During Covid organisations are re-planning their initiatives to better cater for the various impacts on people and business capacity.
We have summarised key steps in change re-planning during Covid using The Change Compass in this 1-pager infographic. Follow the step by step guide to support your organisation during any re-planning exercises.
To download click HERE.
What is change saturation?
Change Saturation is a concept that describes our capacity for change as limited … like a cup. We have a limited amount of capacity for change. When there is too much change going on the cup spills over and there is ‘change saturation’. When this happens with too much change then there is stress in the impacted stakeholder groups.
It could be that there is intense increase in workload or work complexity. Performance could drop as a result. When frontline staff experience change saturation it could be that they don’t have the capacity to support all the customer enquires leading to longer customer wait times. Customer satisfaction levels could be impacted. Employee satisfaction could also be impacted.
What causes it?
There are 3 causes for change saturation
1. There are too many initiatives going on at the same time. The totality of changes across multiple initiatives leads to the cup being overfilled. This is the reality of corporate life. There aren’t many organizations that are only executing one initiative at any one time. However, it also depends on the level of impact within each initiative and not just the number of initiatives in total. If every initiative has very little impact it could be smaller in total than a very large complex change initiative with very high impact. It will take a lot of peanuts to fill up a jar, versus a few large biscuits.
2. The change initiatives are occurring too fast. We have all been through highly agile initiatives that have short sprints, that pivot quickly and implement the change quickly as well. Often due to discoveries and learnings along the way there are project delays as the project figures out how to get itself on track. However, the original go-live date has not been changed so as to meet senior stakeholder expectations and to manage project cost. What this means is that the impacted business suddenly has much less time to get ready for the change compared to the original timeline. This condensed timeline to go through and embed the changes leads to increased change saturation.
3. Business circumstances have lead to the cup being overfilled. In the case of COVID19, most businesses are going through challenging times. Some are struggling to cope with increased customer volumes, whilst others have lost significant business and can no longer operate. During these times businesses revert to survival mode, or their business continuity plan. The top focus remains to delivery its core services with all other priorities to take a back seat. The very nature of this environment means that a large part of the organisation is under immense pressure to perform. The cup is saturated even before any additional planned initiatives. To read more about Planning for change during COVID19 click here.
How to measure it
Every part of the organization may have a different level of change saturation. This is because different teams play different functional roles by definition. As a result one department may be impacted by the same change differently compared to another.
Therefore it is important to be able to measure the change saturation point for a part of the business if we are aiming to manage it. Change saturation should not just be a point of discussion just based on feelings and perceptions.
How do we measure the change saturation point for one part of the business? Measuring change saturation is not purely a science but more of an art.
Take for example, you have been working closely with the call centre team and have monitored their business performance across different initiatives over the past few months. Last month you noticed that they had reached a point where there were more initiatives being implemented than previously.
On top of this you noticed that some of their performance metrics that may be linked to change saturation were negatively affected. These included increased call waiting time, decreased customer satisfaction, increased staff turnover, and challenges for planners to schedule sufficient resources to cover shifts and undergo allocated initiative activities such as training. Team leaders also provided feedback that there was too much change going on and managing workload was challenging.
You can then calculate this change saturation by assigning a weighting to each change initiative in terms of its change impacts on the business. Then adding the various change impacts for last month will give you a total factor of change saturation. Last month your assessment, together with the call centre business, is that there was definite change saturation. So, if you see this level of change approaching in your planning coming up, then this would be a red signal for you to start to work with your stakeholders on managing this upcoming Change saturation.
Here is an example of measuring change saturation with The Change Compass.
It is important to note that some businesses may be calling out that they have change saturation simply to lower the expectation bar. By lowering the bar expected to undergo change volume, it is then easier for them to meet their performance targets. This is why it is important to measure change saturation. Anyone can claim that their cup is overflowing with change without data to support.
How to manage it
There are 2 main ways to manage change saturation. Either you reduce the change saturation level or you increase the change capacity (increasing the size of the cup).
Short term – Reduce change saturation
1. Stop all change initiative roll out during COVID19. If your organization is undergoing significant challenges and it was deemed that the cup is already overflowing in terms of capacity, then work with your business to determine how long of a period would there need to be a hold of any change implementation. This decision may be reviewed on a monthly basis or fortnightly basis to enable careful monitoring of the development COVID19 impact on the organisation.
2. Delay the roll-out of change initiatives to reduce change saturation. Work with your stakeholders to re-prioritise certain initiatives and push out others to better manage the change saturation. During COVID19 your organization may have a significantly reduced level of change tolerance, whether its because everyone is adjusting to working from home or its ‘all hands on deck’ in serving the customer. Work with your stakeholders to understand what initiatives are critical in order to meet any shorter or medium-term business objectives or deemed a priority by senior managers. Then determine the roadmap of implementation taking into account business change capacity.
