Role of HR's in Change Management
Role of HR's in Change Management
Change:
Change may refer to the process of becoming different. Some of the changes like:
Management:
Management in all business areas and organizational activities are the acts of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives efficiently and effectively. Management comprises planning, organizing, staffing, leading or directing, and controlling an organization (a group of one or more people or entities) or effort for the purpose of accomplishing a goal. Resourcing encompasses the deployment and manipulation of human resources, financial resources, technological resources, and natural resources.
Change Management:
There is nothing permanent expect change. Change is induced by the internal and external forces. Meeting this challenge of change is the primary responsibility of management. An organization lacking adaptability to change has no future. Adaptability to change is a necessary quality of good management. Modern managers have the responsibility to devise the management practices to meet the new challenges and make use of the opportunities for the growth of the organization.
Definition:
Change management is a systematic approach to dealing with change, both from the perspective of an organization and on the individual level. A somewhat ambiguous term, change management has at least three different aspects, including: adapting to change, controlling change, and effecting change. A proactive approach to dealing with change is at the core of all three aspects. For an organization, change management means defining and implementing procedures and/or technologies to deal with changes in the business environment and to profit from changing opportunities.
Why change management?
For many change practitioners, there is no doubt that change management must be used on projects that impact how people do their jobs. A great solution and a well managed project are not enough to ensure success. Written another way:
Myth: A great solution + Effective project management = Project success
The missing piece of the equation above is change management. Managing the human side of change is key to meeting objectives. Although the answer may be obvious to you, you might be tasked with answering "why change management?" for some people in your organization. This tutorial arms you with approaches and arguments to make the case for "why change management" in your organization.
Below is a table that outlines some of the most common implications of either effective or ineffective change management. These come from study participants, client experiences and input from hundreds of training participants. This is an interactive tutorial, so you can add your comments to the list based on your own experience (we will update the tables accordingly). Check back in a few days to see what others in the change management community have to say in answering these two critical questions:
What can happen if change is NOT managed?
What can happen if change is EFFECTIVELY managed?
Change management as a discipline has grown tremendously over the last five years. Between the 2003 benchmarking study and the 2005 benchmarking study, the percentage of participants using a structured approach to manage change grew from 34% to 55%. Below are several reasons change management has become so important to organizations in recent years.
Why organizations need to change:
Change management is relevant as though the research finds that change is taking place at an ever-increasing pace, the evidence suggests that most change initiatives fail. For example, recent CIPD research suggested that less than 60% of re-organizations met their stated objectives which are usually bottom line improvement.
HR's role in change management:
People management and development professionals have significant role to play in any change management process. Arising from CIPD research, HR's involvement in certain areas was identified as sometimes being the difference between successful and less successful projects:
HR needs to provide reassurance to both the employees and the management and should treat everyone as a partner in the change.
HR needs to try and sell the reason for change and how the change would fit into the vision and mission of the organization.
Employees need to be told the benefits of change, both for the organization and individuals.
Skills required
HR is expected to serve as a change agent, not just within the HR function but also across the broader organization. Within the broader role, HR professionals need to make sure that they are equipped with the tools, techniques and skills needed to be successful in this area. They need to start to think differently and have an understanding of what drives change. HR will need to ensure that it has the skills and credibility within the organization to act as champions of change in the future.
HR role in shaping changes:
Organizational change is a regular feature of life. For HR professionals, dealing with re organizations are now a regular part of the job. But there is substantial evidence that organizations are not very good at organizing. They don't have the capability for successful repeated reorganization and they don't fully use the expertise of HR professionals.
The three central themes are:
It's the political season, and "Change!" seems to be the dominant theme on the campaign trail. But in the global business environment--and for organizations worldwide--real, constant change has been a fact of life for some time. To remain competitive, organizations often find it necessary to undertake major changes that affect their processes and people.
Increasingly, change management is seen as a permanent business function to improve efficiency and keep organizations adaptable to the competitive marketplace. Many organizations strategically use change to improve organizational effectiveness. But bringing about successful change in today's competitive environment requires thoughtful planning, effective communication and employee acceptance.
As the function with primary responsibility for human capital management, HR needs to be involved from the beginning when major organizational change initiatives are being developed.
