Creating employee change Awareness must start on day one, otherwise, information gaps will cause fear, resistance will start to build, and this will hinder adoption.
Change Management Adoption: Achieving employee change adoption in a major organisation change or transformation has mixed success, and the ROI benefits are not always realised. For change adoption to be successful, the leaders, sponsor, and change team should support the employees through the change transition by providing Awareness, Understanding, Involvement, Learning, and Motivation for the change.
Awareness: Creating employee change awareness must start on day one, otherwise information gaps will cause fear, resistance will start to build and this will hinder adoption
The first tactic is to make the employee aware that there is a new change programme coming and that the change could impact them and their role within the organisation. Awareness should start to happen in the early stages of the change, i.e., when it is announced. Getting the change message out is extremely important. This should be done using as many communication channels as possible and have a feedback loop for questions. Gaps in any change communication will quickly be filled by rumours and resistance.
Creating employee change awareness is typically about clarifying:
What: What the change programme is about:
o Improving products, services, etc.
o Meeting changing customer expectations, etc.
Why: Why this change programme is so important to the organisation:
o The need to better compete against competitors.
o New technology is changing the way the organisation operates.
Benefits: What are the advantages if this change is implemented successfully? Benefits can be both tangible and intangible.
What’s In It For Me? (WIIFM): This is the foremost question that employees are concerned with when hearing about organisational change. Starting to be aware of WIIFM helps the employee rationalise how the change could impact them and their families and how they will respond to it.
"For change adoption to be successful, support the employees through the change transition by providing Awareness, Understanding, Involvement, Learning, and Motivation to achieve sustainable change and benefits realisation"
About this book:
Organisations are operating in an environment of rapid change and transformation where success is dependent on employees adopting the new technology or way of working to improve operating performance and achieve the targeted return on investment (ROI). The fact that successfully implementation of the change or transformation is critical to the future viability of the organisation is sometimes not enough.
The Leadership of Change® Volume 5, focuses on how to achieve employee change adoption in a major organisation change or transformation using the AUILM® Employee Change Adoption Model. The AUILM® Model outlines the five key life cycle stages the employee goes through in the change transition. The model helps change teams to understand how employees tend to react during change and then supports them through the change, so resistance is minimised and adoption is maximised. For change adoption to be successful, employees should be supported through the change transition, being provided with Awareness, Understanding, Involvement, Learning, and Motivation so the organisation can achieve sustainable change and benefits realisation. Change implementation focuses on aligning employees, processes, systems and leaders, it is also supported by the a2B Change Management Framework® (a2BCMF®).
Further Reading: Change Management Adoption - Leadership of Change Volume 5.
Peter consults, speaks, and writes on the Leadership of Change®.
For further information please visit our websites:
Peter F Gallagher is a Change Management Global Thought Leader, Guru, Expert, International Speaker, Author and Leadership Alignment Coach.
Listed #1 by leadersHum Top 40 Change Management Gurus You Should Follow in 2022 (Mar 2022).
Ranked #1 Change Management Global Thought Leader: Top 50 Global Thought Leaders and Influencers on Change Management (2023-2022-2021-2020) by Thinkers360.
Ranked #1 Business Strategy Global Thought Leader: Top 50 Global Thought Leaders and Influencers on Business Strategy (2022) by Thinkers360.
Ranked #2 Leadership Global Thought Leader: Top 50 Global Thought Leaders and Influencers on Leadership (Aug 2020) by Thinkers360.
Business Book Ranking
Change Management Behaviour - Leadership of Change® Volume 6, listed among the 50 Books from Thinkers360 Thought Leaders to read in 2022.
Change Management Adoption - Leadership of Change® Volume 5, listed among year-to-date’s (Jul 2021) most popular books on business and technology from Thinkers360 member thought leaders.
Change Management Handbook - Leadership of Change® Volume 3, listed among the 50 Business and Technology Books from Thinkers360 Thought Leaders to read in 2021.
Change Management Pocket Guide - Leadership of Change® Volume 2, ranked within the top 50 Business and Technology Books (Jan 2020) from Thinkers360 Thought Leaders.