Sharon, a  chartered business psychologist, works at Cognoscenti, Manchester.

"All organisations experience change throughout their life cycles.

Sometimes changes are forced upon them due to either internal or external factors e.g. new CEO/MD taking over or economic pressures.

On other occasions, however, organisations decide to make planned changes in order to achieve specific objectives e.g. in order to expand or diversify or event simply to stay ahead of technical advances. Managing change is often perceived as a difficult thing to achieve and many organisations fail to achieve what they set out to do. If sufficient attention is paid to the important factors, however, there is no reason why any organisation should not achieve successful change.

*Is your ‘change plan’ clear, realistic and achievable?

If you want to bring about change within your organisation, you need to be clear about what it is that you want to change and what you want to change it to. This sounds like common sense but you would be amazed at how many organisations enter into change without having a clear idea of what they expect to achieve at the end of it. Before you embark on any change, think through what you want the end state to look like and what is the likelihood of you being able to make it happen. Break the change down into manageable chunks.

*How will you know when you have achieved the change that you want to achieve?

You need to think about what your current baseline is i.e. where are you now, where do you want to be in X time and how are you going to measure it? Your change goal may be to expand the organisation, if so, how will you measure that expansion e.g. in terms of new staff employed? increased business? increased market share?  It is important to be clear from the outset about how you will measure the change and ensure that you have baseline measures against which to measure the extent of change achieved. 
 
*How will you consult and involve your employees in the change process?

Research demonstrates that employees respond best to change when they are involved in it and when they can see some personal benefit.  Make sure that your change plan includes regular consultation with your employees. Some organisations get confused between the words ‘consultation’ and ‘communication’ which is why we have separated them here. Communication is generally more of a one way process whereas consultation is a two way process where people’s opinions are sought and acted upon.  Consulting with your employees and involving them in the change is more likely to get their buy-in than simply communicating news about the change.
 
* What behaviours/attitudes will your employees need to change and to what?
 
Once you have decided on the change that you want to bring about, the next step is to think about what this means for your employees on a practical basis i.e. do you want them to behave in a different way? Do you need them to perform different or additional tasks? Will the change require them to have different attitudes?  This is an important step because it then leads you to another part of the planning process which is about how you are going to support your employees in acquiring any news skills or assist them in demonstrating changed attitudes.

*Do you have a plan to train/educate staff affected by the change?

Once you have identified the additional skills/attitudes that you require from your employees, you will need to devise a plan to provide the necessary training/education to support them. The need for training/education may be minimal, depending on the scope of the change, or it may be extensive. Consideration will also have to be taken with regard to the best time to commence training/education. On some occasions, it may be more helpful to offer training/educations once you have achieved employee buy-in, whereas on other occasions, the training/education may need to be implemented early in order to help achieve employee buy-in."

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