A Cultural Shift Around Enterprise Change

Leadership in HR at this global manufacturing company recognized that to achieve the long-term goals of their department and the organization as a whole, they needed to proactively pursue a focus on the people side of change.

While the organization had historically been very successful at project management, ongoing success led to significant growth goals with very big people implications. While the leadership team within Human Resources knew that a change management capability would be necessary to accomplish the organization’s overall goals, they also knew that much of the organization wasn't yet ready to begin a capability build. In light of this, the department focused first on building an internal department change capability while also preparing for an eventual enterprise-wide capability build.

Partnership with Prosci

Leadership selected Prosci as their change management methodology for several reasons. First, Prosci’s training-oriented business model put the focus on building an internal capability. Instead of doing change management for them, Prosci enabled HR staff to learn how to do the work themselves. In addition, Prosci’s commitment to research creates a unique environment that balances theory and knowledge of change management with a practical, results-oriented approach to building an organization’s capability. The blend of these two elements, in addition to Prosci’s client-focused people, created a true partnership that offered the support, structure and guidance to successfully build a change management capability.

Internal department capability and preparation for capability build

With Prosci as their chosen methodology, the Human Resources team secured a Prosci site license that gave them access to the Prosci Guide for Managers, the book ADKAR: A Model for Change, and two role-based training programs.

They also sent two staff members to the Prosci Train-the-Trainer Program so that they could internally teach the Prosci Change Management Practitioner Program. They immediately began training staff in change management.

Applying change management to key initiatives

The team selected key enterprise-wide initiatives to include a change management strategy. Doing this demonstrated to the organization what change management could look like on an initiative and also showed the impact change management can have on project success.

Creating a language for change

As they were beginning to apply change management to these key initiatives, staff from Human Resources also focused on bringing people-focused language and concepts into their meetings and conversations with other departments. The goal was not to make an announcement about change management. In fact, staff members didn't even mention their change management initiative in these conversations. Instead, they worked to bring awareness of the notion that people impact outcomes.

Preparing for an enterprise-wide capability build

The Human Resource team also used the structure of Prosci’s role-based training programs and the support from Prosci’s enterprise change management suite of tools to create a plan for how they would embed change management in their organization. This enterprise plan included recommendations on who should receive change management training and how they could integrate individual change management capability in project expectations and employee reviews.

The most important part of the preparation process, however, was gauging the readiness of the organization to implement a change capability. By having a plan in place for an eventual enterprise capability build, the Human Resources department could launch a deployment plan as soon as there was sufficient pull in the rest of the organization.

Deploying change management organization-wide

The organization’s leadership team identified change management leadership as key to the success of their strategic plan, and the organization was finally ready for an enterprise-wide rollout of change management. With the leadership’s buy-in, the change management team attended the Prosci ECM Boot Camp and created a formal Enterprise Change Management Plan. This plan included facilitating role-based change management training programs, formalizing the enterprise approach to change, and integrating change management into existing processes.

In addition to the role-based trainings, the team also trained staff with the Prosci Change Management Practitioner Program, which enabled each department and business unit to begin applying change management to their projects and initiatives. This was the start of a now robust enterprisewide Change Agent Network.

Gaining commitment from individual business units

In the midst of this training deployment, two key business executives decided to embed change management in their business units. Both attended a Change Management Practitioner Program with their leadership teams and went on to fully invest in getting every staff member in their organizations change management training.

This was a crucial moment in the capability build. With the vocal support of two executives and the results of change management application starting to appear within their business units and Human Resources, other leaders started to come forward with the intent to embed change management in their organization during the next two years. Within that time, over 90% of the organization’s 20+ unique business units around the globe had embarked on embedding change management into their organizations.

Today, leaders can use guidelines from Human Resources to keep their business units accountable for the consistent application of change management and to decide what training their employees should attend. All employees have received or are scheduled to receive the change management training most relevant to them.

Results

Through the change management capability build, this manufacturing organization has accomplished an organization-wide shift in company culture. The organization now has:

• Embedded language and process for change throughout the organization
• Trained and engaged employees to fulfill their roles in the change process
• Driven project success through high energy and employee engagement on key initiatives

Due to the successful facilitation of role-based change management trainings in addition to clear support from leadership, employees at every level understand the role they play in making a change successful and are expected to apply change management to their daily work.

Employees gained the tools and resources to facilitate change, plus they gained a renewed attitude toward change and new initiatives. The organization’s Senior HR Director says,

“As tools and processes are added or changed, people feel like they are coming along the journey. They don’t feel like things are being done to them; they feel like change is being done with them.”

This in turn has resulted in projects with high employee engagement, less negativity, and more project success.