Discover the Core Principles Behind the Change Management Process
Change management is an important part of HR process but the individual nature of how change affects people within an organisation is simply not as easy as adopting a standard model and sticking to it. Change is an unsettling thing, especially if it affects their professional lives on a day-to-day basis so it must be handled confidently and sensitively for the change itself to be effective. Before you go about devising a personalised model that works for you and your employees, it is very important to ask yourself: who is affected by the change, how they will react and how you can get them ‘on board’ to make the change and its prospective achievements as fruitful as you anticipate.
The Principles of Managing Change
The first step of change management is actually recognising that change is needed and pinpointing who in particular needs to implement change. The implementation of change may not necessarily involve everyone in the organisation, in fact it may just need to happen in one department or with one individual, but in order to manage the change correctly it is vital to highlight this and anticipate the reactions the introduction of change may cause. Predicting these reactions will dictate exactly how the change will be implemented and how you guide members of your team in understanding the change and its outcome. Nominating a leader of change can help with the implementation process, this person or multiple persons will essentially be the ambassador of the change and be the ‘go to’ person for all questions, which they should be able to answer clearly, confidently and consistently.
The Leader of Change
As the leader of change within your organisation, it is important to first get into the minds of the people around you. This is important to make everyone happy. Change management is after all a psychological process of helping people understand the change and anticipating the reactions of the people involved. The key to the whole process is communication; many companies get this wrong by choosing to communicate with their staff through bulletins via email or the company notice board and not encouraging face-to-face interactions between top level management and team members. Not only will face-to-face communications make it easier to get people involved in the implementation of change, it will also help you understand their feelings and reactions on a more personal level.
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