How To Get Your Employees To Embrace Change

I don’t know what point you’re at, maybe you’re just about to start a change program in your company, maybe you’ve tried to introduce change into your organisation many times before and for some reason your employees “never really get it”. Whatever the reason, you are now looking for practical solutions to help you.

It’s been my experience that change does not stick in an organisation only because of a few things – it’s never really committed to by the management (YOU), it’s always “dumped” on the employees, or your employees don’t feel part of the solution. If your employees feel any of the above they won’t move with the change and will resist, the result being things never really change.

Management Are Never Really Committed

As the Owner or Manager bringing the change you need to ask yourself the hard question, “Are you fully committed?”, if yes then great, if no then you could be a large part of the reason change never sticks. If you’re great at coming up with the ideas but poor on the follow through then get someone else to help you with the implementation. But be honest with yourself, if you are not going do things different with your commitment level then don’t expect your employees to believe you, this time.

It’s Always “Dumped” On Us

Most employees believe that ideas hatched in the boardroom (or your office) always end up as their problems to deal with. Whether you agree or disagree with this point, it is their reality. You need to be bought into the change. Where possible you need to lead the change, and always you must follow the new processes or procedures, because if you don’t your employees will be the first to let you know, and once they see you bending the new rules they will say, “if he/she is not following the new stuff, why should we?”

Your Employees Don’t Feel Part Of The Solution

This is probably the most important point. The last people in the business to typically find out about change are the employees, after “MANAGEMENT” have carefully put together the PLAN with no input from them. Once you or your senior team have decided change needs to happen, engage your employees (at the appropriate level) in coming up with the solution. This will guarantee that the solution will be the correct, employees will feel it’s their solution and therefore will support its implementation and will ultimately feel their opinion does count and that they are being listened to.

Summary

Lead from the front, if you can, if you can’t get someone in your organisation that can, but don’t abdicate the change!. Whether you like it or not, your employees need to feel part of the solution. When they do great things happen, when they don’t – change in a business is a mess.