How to Create a Safe Environment for Change

Change Management

Staff Motivation and New Year ResolutionEveryone handles change differently and it can be highly-stressful for those who dread it. In fact, it can even translate through to their work. So, creating a safe environment for change and providing plenty of notice is advised.

Here are a few top tips for minimising disruption and making changes as smoothly as possible.

Change management

Involve Staff

Once you have decided a change needs to be made, telling staff as soon as possible and involving them in the process will ease them in and avoid any major disruption.

This will not only make staff feel appreciated and that their opinions matter, but they may be able to provide valuable ideas or insights that you had not thought about.

Communicate ‘Why’

As cheesy as the saying is, it’s true – communication is key.

Clear communication prior and throughout a developing time ensures employees are ready to adapt and have all the information they need to do so. It’ll also help employees understand the reasoning behind the changes and why the interruption is necessary.

Change management Courses

Clearly defining goals and showing that the change has been made with everyone in mind can be inspirational and further boost the results.

Plan it Out

Fail to plan and plan to fail. If you’re going to be making major changes in your organisation, this must be highly thought-through with a schedule of events and a clear projection of the outcomes you hope to achieve. After all, in some cases, there’s no going back.

Actions could include appointing a senior staff member to be in charge of communicating with staff and handling queries, planning out when activity deadlines are and ensuring you have everything you need (time, money and tools) to implement these new elements.

Data should be your new best friend and will support predictions to help clarify the decision-making process. It can also make goals appear more tangible. For example, expanding output by 3% appears more achievable than simply saying “become more productive”.

Prepare for the Unexpected

However much you plan, sometimes unexpected occurrences happen that simply cannot be avoided. Therefore, it’s important to plan for every eventuality and have a strategy in place should things go slightly sideways.

Effective change management will have regular assessment built into the process to check if everything is going to plan. This will ensure if something does go wrong, it is noticed and corrected as soon as possible to minimise impact.

Manage Change with Call of the Wild’s Help

If you would like to learn more about change management and elements such as explaining the benefits of innovation and change to an organisation, discover our change management courses.

Change Management Training

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