London Daily News

Employee Engagement during business transformation

Research suggests that the number one reason why business transformation fails is that employees are not signed on. This may suggest if a business transformation effort is to succeed, people are more important than any tech solution. So how do businesses get the workforce onboard?

Sustainable business improvement can only be delivered by the employees working together as a team with commitment from executives. So as part of our business transformation process, as consultants, we transfer our knowledge across the company from C-Suite executives throughout the organisation . As such, people plans and the plans for HR-related activities in an organisation are a key ingredient in any change for the business.

This is an area, which is often overlooked. All too often we see C-Suite leaders sign off and embark on a business transformation without keeping the HR team and the rest of the company in the loop. We advise that the C-Suite team engages with the HR team, as part of the board, long before this happens. It’s essential that HR works closely with all departments and teams to ensure effective change is achieved and that new employees are onboarded with the correct ways of working.

With any business transformation you will get employees that are reluctant to embrace change. We have worked with the leadership team and HR professionals to ensure that every employee understands why the business is transforming and what each and every individual’s role in that is. We host workshops with the teams so that they can take ownership before cascading internally with the HR team and all the teams involved in the design of the new ways of working.

If each employee is involved from the outset, as opposed to at the end of the business transformation the HR team are more likely to identify problems with staff earlier on and be able to rectify it. In addition, a combination of team based coaching helps to deliver sustainability and again this can be measured by HR to plot progress of change on the journey.

The most important job for the HR team, during any business transformation, is to ensure a happy work force that buys into the process whilst supporting people to move through the change loop. We would suggest HR oversees the following:

  • Support for the education and workshop activities required to implement the business transformation
  • Creation and/or revision of each and everyone’s role descriptions
  • Support for internal project communications and updates to the wider organisation
  • Communication of the positive benefits being delivered through the new ways of working
  • Coaching of executives and other process participants on the behaviours required for business transformation to be effective
  • Inclusion of training in business transformation and the induction process for new starters
  • Development, roll out, ongoing maintenance and orgnaisation  of education and training to ensure that all process participants fully understand the process and their role in it

Article from Les Brookes, CEO of Oliver Wight – Business transformation specialists

Featured Image Photo by SOULSANA on Unsplash

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