What is change management?

Due to technical progress and increasing globalization, companies are now subject to constant adjustments. The social, political and ecological changes also affect companies. Many of them may sooner or later have to face one or the other change - such as the introduction of a new product or adjustments to the business model. In these cases, our change management comes into play. It designates the activities and measures that ensure a targeted and successful procedure for a necessary change. This change relates, for example, to the corporate culture, communication, organization and leadership in a company.

Change management is a change and the sum of organized and individual processes.

The aim of our change management is to convince everyone involved in the company of the upcoming change. A positive attitude towards change is essential, which the company needs in the target state of change. In the following article, you can find out how change management works, for whom it is an option and other important information.

How does change management work?

Change is difficult to stop and impossible to prevent, but it can be managed. One of the main tasks of our change management is to determine and monitor the current situation in the company in order to initiate the appropriate measures if necessary.

Analysis – record the current status, define the target status, determine deficits and identify the task areas.

Planning – Formulate the desired goal, develop and work out change management, implementation plans and processes - this includes the time frame, the budget, various concepts, training courses, any resistance.

Coaching – project leader qualification and training.

Implementation – All change processes are actively accompanied and supported.

Control – Checking the progress of the process and the achievement of the goal (based on the target state), e.g. with employee surveys, interviews of the evaluation lists.

We at the management consultancy Rabl & Hahn support, advise and accompany a change project in the form of change management according to your needs. We offer the creativity of an agency, the expertise of a management consultancy and the expertise for constant change.

What is a digital transformation?

We speak of a digital transformation when the process of constant further development of digital technologies has a lasting impact on our society. Because this creates new habits and needs of everyday life in private as well as in business life. Examples of digital transformation are cloud services, social media, smart devices or blockchain technology, which not only accompany our daily lives, but also influence and change them.

With the digital transformation, the expectations and requirements of potential customers are also changing. Companies are thus forced to adapt their existing processes and improve them with more efficient, digital processes. The customer becomes a king with an extreme speed of action through innovative business models such as Spotify, Amazon, Uber or Ebay. They are already fulfilling the new wishes of their customers, which means that they can also cause long-established companies to falter.

What is important in change management?

The basis of our change management is employee communication with a clear understanding, structure, clear and understandable models including an open and honest attitude of the manager, more precisely the management.

As those responsible in the change process, it must be ensured right from the start that everyone involved understands the necessity of the change process, knows the process flow and, above all, accepts it. The information should be understandable, credible and convincing. For those affected, understanding includes finding out what we are doing and why, what is absolutely necessary and what solutions there are.

Manager – During the change process, many employees have to develop ideas for the right solutions and implement them. However, the main people are those responsible or the management who guide the change process.

They should stand united behind the change and bear it honestly. Of course, changes always bring countless problems and conflicts with them. This can be short-term turbulence and problems of any kind or denial. Solving these problems is the core competence of the manager. This requires methodological skills that must also be applied.

However, an important responsibility also lies in the hands of the HR department - namely to ensure that the executives of the company have the necessary change qualifications.

Before the plan for a change is passed on to the workforce, there should be a concrete goal for the implementation. With a well thought-out implementation strategy in mind, those affected retain their trust in their superiors and support them in implementing the changes.

The manager must show that they fully support the decision. Because as soon as the feeling arises that, as a manager, you do not believe in the success of the change process, this attitude will be transferred to the employees.

Defining the goal – change processes fail as soon as the workforce does not understand and does not accept the desired goal. Employees who are affected by the change must have an understanding of the path ahead or the goal. Every opportunity should be used for a conversation to ask whether the vision of the change has been understood and what the change message triggers in the employees.

Involvement – All changes in a company are primarily carried out by the workforce. Many of the change projects fail due to a lack of participation by the workforce, which is mostly due to a lack of co-determination opportunities and unclear responsibilities, which are demotivating. Without the employees and the honest and committed managers, no change can be established successfully and sustainably in a company.

Some methods for transmitting relevant information can be, for example, workshops, further education, training, kick-off meetings or team building exercises.

When is change management necessary?

It would be a mistake to believe that change management (change process) only affects large companies and corporations. While the scale of each process differs, such a process is equally important for small and medium-sized businesses. Because they too have to adapt to the market and make changes.

Change management in a company is always required when it wants to change structures or the business model due to external influences or internal requirements. It can be changes to manageable sub-processes or organizational changes.

There are a number of triggers for the use of change management. These could be the following aspects, for example:

• a changing upheaval in the human resources sector
• the digitization of business or production processes
• Adaptation of more efficient strategies
• Optimization of existing business processes
• Application and introduction of new computers or new IT systems
• Costs need to be reduced