Navigating Month 1: Setting Foundations for Workplace Change Management?

The first three months of your change program can be a stressful time.

The first month of your program will have you setting up the channels and modes, as well as getting your Project Control Group, leadership teams and Work stream counterparts comfortable that you know what you are doing. This includes asking for others to help you set up the communication foundations.

In the second month you will be forming communication packs to set the minds of the leadership at ease showing you have a change and comms plan and of course, there is the forming of 'that' plan or program.

Heading into the third month you will be busy communicating what you need from others to do the work in front of you.

These first three months can be a daunting time as the themes for the Workplace Change may not be agreed yet, but don't fear, the information you will receive in this course will enable you to get the rubber on the road and lead confidently.

The first course in this series will focus on Month 1.

 

Scope and Strategy

Once engaged, get as much information as possible about how this project has come about. You may have been provided some information in the interview, or you may know the business well, whatever the situation, information is power and will help your change program.

It is reasonable to think there will be more than one reason for this Workplace Change and the more you know, the more considered you can be when planning and scheduling activities.  The following topics in this Pack are key requirements for Month 1.

 

Business Case – Communicate how this workplace change came about

Not Everyone will have the same information. Make sure that the information about project comes from the project teams where possible rather than coffee machine conversions, where urban myths can be developed.

Work out what you tell and where it suits in your change & Communications strategy.

The Wider business needs to know how we got to this decision and what the changes will be you don’t have to be too prescriptive in the early months about the future changes but you need to start communications about anything you have access to now in the various packs you will develop and meeting you will chair or attend

 

Measure Sentiments and Responses as you go through your change program.

There will be many times you will repeat the central information about how this project came about. Make sure you sell the sizzle and scaffold on the story as it progresses look at ways to sell your messaging on different information sources I.e meeting agendas, stand up team meetings etc and review regularly how well this information was received and/or perceived. This will give you insights into what people are excited about and what people are concerned about review and remedy any concerns before they turn into issues.

 

Do Your home work and understand how project works

It is important to get as much information as you can on what others are doing in changes project elsewhere. Its is also really useful to understand what is going on in the project that the other work stream leads may be working on.

 

Endorsement by the Leaders

The approval from the Business Leaders and their engagement in the proposed plan including their perspective on the change is paramount.

 

Get their input and sentiments on what the change means to them

Get their buy in during business readiness diagnostics.  Meet with managers and ask them to undertake a business readiness assessment/evaluation.

No Secrets

Provide Leaders a heads-up of upcoming announcements so they can prepare their teams. Keep them up to date on content of Packs and always keep the Change & Comms Program up-to-date in case they want to look at it.

Help Leaders to help you and the Change stream

Leave no doubt to the commitment required of all Leaders.  Remind them regularly what is required of them and always provide the estimated hours of engagement required of them and their teams.  Provide tailored communications to meet Leaders communication criterion with their staff and make it easy for them to put their name to it and send it out quickly.

Consistency

Key things to remember in getting the endorsement by the Leaders and keeping their support is to make sure you are consistent with your messaging and actions.  They won’t back you if you aren’t highly organised, consistent and show a high level of emotional intelligence towards the business and their teams.

Get into the rhythm of developing Packs that go out the same time every month, and involve leaders where required, or at least asking for their input at different times. Inclusion is key here.

Socialise the Change and Comms Program with them.  This will set their mind at ease and help them answer queries from their staff.  Refer to where you are at in the program regularly so they can see everything is running to plan and under control.

Make sure you have their sentiments on what the change means to them, their teams and where required, build in any messaging and activities that will win their approval.

 

Project Governance

As you are learning about the Mission and Vision of the project, and who the Leaders are, you also need to know how the project governance works. Much of this information can be provided by your Project Director. 

Examples of project governance are:

·         Org Chart/team structure

·         Schedule of regular meetings with team (Project Working Groups)

·         Weekly meetings with your Project Director to provide update on your work streams progress

·         Roles and Responsibilities

·         Minutes of meetings

·         Peer feedback

·         PWG and Project Director feedback

Your Project Director should set up discussions with you and the other work streams socialising the roles and responsibilities of each of you,  and you in turn should prepare and issue roles and responsibilities to your change champions.  

 

What the Project Is to Achieve

Work with the internally appointed team to initiate the workplace roadmap, with a focus on  governance (control and monitoring, effective communication protocols), risk management,  and the overall timeline.

 

The PCG may take the Change initiatives to the Exec Leadership team for approval (this will help us understand how far we can go). Remember before you start your Change & Comms Program review the Business Case and other Research documents.  Do your homework as your program will be scrutinised so don’t lose support early by leaving out something imperative, or putting something in the program that is adverse to the direction of the business.

 

Each business will have different protocols and before you launch your change and comms program, socialise socialise socialise.

1.    Check with the Project Control Group the changes they expect to see?

2.    Find out expectations and frequencies of Packs

3.    Is there a continued requirement for Endorsement of Initiatives as you go, or can you lead comfortably once the have signed off on your Change & Comms Program?

