With the advancement of cloud technology and the constant innovations, businesses are constantly changing, some willingly and some not so willingly. When the change or changes are constant or large and involved major process changes, based on our experience, it is important to implement a change management system that works alongside the program.
“Change management is making and executing a plan to implement a change in your business, with specific focus on helping employees to adjust†Unleashed
Why is change management so important? According to Small Business Trends, there are two key reasons why change management is so important, the first being the employee s resistance to new software.
Employees feel a sense of uncertainty and discomfort when business adopts new software, and often believe learning how to use it is a waste of time. Therefore, the adoption and utilisation of the roll out process is slowed and some employees even reject it entirely.
If the installation is a failure, it would mean that the change may have to be scrapped, or more time and money is needed to train and motivate the team. This can be avoided however through implementing change management; by involving the staff from the beginning and allowing them to have input on the change.
The second reason change management needs to be used is because of employee s growing pains . This relates to the difficulty some employees may face when trying to adapt to the new procedure. We all know as an employee what it is like when you can t do something you get frustrated and unmotivated. This driving the business into developing customer dissatisfaction, higher costs, unnecessary rework and downtime in production. However, if you have a comprehensive plan that involves communication, including feedback, and post-implementation activities to help them learn and grow you will in turn maintain capable users and reduce disruptions.
After looking into the importance of change management, the implementation can be summarised in three key steps.
Firstly, the need for change and the rationale behind the change must be communicated to the employees, allowing them to give feedback.
Secondly the change must be implemented in phases to allow the employee to adjust, with constant communication with employees.
Lastly, evaluate review and report on the change. If all of these steps are carried out correctly the workplace will be able to take on the change in software and its benefits to the fullest of its potential.