The impact of major organizational changes on employee attitudes cannot be overstated. Change can create enormous tension in the workplace. Many people are uncomfortable with change, and are filled with uncertainty and apprehension over job security and the future, circumstances that can threaten the success of change initiatives. According to the Society for Human Resource Management's (SHRM) 2007 Change Management Survey Report, the top two obstacles encountered during major organizational change are communication breakdown and employee resistance.
HRM Change Management
The change management in the HRM Function gets more important. The value added of the HRM Function has to be increased and the change management is the key component and value added for many modern organizations.
The future of the HRM Function will bring many initiatives, constant pressure and the HRM Function will have to find new creative ways to accomplish the goals given by the top management.
The employees in Europe and Americas get older and the HRM Function cannot be dependent on the supply of new and young graduates. The compensation and benefits can be hit by the changes on the labor market as well.
The change management is a key to success in the future for many HRM Professionals.
The future of Human Resources:
The world is quickly changing, the globalization continues and the organizations enjoy the pressure on costs and their human capital. The innovation is one of the strategic imperatives for the organizations to stay competitive and to differentiate themselves from the other organizations on the market.
The organizations grow and get more complex and the HRM Function is confronted with the need to outsource their processes with no value added to the organization and providing the organization with the shared services centers. The HRM shared services centers are not easy to design, develop and function. The companies in the group use different methodologies and the different countries need definitely unique approach. The HRM Management Team has to be able to find the right way of the processing all the requests with the main goal in the mind - to keep the HRM costs fully under the control.
The HRM Outsourcing is a pressure for the standardization of the HRM Processes across different organizations. The organizations have to fully adapt their processes to the provider of the outsourcing services as the organization can benefit from the large scale of the process. But the unification of the HRM Processes brings the issue with the competitive differentiation from the competitors and potential data privacy issues as the outsourced processes provider has the direct access to the sensitive data.
The management of talents in the organization is a key issue for the future of HRM in the organization. The talents are the best and the only competitive advantage in the area of the human capital and the organization has to develop processes and procedures to actively work with the best talents in the organization to keep them. The other organizations on the job market will actively search for the best talents and will try to make them to change the employer. The real and smart solutions in this area will evolve in the near future.
The HRM Function lives in the constant change today. Many HRM Functions are not fully experienced in the area of the change management, but they will have to develop processes and the change management project methodology to participate successfully in such activities.
CONCLUSION:
The organization gets more multicultural and they need one common corporate culture. The HRM Function is usually responsible for the development and implementation of the unified corporate culture. The multicultural organization needs strong corporate culture and unifying corporate values and the HRM Function has to be able to introduce them globally. The knowledge of the different cultures and the ability to find the unifying values across different nations is essential. The change management in the HRM Function gets more important. The value added of the HRM Function has to be increased and the change management is the key component and value added for many modern organizations.
Change:
Change may refer to the process of becoming different. Some of the changes like:
- Social change
- Biological metamorphosis
- Change (mathematics), the mathematical study of change
- Percentage change, in statistics
- Fold change, in statistics
- Personal development - especially if seen as personally "life-changing"
- Organizational Change
Management:
Management in all business areas and organizational activities are the acts of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives efficiently and effectively. Management comprises planning, organizing, staffing, leading or directing, and controlling an organization (a group of one or more people or entities) or effort for the purpose of accomplishing a goal. Resourcing encompasses the deployment and manipulation of human resources, financial resources, technological resources, and natural resources.
Change Management:
There is nothing permanent expect change. Change is induced by the internal and external forces. Meeting this challenge of change is the primary responsibility of management. An organization lacking adaptability to change has no future. Adaptability to change is a necessary quality of good management. Modern managers have the responsibility to devise the management practices to meet the new challenges and make use of the opportunities for the growth of the organization.
Definition:
Change management is a systematic approach to dealing with change, both from the perspective of an organization and on the individual level. A somewhat ambiguous term, change management has at least three different aspects, including: adapting to change, controlling change, and effecting change. A proactive approach to dealing with change is at the core of all three aspects. For an organization, change management means defining and implementing procedures and/or technologies to deal with changes in the business environment and to profit from changing opportunities.
Why change management?