4.    What is the Requirement and Plan for support from the Property team, Project Director, People & Culture Team, Records Management Teams, HSE and others?

5.    Take guidance from your Project Director on who sees it, who approves and endorses it.

 

The Change Manager should provide the Project Director with recommended reporting for Work streams to bridge any gaps in communication between the Work streams.  The lack of clarity across Workstreams in roles and responsibilities can often be the number #1 cause of confusion for the project team. The Change Manager should work with the Project Director, the internal Change & Comms Teams and any other corporate identify teams to ensure effective Work streamflow and roles and responsibilities.

 

Get underway in socialising the change management approach with workstream leads.  Hold a kick-off session with key stakeholders to  agree on the goals and objectives for managing  the journey and to discuss a high-level approach  to the change strategy for the project, identifying any critical communication points (to enable these to be communicated early, and often, to employees). Inconsistent messages will cause confusion).  Remember that the initial email that you should send to the project team should acknowledge that you know of their roles and will pursue discussion on how you will be working together!

 

The Change Manager should have their ear out for identifying any gap in project team representation and in communication flows. There is a level of guidance required for Work streams generally as they have varying degrees of understanding of how the project should be managed.  For this reason, the Change Stream should be the conduit between the Streams and filtering inputs and outputs.  It is not unusual for the Change Stream to identify the different groups that will be recipient of Info Packs.

 

Don’t leave it up to others to send you rotating into the universe having conversations with all and sundry that don’t need to know the material you need to share.

 

Project Identity

Depending of when you are brought into the project there may be the opportunity to name the project.

Workshop or socialise the project name with the Project Working Group.Present 2 options to Project Control Group of project name and logo and seek endorsement.

Don’t use this project name in any materials until the name and logo is approved.  If rework is required, communicate to your Project working Group why, rework the detail and then table it again in next Project Control Group meeting.

Understanding the project identity including how all project stakeholders are aligning their journey roadmap and project timelines for the project is important for the Change Manager.  The Change Manager is one cog in a large wheel and should understand all significant project team undertakings (such as: IT, Design and the Fit out teams).  The Change Manager should update the Change & Comms Plan and other programs as required to align with the communications strategy and design program and process. This will be realigned monthly.

Understanding the project identity will enable the Change Manager to better align deliverables from these other streams to the Change and Communications strategy.

 

Research

This is the time to get to know the business.

Has there been previous relocation projects that we can learn from?  If so, get your hands on any Lessons Learned and User Requirements/Design Requirements documentation and if your Project Director likes the idea, schedule a Lessons Learned meeting where you summarise and report what went well and what didn’t.  Invite the other Work stream Leads.

Get to know who the other people are in the business managing different projects and find out what cross project initiatives may be underway. These initiatives could conflict, clash or undermine your efforts, so best to know what the impacts are before you go too far.

Review the Activities and Training Strategy documents available and think about how you are going to incorporate cultural change, brand initiatives, Business Continuity Planning, social responsibility, and measures of success.

 

Determine The Key Objectives Of Messaging And Focus Points.

Research is broad and includes understanding the brand, culture and values. Regardless of the structure of your project team, understanding the brand, culture and values of the organisation is critical.  The Change Manager is generally working tandem with internal comms throughout the project, however be warned, if you are an external Change Manager coming in to work on the project, you need to earn the trust and understand how to work with the business.  The business will be focusing on mitigating risk of others and managing reputational risk. There is nothing worse than a project team member, let alone the Change Manager thinking they know better than the business and their established codes.  It is often that Change Managers are swapped out during long projects for exactly this reason.  

 

Find out what success looks like to the PCG, Strategic leads and other key stakeholders.

Do this by: 

·         Participating in meetings

·         Capturing people-related concerns

·         Meetings with People & Culture, Brand, Internal Comms teams, Corporate Affairs

·          Issue questionnaires on success factors

·         Socialise and seek endorsement of a Stakeholder Engagement Workshop and deliver Engagement Workshops 

·         Be diligent in the beginning with attendance at all meetings (don’t be too busy)

·         Document all sentiments and diagnostics in a Business Unit Requirements  database and assign responsibilities to all work streams

·         Explore cross-project opportunities with concurrent initiatives, such as Diversity, ‘Flexible work from home', IT Projects and Hack/Sprint projects?

·         Review Success Factors And Report Back To Project Control Group, PWG, Strategic Leads And Change Leads

 

Communication with Your Project Team

Now that you have been introduced at the Project Working Group, Project Control Group or any other significant stakeholder meeting, you will need to get moving on the Change & Comms Plan if you haven’t populated it too heavily already.

You may follow up with your project team after your first meeting. Send an email providing heads up of what you see going on in the coming weeks. Your email may include the following:

Hi all 

Great meeting you today and I look forward to working with you over the next 12 months.  I also thank you in advance for your willingness to tele-hookup individually or as small teams so I can get some further information on what your stream is doing in the project.  This will help me determine where the Change stream can help socialise new initiatives and also help with the messaging.  

