Change management in HR transformation programmes
Businesses become successful, doing what they have been doing over a period of time and hence the question - why change something which aint broke?Transformation programmes generally struggle to achieve desired results, HR transformation programmes more so. All efforts are made to ensure that the IT application landscape and solutions meet the desired scope, adequate training is put in place, but even then calling out a success story is constantly elusive. What ails them, despite serious and well intentioned sponsorship from the top management? The answer to this question may be as many as consultants who have worked on these programmes, but as all would unanimously agree that the strength of the change management made or marred the initiative.
What makes change management so critical in this whole game of business transformation? We need to realize that any change, application, technology, business process or organizational makeover is ultimately delivered by human beings and for human beings, and hence resistance to change will always be there. The primary idea of delivering change management is to make people aware of the change that is going to happen, why it is happening, and what it will eventually lead to. Change management experts have debated this communication over the years, in order to identify any behavioral aspects that would make it easier to deliver the message, and improve compliance. For the recipient of this communication, what simply matters is the understanding of how this change will influence his/her daily existence. Lack of a direct answer, has the genesis of underachievement of transformation programs. The vehicle to deliver this message is clear communication which has the capacity to inform and allay uneasiness about the daily existence. Organizations use town halls, print & electronic media as well as portals to spread this message, but what needs to be considered is also the involvement of direct line managers as employees trust them the most. Besides the message gaining legitimacy, it can also be conveyed in a manner which the employee understands. End to End process is a concept only for consultants and managers. Employees generally know only about the parts of the process that they do on a regular basis, and hence the communication about job roles makes little sense to them. In the previous programs, it was observed that people who were successful in the end user training examinations, were the one's who understood best how to do their part of the process most easily on SAP and also their line manager's understood the impact of the end to end process.
This communication channel has to stay open all the time, even when the transformation program has ended and steady state has been achieved. As per the change management experts, a learning organization is one which has an ongoing change management initiative and has the capacity to disseminate this information adequately and consistently. Change management also involves re-writing and updating the policy manuals, procedure documents which are available in the public domain, and this generally gets neglected against the backdrop of end user documentation and training materials made available by the System Integrators.
We have to make an effort to convert the line managers as regular change agents, and to provide them the required information to communicate with adequate forums to ensure that the message reaches the right people in the right time to provide the right results and thereby generate the value that transformation programs target to achieve.
