Building a Change Management Program

AVANGRID, Inc. is a diversified energy and utility company with 7,600 employees, $41 billion in assets and operations in 24 states. Formed from the 2015 merger of Iberdrola USA and UIL Holdings Corporation, AVANGRID remains an affiliate of the Iberdrola Group, a worldwide leader in the energy industry.

From the very beginning, AVANGRID’s approach to building an enterprise-wide change management capability was structured and intentional. After an initial few months of research, the company created a Change Management Office, consisting of a director, Diane Schreiner, and two senior analysts. Their first task was to select a change management methodology and develop an enterprise-wide strategic plan to create change management as a core competency. 

The robust selection process included research into various well-known change management methodologies, as well as interviews with organizations that had adopted them. The new Change Management Office selected Prosci based on its practical application, scalability and proven reputation. As Prosci is a knowledge-transfer company, leaders were confident that Prosci would give them the tools and skills to apply the model to increase their organization’s change management capabilities.

Participating in Prosci’s Change Management Certification Program confirmed to the AVANGRID team that they had made the right choice. When they returned to AVANGRID, they invested in a Prosci license and completed their Change Management Roadmap. The Roadmap outlined a plan to implement change management at an enterprise level in two ways: on select projects with significant employee impacts and through a Change Agent Network.

Elevating change management credibility

Initially, the Change Management Office selected a pilot Wellness initiative, a larger Operational Excellence project, and an enterprise-wide global SAP implementation. The SAP implementation impacted 4,100 employees and required significant changes for many departments. 

By completing thorough and well-documented change management plans and regularly reporting demonstrated successes, the Change Management Office quickly gained the trust and respect of leadership, both within the U.S. and in their parent company, Iberdrola. During the initial meeting with the Change Management Office and the management steering committee, the team came prepared to demonstrate the results of change management efforts, and these updates ultimately became an integral part of the meetings. The Networks SAP implementation went live and was considered a huge success, with only 10% of employees requiring refresher training.

Developing a Change Agent Network

In conjunction with the SAP implementation, the Change Management Office moved forward with selecting and certifying change practitioners throughout the organization, acting as the governing entity overseeing a decentralized Change Agent Network within the various business units. 

The Change Management Office, in partnership with Business Area Leaders, was responsible for selecting these certified change practitioners and had strict criteria for its applicants. These candidates had to have both technical expertise and people skills necessary to influence those in the organization, independent of where they were in the hierarchy. In three years, the Change Management Office sent 20 selected employees through Prosci’s Change Management Certification Program, and then formed the Change Agent Network.

AVANGRID also made the conscious decision to send its change management staff to public Prosci-instructed Change Management Certification Programs. This ensured a quality training experience for their practitioners and exposed employees to participants from other industries to share experiences. 

In addition to sending their new change agents to Prosci certification, the staff of the Change Management Office also attended a Prosci Enterprise Change Management Boot Camp. They had previously completed a Change Management Maturity Model Audit, which they used to establish a baseline, and at the ECM Boot Camp they were able to further identify gaps in their program and adjust their Change Management Roadmap accordingly.

Deploying change management more broadly

Once the initial projects had come to a successful end, the Change Management Office began to expand its change management application to other enterprise-wide initiatives that had a high impact on all employees. This continued work on new projects has solidified AVANGRID’s process for applying change management to a project.

The next big push for building change management across the organization involved broader change management training and socialization. AVANGRID aims to implement change management into the organization’s day-to-day work so that it becomes a core competency. All AVANGRID supervisors (roughly 550 people) had the option to attend a Change Management 101 webinar that offered an overview of Prosci’s change management methodology and AVANGRID’s vision for a change management capability.

They designed a customized change management boot camp to include basic change management tools, interactive exercises, and immediately applicable takeaways. This workshop includes updates on a handful of ongoing enterprise-wide initiatives so that supervisors have both the tools and the information they need to communicate about a change to their employees. 

In addition, the Change Management Office established a series of optional interactive webinars designed to provide awareness to employees about changes underway to people, processes and technology that are transforming the organization and the industry. They offer these webinars at least once a month, and record and post them to the change management SharePoint site. Employee participation is not mandatory but is already resulting in 200 to 550 attendees per webinar. 

Results

AVANGRID has seen steady progress in a short amount of time through application of change management to large-scale projects. However, the  company is still working to implement change management in day-to-day business operations.

Using the Prosci Change Management Maturity Model Audit as a gauge, AVANGRID began its journey to change management capability with a Level 1 maturity, meaning that the organization had ad hoc or absent change management. Today, the organization is securely in Level 3 maturity and well on its way to achieving Level 5, the highest maturity level. With over 30 certified change management practitioners throughout the organization, the Change Management Office has a goal of having over 50 certified practitioners in the near future.

The success that AVANGRID has realized from applying change management to its high-impact initiatives has also prompted its parent company to invest in the Prosci change management methodology. The AVANGRID Change Management Office also provides consultancy services to business areas for projects of varying scope where this expertise does not exist. 

With continued success, demand for change management certifications has increased, which will accelerate the path to enterprise change management competency.