Tell them how you want them to catch up with you.

 

Tell them who you will be working with to coordinate setting up the meetings, after all, you probably don’t know the lay of the land yet!

 

I will be in contact with [                ] shortly to coordinate the meetings with you and I will preside.  I propose to send an agenda in advance of our hook-ups so you can see what we would like to discuss with you, and welcome you adding anything further to the discussion.  Of course, we will be in touch regularly but if we can get enough milestones into the change program now this help me greatly in looking ahead for when the project team needs to contribute to content for release and ensures we all get the support we need and can walk the talk. 

 

Give them heads up of what things are coming

 

To give you an idea of the sort of things I will want to discuss I have grouped examples below into Work streams.  The comms stream will of course be welcomed to sit in on any discussions.

Discussion with the Property team to include:

 

Pack inclusions

·         Select the right packs for the different leadership groups;

·         Project stakeholder roles, inputs and outputs;

·         High level milestones with activities ticked off as we go to form the bigger picture;

·         The help we will give each other;

·         Concurrent projects and activities and any crossovers that we all need to be aware of;

·         In Focus topics and how/when staff will be introduced to the features and facilities of the new office.

Discussions with the Change and Comms Stream to include:

 

Communications and Channels

·         Determining the level of communication suitable for the project;

·         Identifying the communication modes, channels and tools we will be using;

·         Content Plan 60 days;

·         Announcements and who’s involved in making them, how and when;

·         Communication engagement plan that drills down on the approach to deliver the change and comms strategy and the multiple engagement plans that focus on the strategy as a whole, or different milestones in the project.

Discussions with the Technology Lead to include:

Technology

·         Understanding what we know now, what’s new and what’s in progress, the detailed IT discovery and how we can help;

·         Physical support and education and how to mesh the IT Change Plan with the overall Change Plan;

·         What Technologies we are introducing into the existing building to ease transition;

·         Teams that have requirements outside the normal hardware range supported by IT or that work differently to others.

Discussions with Workplace Services to include:

Facilities 

·         Timing for interactions with staff;

·         Timing for introduction to the new Facilities, Site Tours, New Meeting room protocols, Gap Analysis of current state to future and procurement changes, Change of Address notifications;

·         Pilot space rotations, health and wellness, workplace etiquettes, clean desk guidelines, clean up campaigns, relocation readiness.

Sign off with a Summary of what you discussed and next steps.  Tell them who is going to help you set up the meetings, and give them a timeline for these meetings so they can placehold them in their calendars.

In short, the above is just an example and is certaintly not conclusive.  These are just some of the things that come to mind and that I would like to start exploring with the different Work stream leads.  Of course we will focus on the upcoming theme which is ‘What does working agile mean’ and this will include discussions with all streams, including with People & Culture, HSE and any other functional leads connected with the project. 

 

Next steps

[Name of support ] to find a time in your diary (1 hr maximum). Preferably starting [date] from [time].

[You, the Change Manager] to send an agenda for each meeting. 

All parties to put down on the agenda what they want to discuss if not already included. 

After we have our meetings, I will send you each through a revised Change & Comms Plan.  I will then start reporting on this weekly which will keep us moving in the right direction and providing comfort.  

Some Work stream members may have never gone through changes like this before.  If you have a Case Study of a similar project, provide it.

I attach a case study of my work with [provide an example of a project similar in challenges] which was a very similar program to our project and which involved moving [# of people]  to [name the style of working]. 

I look forward to speaking with you this week and please accept my apologies if I have left anyone off that should receive this email.  I would be grateful if you forwarded it to them.

NOW SIGN OFF and get to work on forming relationships with these people.  You are going to need them to work with you closely for the next 12 months or more and you

As is true with the old saying, ‘people like people who like them’, the same is true for ‘people help people who help them.’

 

Nominations and Comms Process

If this hasn’t happened yet, the Change Manager may be involved in nominations of the Change Champions, Tactical Leads, or Change Agents or whatever else the business may call them, and how this process is undertaken.  Forming project teams is incredibly important.  The Change Champions like any other members of the project team need to be in place for project success.  Don’t underestimate the relevance of a project organisation chart and what governance structure a workplace change project follows.

 

The Change Manager will assist the Strategic Leaders in appointing their internal Change Champions (Reference Group) who will be integral stakeholders in the process.

The Change Champions for a workplace project play a significant part in the project as they are the conduit between the project team and the business.

Engagement program outlining time commitments of the Change Champions and Role and responsibilities document of the Change Champion

After identifying what the role is for this essential group, the Change Manager will assist with the nomination process and formal engagement.

 

Your first month when doing the job is all about Exploration including finding out the business case for this change regardless if it is a result of a real estate transaction or whether it is a re-set of the companies workplace requirements.

It is important for the Change Manager to do as much digging as possible so you can get the full picture of how this change has come about, and who are the stakeholders involved.

There can be other projects underway that may work against your project if you don’t understand the landsape.