For many change practitioners, there is no doubt that change management must be used on projects that impact how people do their jobs. A great solution and a well managed project are not enough to ensure success. Written another way:
Myth: A great solution + Effective project management = Project success
The missing piece of the equation above is change management. Managing the human side of change is key to meeting objectives. Although the answer may be obvious to you, you might be tasked with answering "why change management?" for some people in your organization. This tutorial arms you with approaches and arguments to make the case for "why change management" in your organization.
Below is a table that outlines some of the most common implications of either effective or ineffective change management. These come from study participants, client experiences and input from hundreds of training participants. This is an interactive tutorial, so you can add your comments to the list based on your own experience (we will update the tables accordingly). Check back in a few days to see what others in the change management community have to say in answering these two critical questions:
What can happen if change is NOT managed?
What can happen if change is EFFECTIVELY managed?
- Productivity declines as people become more consumed with the change being introduced.
- Passive resistance festers.
- Active resistance emerges and sabotages the change.
- Valued employees leave the organization, a very costly proposition in terms of the lost contribution and the cost to replace them.
- Employees become disinterested in the current state and the future state.
- Employees begin arguing about change and the direction of the company.
- People are left to wonder why the change is happening.
- More people begin taking sick days or not showing up for work.
- People find work-around to avoid implementing the new way of doing things.
- Employees revert back to the old way of doing things.
- Changes are not fully implemented.
- Changes are scrapped and cancelled due to the lack of support throughout the organization.
- Divides are created in the organization between 'us' and 'them'.
- The organization builds a history of failed and painful changes.
- Many types of risk are created - risk to the project, to the organization, to the employees involved and to the individuals supporting or chartering the change.
- Employees have a solid understanding of why change is happening.
- Employees engage in both the solution and the change.
- Training is used to build knowledge after employees have made the personal decision to support the change.
- Resistance is identified and dealt with early in the process.
- Senior leaders demonstrate their own and the organization's commitment to the change.
- Communications are segmented and customized for different audiences, answering the questions that they care about.
- Momentum is built throughout different areas and levels within the organization.
- Changes are less painful to the organization and to the employees.
- A coalition of support among senior leaders and managers creates momentum throughout the organization.
- Probability of meeting project objectives is increased.
- The organization begins to build a history of successful change, creating a better 'backdrop' for the next change initiative.
Why change management now?
Change management as a discipline has grown tremendously over the last five years. Between the 2003 benchmarking study and the 2005 benchmarking study, the percentage of participants using a structured approach to manage change grew from 34% to 55%. Below are several reasons change management has become so important to organizations in recent years.
- More and frequent changes - Change is occurring at an incredible pace in organizations today. The sheer quantity of changes is increasing, and changes are happening more frequently and faster than ever before. With such large amounts of change happening, organizations need a better and more structured way to manage the individuals in the organization impacted by all of these changes.
- Value system of empowerment - Over the last fifty years, value systems have shifted in many organizations. Old values of control and predictability have been replaced by new values to push decision making, authority and responsibility down into the organization. While this shift has delivered many benefits, it has also made top-down changes more difficult and increased the resistance they face. Organizations with empowered workforces need to manage the human side of change more effectively than they did in the very hierarchical structure of the past.
- Competitive advantage - Many sources of competitive advantage have eroded as information moves more quickly and across the globe in seconds. In upcoming years, speed and agility will be a central differentiator in the market place. And organizations that do not use change management cannot build their internal competency to quickly and effectively implement change. Strong change management competencies within an organization are a key source of competitive advantage in coming years.
Why organizations need to change:
Change management is relevant as though the research finds that change is taking place at an ever-increasing pace, the evidence suggests that most change initiatives fail. For example, recent CIPD research suggested that less than 60% of re-organizations met their stated objectives which are usually bottom line improvement.
HR's role in change management:
People management and development professionals have significant role to play in any change management process. Arising from CIPD research, HR's involvement in certain areas was identified as sometimes being the difference between successful and less successful projects:
HR needs to provide reassurance to both the employees and the management and should treat everyone as a partner in the change.
- HR should have the leaders in an organization communicate the changes and reasons behind them in person or over an email. It is imperative for the leaders to understand that the impact of the message is more important than the content.
HR needs to try and sell the reason for change and how the change would fit into the vision and mission of the organization.
Employees need to be told the benefits of change, both for the organization and individuals.
