious fit for this task.

Without a human resources function focusing on your people, it can be all too easy for change managers to lose sight of the human consequences of their actions. This is understandable; change management projects might involve major overhauls of systems, processes, and infrastructure, all of which require constant attention. But if your human capital is not front of mind, the chances of delivering a successful initiative are substantially reduced.

Developing a training plan

While the change project planning team might have the deepest insight into the practicalities of a given initiative, they are unlikely to understand the types of support and training required by frontline employees. Again, the HR function is best placed to take the lead here.

For instance, project managers are tasked with completing change management programmes within a certain budget and timeframe. As such, they may decide to skimp on training costs, believing that employees will be able to pick up most of the skills they require “on the job”. Human resources may question this approach, warning that unless staff receive sufficient training upfront, the project is unlikely to succeed.

Communicating change management plans

Employees crave certainty. They want to know that their job is valued and their role is not going to change overnight.

As such, change management projects are often seen as a threat. At best, an initiative might force an employee to learn a whole new way of performing an important task; at worst, it may put their job at risk.

Much of this friction stems from a lack of communication. When employees do not fully understand a change management plan, they fill in the blanks themselves.

This is where human resources should step in. By clearly explaining the scope of a change management initiative and what it hopes to achieve, they can alleviate common concerns. For instance, they might:

• Explain exactly how a change will affect the role of a specific employee, team, or function
• Share documents that compare new and old processes side by side
• Provide regular updates on project progress
• Detail the support and training that will be made available to employees
• Remind employees about change management-related meetings and training

Engaging employees in change management processes

Another common cause of conflict in change management initiatives is a lack of buy-in from employees. Often, this is the inevitable result of a lack of foresight from senior management. Decisions are made at board level and implemented by the project management team, with little thought for engaging those on the front line.

HR understands the value of engagement. They know that engaged employees deliver better business outcomes than other employees. And they have the tools to ensure employees feel engaged in change initiatives.

There are many viable approaches, but one of the most effective is to build a team of “change champions” made up of frontline workers. These champions can attend working groups, communicate concerns from their colleagues, and cascade important information.

For more information on engagement with your employees and building out an attractive employee value proposition (EVP) that sticks, download our most recent eBook.

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Looking out for conflict

Your employees are only human. And, as we have already noted, humans often feel resistant to change. The result? Many change management initiatives are derailed by internal conflict. The longer resistance is overlooked and unresolved, the more likely it is to damage a change management project.

Unfortunately, identifying potential causes or sources of conflict is rarely as simple as gathering all your employees together in a room and asking: “Are you happy?” Employees who are resistant to change may not feel comfortable discussing their grievances in a public setting. But if they have built a trusting relationship with human resources, they may be happy to share with their HR manager.

Human resources should not sit back and wait for employees to come to them with concerns. Instead, they should take proactive steps to identify conflict by:

• Paying close attention to key indicators like attendance levels at change management-related meetings
• Running employee surveys to gauge feedback on change initiatives
• Speaking to employees on a one-to-one basis and asking them about change management plans

Mitigating resistance to change

Identifying resistance is one piece of the jigsaw; responding to and mitigating conflict is another challenge entirely. While change management leaders will have broad strategies to overcome conflict, they lack HR’s ability to understand the best approaches for communicating with individual employees.

For instance, human resources may understand that a given team member is a hands-on learner, so the best way to demonstrate the benefits of a change initiative is to show them the new process or tool in action. Or they might be aware that a colleague has recently been off work for mental health-related reasons and may require extra support to come to terms with the change initiative.

What's next?

Increase your chances of change management success by learning about three common change management mistakes to avoid.

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