According to McKinsey, 70% of change management projects fail, essentially due to employee resistance.
As we saw in the previous article in this series, change is first and foremost human and cultural, before it is organizational. How, then, to engage employees as equal stakeholders in a successful change?
In this second installment of the change management series, Lemon Learning unmasks the three keys to change management success: guidance, training, and communication. We aim to provide you with practical tips for creating an effective change management program.
Identify employee needs and implement customized support
In order to put in place a tailored support program, you must first identify the specific needs of your employees in terms of guidance. To do this, you’ll need an impact study. That is, an analysis of micro-changes which will result from the project, for each stakeholder concerned. Each of these micro-changes will require some form of support, whether it is a simple communication, a training seminar, or the implementation of a new process.
In a spreadsheet, create an exhaustive list of these changes, for every stakeholder group, according to category of change:
- Skills: What knowledge and skills do employees need?
- Process: What systems and processes will be altered by this change?
- Roles: Which roles will be affected by this change? What roles will be created?
- KPIs: How will work performance metrics be impacted by the project?
- Tools: What tools will disappear or be added to your employees’ workflows? Which tools will be replaced?
- Culture: Will company culture and corporate values be impacted by this project?
- Behavior: What knowledge and skills will require support in order to create sustainable change?
- Power: Will the structure or hierarchy of the organization need to be modified or updated with this change?
Anticipate objections and prepare a communication plan
One of the challenges in a change management project lies in the need to communicate about a future that is not yet certain, with variables that might derail the project at any time (risks, delays, failures…). So while it is necessary to create a well-defined communication plan, you’ll also need to make it flexible, to adapt to inevitable evolutions as the project advances.
As communication is a key to the success of a project, interact with your collaborators throughout the change, thanks to regular questionnaires or meetings organized by operational managers, for example. Through these interactions, you will be able to identify your team’s objections and respond easily thanks to facts and figures prepared beforehand.
To ensure that communication is offered in a way best suited to each audience, don’t hesitate to create a variety of supports:
- To launch the project, create a communication kit that explains the benefits of the change, each stakeholder’s role in the project, and an outline of key dates
- Organize focus group workshops leading up to the project launch made up of a representative group of employees to get a feel for the environment and to test multiple options before deploying at scale.
- Communicate with users directly within their tools through push notifications and tooltips with Lemon Learning. Push out your messages at the right moment and to the right group of users for targeted and personalized communication.
Prepare for implementation and create training plans
Once employee needs and objections have been identified, a training plan is the next step in order to ensure lasting change. It is critical to identify training needs, according to audience in terms of:
- Theoretical Knowledge: What do employees need to know about culture or context to effectively adopt the change?
- Practical Skills: What operational expertise and skills are needed?
- Behavior & Process: What processes, habits, or ways of thinking must be adopted for sustainable change?
36% of employees don’t know where to find the information they need to do their jobs (source: Dynamic Signal)
In a context where multiple training methods coexist, Lemon Learning offers a solution that addresses organizations’ training and software adoption challenges by offering users the right training content at the right time, directly within their everyday tools. Thanks to personalized training programs and support in real-life scenarios, Lemon Learning helps millions of users to take control of their applications.
In our next article, discover how to equip and drive your change management project.