Skills required
HR is expected to serve as a change agent, not just within the HR function but also across the broader organization. Within the broader role, HR professionals need to make sure that they are equipped with the tools, techniques and skills needed to be successful in this area. They need to start to think differently and have an understanding of what drives change. HR will need to ensure that it has the skills and credibility within the organization to act as champions of change in the future.
HR role in shaping changes:
Organizational change is a regular feature of life. For HR professionals, dealing with re organizations are now a regular part of the job. But there is substantial evidence that organizations are not very good at organizing. They don't have the capability for successful repeated reorganization and they don't fully use the expertise of HR professionals.
The three central themes are:
- the positive role HR professionals can play in reorganizations as shapers of change
- the challenge of accumulating learning about change at the organizational level, rather than relying on the personal knowledge of a few key individuals
- The potential relevance of a core set of generic skills and capabilities across a wide range of organizations and sectors.
It's the political season, and "Change!" seems to be the dominant theme on the campaign trail. But in the global business environment--and for organizations worldwide--real, constant change has been a fact of life for some time. To remain competitive, organizations often find it necessary to undertake major changes that affect their processes and people.
Increasingly, change management is seen as a permanent business function to improve efficiency and keep organizations adaptable to the competitive marketplace. Many organizations strategically use change to improve organizational effectiveness. But bringing about successful change in today's competitive environment requires thoughtful planning, effective communication and employee acceptance.
As the function with primary responsibility for human capital management, HR needs to be involved from the beginning when major organizational change initiatives are being developed.
The impact of major organizational changes on employee attitudes cannot be overstated. Change can create enormous tension in the workplace. Many people are uncomfortable with change, and are filled with uncertainty and apprehension over job security and the future, circumstances that can threaten the success of change initiatives. According to the Society for Human Resource Management's (SHRM) 2007 Change Management Survey Report, the top two obstacles encountered during major organizational change are communication breakdown and employee resistance.
HRM Change Management
The change management in the HRM Function gets more important. The value added of the HRM Function has to be increased and the change management is the key component and value added for many modern organizations.
The future of the HRM Function will bring many initiatives, constant pressure and the HRM Function will have to find new creative ways to accomplish the goals given by the top management.
The employees in Europe and Americas get older and the HRM Function cannot be dependent on the supply of new and young graduates. The compensation and benefits can be hit by the changes on the labor market as well.
The change management is a key to success in the future for many HRM Professionals.
The future of Human Resources:
The world is quickly changing, the globalization continues and the organizations enjoy the pressure on costs and their human capital. The innovation is one of the strategic imperatives for the organizations to stay competitive and to differentiate themselves from the other organizations on the market.
The organizations grow and get more complex and the HRM Function is confronted with the need to outsource their processes with no value added to the organization and providing the organization with the shared services centers. The HRM shared services centers are not easy to design, develop and function. The companies in the group use different methodologies and the different countries need definitely unique approach. The HRM Management Team has to be able to find the right way of the processing all the requests with the main goal in the mind - to keep the HRM costs fully under the control.
The HRM Outsourcing is a pressure for the standardization of the HRM Processes across different organizations. The organizations have to fully adapt their processes to the provider of the outsourcing services as the organization can benefit from the large scale of the process. But the unification of the HRM Processes brings the issue with the competitive differentiation from the competitors and potential data privacy issues as the outsourced processes provider has the direct access to the sensitive data.
The management of talents in the organization is a key issue for the future of HRM in the organization. The talents are the best and the only competitive advantage in the area of the human capital and the organization has to develop processes and procedures to actively work with the best talents in the organization to keep them. The other organizations on the job market will actively search for the best talents and will try to make them to change the employer. The real and smart solutions in this area will evolve in the near future.
The HRM Function lives in the constant change today. Many HRM Functions are not fully experienced in the area of the change management, but they will have to develop processes and the change management project methodology to participate successfully in such activities.
CONCLUSION:
The organization gets more multicultural and they need one common corporate culture. The HRM Function is usually responsible for the development and implementation of the unified corporate culture. The multicultural organization needs strong corporate culture and unifying corporate values and the HRM Function has to be able to introduce them globally. The knowledge of the different cultures and the ability to find the unifying values across different nations is essential. The change management in the HRM Function gets more important. The value added of the HRM Function has to be increased and the change management is the key component and value added for many modern organizations.