True story: Ted, a mid-level HR professional for a fast-growing biopharma in my area, assumed the worst when he was ushered into a conference room, the door closing softly behind him.

“I’m being laid off, aren’t I?” he asked as he scanned at the grim faces around the table.

“No Ted, you’re not. But dozens of people in your unit are, due to the big reorg we announced this morning. We’re telling the people who are directly affected later today, and we’ll announce it to the rest of the company tomorrow.”

“Wait. You don’t think everyone’s affected?”

“Not really. Most employees will be doing pretty much the same jobs. They’ll just be doing them more efficiently, and they may be working for different people. But other than that, they probably won’t see much of a change.”

Ted confided to me later that he couldn’t fathom why these leaders assumed that everyone would be okay with changes that cost their colleagues their jobs and turned their own worlds upside down. “I mean, that’s just Change Management 101!” he sputtered, shaking his head in disbelief.

Maybe so, but how many leaders have actually been through anything resembling Change Management training in the last couple of years, or maybe ever? Probably not nearly enough, despite the proliferation of rapid, radical change many organizations have undergone in the last few years.

Here are some sobering stats: The rate of change affecting businesses has risen 183% over the past four years. Back in 2020, 60% of companies said they needed to reinvent themselves every three years or so, and so far in 2024, almost half of change initiatives constitute radical reinventions.

Some of these monumental changes are made for good reason, while others are made just for show. (See my previous Communique – Tips for Conquering the Whiplash of Change) Whether they’re valid or not, major organizational changes have a seismic impact on the work and well-being of all employees, who are often informed only after the fact.

Regardless of the catalyst, for change to take root, employees need to be involved in the entire change process, from creating a vision for the desired state, brainstorming alternatives, influencing decisions, action planning, and finally, acting as ambassadors of change. Employees need to be the architects of change, rather than simply be the recipients.

Here are some tangible actions organizations can take to involve employees in meaningful ways, right from the start.

• Include at least a few representative managers and employees as part of your core change planning team. Not everyone has to be part of the decision-making body, but all members provide input and ideas throughout the process. This team plays a key role in determining the scope and timing of the upcoming changes and oversees the planning and implementation, including communications and training plans. HR, Finance and IT all will play vital roles.

• Make the case for change, together. Hold employee meetings to share facts, trends, competitive data, new technologies, and other information to jumpstart discussions about whether, why and how much change your organization needs to make, if any, and when. Discuss pros and cons of making certain changes vs. maintaining the status quo. Explain who will be making the ultimate decisions and what criteria they’ll be using.

• Ensure that decision-makers create a proposal for change only after reflecting on employees’ input and analyzing additional data. Clearly articulate likely implications for managers, employees, clients, partners, communities, investors, and other stakeholders. Using relatable stories is often the best way to convey how the change will work, as seen by different perspectives. Equip managers and supervisors with talking points as they discuss the proposed changes with employee groups.

• Hold focus groups, led by either managers or facilitators, to share the proposed change and solicit input. Indicate how input from earlier employee meetings was reflected. Ask employees what they see as implications, for whom, and how best to mitigate risk. Pose questions to elicit what employees see as critical success factors, like: “What do we have to really nail to make sure this change achieves results that exceed our wildest dreams?” and “What do we have to do really badly if we want to fail miserably?”

• Open up other communication channels, both asynchronous and real-time, for ideas and feedback such as surveys, social media, group communication channels, larger group meetings, email, etc. The core planning team then synthesizes input from all channels to help form the basis of the implementation plan.

• Working with cross-functional groups, facilitate brainstorming and action planning sessions, where employees help build out the implementation plan, including how best to create awareness, engagement and ready adoption across the organization, targeted by each key stakeholder group. Seek employees’ ideas about who in the organization is best positioned to act as influencers and ambassadors of change and what they need to be effective. Reconvene these groups throughout the change process to solicit feedback and ideas.

• Create a comprehensive communications and training plan that places your change ambassadors and influencers at the center. Make them privy to advance information, when possible, along with credible speaking points, FAQs, sample agendas and emails and demo scripts (if applicable). Give them an easy way to provide the planning team with feedback, requests, issues and questions during all phases of the change initiative.

• Test-run your communications and training plan as part of your initial roll-out and leave time to revise and adjust before wide-scale roll-out. Seek employee feedback in multiple ways, including through direct observation, interviews, focus groups, surveys and team meetings.

• As the change is implemented, gather employee feedback at critical intervals. What’s working as planned? What did we fail to anticipate? How could we have prepared people better? What risks still need to be mitigated? What changes do we need to make, and when? Involve change ambassadors to help gather data, which can be done a number of ways, including through focus groups, online conversation areas, surveys, in team meetings, all-hands meetings, and more.

Changes that are dreamed up by a small group of senior leaders and management consultants behind closed doors rarely elicit an enthusiastic reception from employees. That’s because employees’ perspectives and ideas have often been ignored, blinding the decision-makers to the real impact of their proposed decisions. When employees don’t buy in, change efforts almost always fail. Inviting employees to be architects of change from the start instead of unwilling recipients can make all the difference.

Links 

Downloadable resources from Guided Insights:

• New program offering from Guided Insights: Facilitation Skills Learning Community of Practice – brochure and visuals
• Communicating in Times of Change – downloadable white paper
• Stakeholder Analysis Matrix template – downloadable PDF
• Communications Planning Matrix for Virtual Teams – downloadable template

Articles from Guided Insights:

• Before Attempting Big Change, First, Root Out the Dysfunction
• Tips for Conquering the Whiplash of Change
• Confronting Conflict with Courage in Remote Teams
• Practical Steps for Creating a Team Communications Map that Everyone Embraces
• Make Better Decisions with Less Pain, Virtually
• How to Prevent ‘Unfair’ Decisions from Tearing Teams Apart
• Getting Hybrid Right Takes Curiosity, Openness, Thoughtful Deliberation and (Lots of) Change Management