Customer Insights Into Growing Enterprise Change Capability

Today’s enterprises know that times have changed. We’re experiencing bigger, more complex changes than ever before, and they’re happening faster. Organizational agility is a must. 

So how do we ensure that the new systems and programs we’re investing in get the ROI we hope for? When we develop new processes in the interest of efficiency, embark on a cultural transformation, or acquire a competitor, will our employees jump on board or resist the change? And if the latter, how will that impact project ROI and the employee experience? To successfully change and grow, organizations need to be effective at change management.

Customer Perspectives on Enterprise Change Management

Prosci is always interested in learning about how our customers approach change management in their particular environments and cultures. So we reached out to 10 industry innovators—reflecting a diverse mix of industries, revenue and size—to understand how they’re integrating change management into their organizations. Interestingly, several universal themes emerged across these organizations. Yet each organization revealed how they’re uniquely growing their enterprise change capability and applying change management in their organization.

In engaging with these customers, the following six tactics emerged for growing enterprise change capability:

1. Align enterprise change management with your culture – to improve alignment and acceptance.
   
   Customer example: A hospital system with a culture of taking care of people used change management to take care of its internal community during change, elevating the employee experience.
   
   
2. Deploy change management on a key initiative – to demonstrate the impact of change management.
   
   Customer example: A web services company applied change management to a high-impact open workspace initiative to create a positive experience for employees around the change.
   
   
3. Build a change network – to build support and momentum throughout your organization.
   
   Customer example: A large bank developed a Center of Excellence with federated communities of practice in each business unit to localize change management, for greater impact on project outcomes.
   
   
4. Go where the energy is – to create collaborative partnerships that can help you pull change management forward.
   
   Customer example: A security company identified change management as a business process and not an HR process, and attached change management to localized process initiatives, further embedding change management across the organization.
   
   
5. Integrate with existing competencies – to embed change management skills in professional development paths.
   
   Customer example: A high-tech company integrated change management into the organization’s project management boot camp and workbook to deepen the presence and use of change management in the business.
   
   
6. Treat growing your capability like a change – to improve outcomes with structure and intent.
   
   Customer example: A municipal government deployed change management in an electronic health record system implementation to actively support employees through the change and facilitate adoption.

Maturing Your Enterprise Change Capability

When you realize it’s time to move beyond applying change management project by project, consider the above tactics and how you might uniquely apply them in your environment. Are there key initiatives in your organization that would be good choices for deploying change management on? Which aspects of your culture can you leverage in your approach to enterprise change management? Can you identify several places in your organization where energy already exists that can help foster a pull for change management? Answering questions like these can help you identify the next steps to advancing your organization’s change maturity.

If you’d like to learn more about how these and other organizations are creating cultures where employees successfully transition through changes—and businesses see the project results they desire—check out our eBook, “6 Tactics for Growing Enterprise Change Capability.”