21 January 2025 - 4 min read
Today’s businesses are managing an abundance of unprecedented change, from significant technological advancements to rapidly evolving market trends. While often daunting, change is something that we’ve all experienced and research continues to confirm that in order for businesses to thrive, change should be embraced.
To give you more insight, we take a deep dive into organisational change management, focusing on why it’s vital for business growth and sustainability.
Change management is a structured approach to navigating workplace change. Whether you're applying change management to smaller projects, or driving large-scale transformations like digital transformation, its purpose is the same: aligning people, processes, and strategies with new business objectives.
Put simply, change management helps organisations get from point A to point B.
While change management strategies can vary, there are key principles that you should be mindful of:
Without knowing the current culture of your company, it can be hard to establish how your workforce will respond to change.
The attitudes of your employees will determine how successfully change can be adopted and achieved, so it’s essential to foster an environment employees will feel excited by change. This can be done by creating strong company foundations, like a reliable and communicative leadership team.
Intentional leading is to lead with clear goals and objectives in mind. When employees can see that actions are intentional and know what the expected results are, they are more likely to adopt changes.
Visualising what the future will look like based on change will help employees understand what the reality will look like.
Organisational change relies on the involvement of employees as they are the ones who will emphasis a company’s mission.
If you want your employees to be involved, however, you must create opportunities for them to provide their input and feedback. Why not create surveys or run focus groups for all levels of staff?
While communicating change can be challenging, especially at the beginning of your journey when things are still unclear, it becomes easier over time and is something your employees will appreciate.
As soon as your vision for change is complete, share this with your team and include these points:
It’s also important to reassure employees at this point that change will be tackled, together.
It’s normal at this stage for employees to be curious about how they are going to adopt the change. It’s at this point that you can dive into the formal and informal structures that will take place to support them.
Formal structures will include training and development plans and informal includes communication methods that will support the change, like open door policies and regular transition updates.
One of the most important factors of any change, is to stay calm and focused when adversity occurs. The initial vision will help you remain grounded when theirs delays, a lack of resources or a lack of support.
However, on the flip side and as the project progresses, you may come across opportunities in which you’ll need to be flexible. This could be in terms of timelines or budgets, so expect that this could happen.
Knowing how you will manage risks before they occur is vital to mitigating them. Before change is about to happen, businesses should analyse the potential risks that could occur, so they can create a plan of action in advance.
Knowing how you will support your employees, where extra resources can be sourced from and having budget set aside for emergencies are all great tactics to have in place pre change.
While this may already be clear based on the way you manage your company currently, there’s always the possibility of adapting a different leadership style for the specific change that is about to happen.
Successful leaders are often able to adapt their leadership style based on the situation.
Probably one of the most vital parts of any change management strategy, is regularly assessing how well change is being adopted.
Regular change assessments can help monitor the effectiveness of change, specifically focusing on those who have been impacted most.
Additionally, change experts can make adaptations and eliminate any potential issues by regularly analysing change.
Before change even begins, the tools and resources that a company will use to streamline processes should be identified.
This means that technology can be fully utilised from the get-go and more time can be spent on providing support to employees who are adopting changes.
Change management holds a lot of stigma, with research stating that up to 70% of change management strategies end in failure. This comes down to projects not being properly managed properly, resulting in:
Change can bring large amount of stress to employees which, in turn, can result in withdrawal and even resignation.
Additionally, the uncertainty can make employees feel uneasy and anxious about their future with the company, which results in reduced productivity levels and distraction.
Whether its budget spent on unique training programmes or updated resources like tools and new technology, change is costly and it’s always likely that additional expenses will pop up throughout.
Employee’s need to be taken along on the journey of change, although not every employee requires the same amount of information, depending on their role and seniority.
The correct balance of sharing necessary information but leaving out anything confidential or sensitive is crucial to a successful communication plan, which requires the time and expertise of an internal communications manager or professional.
We previously mentioned that change management strategies have a high failure rate, however, this doesn’t mean that they’re simply redundant.
When change management strategies are correctly adapted to suit the size of your company, as well as the available resources and scale of change, they can be effective.
Two of the most well-known strategies include:
Developed in 1950 by Kurt Lewin, the 3-Stage Model of Change is one of the oldest change frameworks that is still commonly used amongst business owners today. As the name suggests, this framework splits the change management process into three steps:
1. Unfreeze: Known as the preparation stage, businesses should spend this time examining the current processes they wish to change, ensuring they know the ins and outs of each business activity. Doing this helps business leaders identify the necessary changes required to reach their desired results.
It’s at this stage that businesses should also action the first step in their communication plan, which includes notifying employees that change is coming and the measures that they need to take to prepare.
2. Change: This is the implementation stage, which consists of executing the organisational change. Additionally, organisations should regularly communicate updates and progress to mitigate uncertainty and keep employees motivated.
3. Refreeze: This phase is when the implemented change begins to stabilise. During this period, leaders should continue to reinforce the change, so employees don’t fall back into previous habits. Change is also reviewed and measured based on previously agreed KPI’s.
This also is an opportunity to collect feedback from those who first adopted the changes, which will indicate whether further employee training and support is needed.
This model of change is specifically useful for small to medium sized businesses, who are focusing on restructuring or shifting internal processes. The framework ensures employees are informed and business disruptions are kept to a minimum.
John P. Kotter, a professor at Harvard Business School, developed his change management framework after observing multiple leaders throughout their own periods of transformation.
Drawing upon his findings, he created 8 steps for leading change:
1) Create a sense of urgency
At this stage, leaders should communicate future business aspirations. This will create feelings of passion and purpose amongst employees, encouraging them to look forward.
2) Build a guiding coalition
Behind any business change is an expert working team, made up of the necessary hard and soft skills required to execute the project.
3) Form a strategic vision
It’s at this step that the vision needs to be clearly articulated, showing the differences between now and what the business is soon going to look like. This will help employees visualise the future of the organisation and help them understand their place within it.
4) Enlist a volunteer army
Large scale business change works best when big numbers are driving it. Individually, employees must feel inspired and motivated to all come together as a unified team working towards the same goal.
5) Enable action by removing barriers
People must be able to collaborate and work innovatively out with silos. This means businesses have a responsibility to clear the path of any blockers.
6) Generate short term wins
To keep any workforce engaged throughout a journey, little wins are just as important as the big ones. It’s at this point that short-term wins should be identified and celebrated, to solidify the commitment to overall business change.
7) Sustain acceleration
Communicating the benefits from any short-term wins and speaking about the progress thus far will assure productivity and motivation levels remain consistent.
8) Institute change
It is at this stage that team leaders should make clear how new behaviours are stronger than old habits and these continually utilised. Systems, processes and mindsets should also be evaluated to reinforce change.
Change management isn’t just a buzzword; it’s a strategic necessity for thriving in today’s dynamic business world. By fostering adaptability, improving communication, and minimizing disruptions, it empowers organizations to embrace transformation effectively.
Whether you’re navigating digital shifts or cultural evolutions, a strong change management approach ensures your team stays aligned, productive, and resilient. In a landscape where change is constant, the ability to manage it isn’t optional – it’s your competitive edge.
If you’re passionate about people and ready to make an impact, enrol on a CIPD HR qualification today.
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