3. Use a scenario approach to model the period in which COVID19 may be impacting your organisation and therefore model the recommended change implementation sequences. This approach requires that you have a good awareness of the existing planned initiatives across the business. You may need to adopt a logic-based approach to assess the change saturation points if you have not collected historical data. Here is an example of a scenario planning feature from The Change Compass where you can visually model likely scenarios of change roll-out sequences.
Long term – Build change capacity and resilience
1. Hire more people. For some parts of the organisation where there the change saturation is on frontline consultants servicing the customer. It may be possible to increase change capacity to some extent by hiring more staff to serve the customer. However, this depends how effective the organization is in quickly hire and onboard frontline consultants to reach ‘time to performance’. For other parts of the organisation where the subject matter experts may be in short demand because of COVID19, leveraging potential business substitutes where available may be an option. This approach may be used in conjunction with other recommendations to reduce change saturation.
2. Improve the change capability of leaders. One of the most important levers in building change capacity and resilience is the effectiveness of leaders. We have all seen how some leaders who are engaging, open, actively make way for the change, and address any obstacles, have led teams to undergo significant change journeys. Other leaders may be undergoing the same change journey but somehow have not had the same success. Instead, they could be plagued with change resistance and stagnation due to the ability of its leader. Change leadership development of leaders is a long term play and not a quick win by any means.
3. Work on change maturity. Organisations that have higher change maturity have more capacity for change and are more resilient to constant changes. Change maturity measures such as change leadership capability, business change readiness and project change implementation maturity. This is also a long term play, requiring significant focus and time investment.
Here are some articles you may be interested
A guide to planning during COVID19 the role of change practitioners
A new guide for improving change management maturity
Is your business re-planning existing initiatives or in the middle of reverting to business continuity plans?
What is the role of the change practitioner in the midst of coronavirus? In all the chaos and sudden shifts in organizations around the world in response to the implications of the virus comes significant opportunities. The change practitioner can be well-positioned to provide significant value to guide the organization in planning for change.
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Please click here to download the infographic.
“When disaster strikes, it tears the curtain away from the festering problems that we have beneath them,”
Obama
Most of the world is now shrouded in a thick cloud that is the coronavirus. It is shaping a lot of our daily lives, from shopping, travelling, visiting friends, work, economy and not the least health. Some businesses are going under whilst others struck with sudden increased demand. Chaos and panic abound. There will certainly be significant levels of economic and therefore industry impacts resulting from the virus. As a result of the sudden shifts in business decisions, what is the role of the change practitioner? With the right tools, data and approach, the change practitioner can be the lynch-pin to enable the organisation to plan effectively through the impacts of the virus.
Let’s outline some of the current landscape and what a lot of businesses are undergoing.
Offshore staffing changes
Many companies are impacted by quarantine decisions. In certain countries such as the Philippines there is a significant presence of offshore operations. To rapidly contain the spread of the virus the Philippines government on Monday has ordered community quarantines covering half of the population leading to business shutdowns. What this means is that many companies have suddenly found themselves in the position of having to rapidly ramp up their onshore operations to deal with customer call volumes.
Even those who have other offshore operations not in the Philippines will be wise to review their business continuity planning in the event that their business partners are impacted.
Work from home
To protect employees from the spread of the virus a significant number of companies have asked all of their employees to work from home where possible. This also leads to a significant shift in the ways of working for these organisations, especially if the core skills of leading and managing workforce virtually are new skill sets. To read more about how to deal with the impacts of the virus go to our article Managing Change During the Cornoavirus.
Restricted travel
Most companies have also implemented restrictions on travel. Some countries have even implemented international travel quarantines, essentially reducing the majority of inflows of visitors.
Resource ramp-up
For those companies who need to ramp up onshore operations, this presents challenges in terms of the speed of resource ramp-up to meet customer demands. Challenges include the availability of technical equipment such as headsets and laptops, as well as finding the talent pool when there is restricted travelling.
Other companies are significantly benefiting from the current situation, for example, digital retailers such as Amazon, Ebay or medical equipment providers and suppliers.
Resource ramp down and cost containment
A lot of retailers are hard hit by the sudden slow-down of retail foot traffic. Airlines have drastically cut flights and travel agencies are hit by the lack of travel bookings. Some have started to lay off staff in anticipation of continuing downturn in customer numbers. Even for those who have not yet laid off staff, there is focus on cost containment amidst cost challenges from declining revenue.
Business continuity plans
Most of the businesses negatively impacted by the virus in a significant way are resorting to their business continuity plan. This means that the chain of command may be different from business-as-usual and decision making may be faster or slower depending on the nature of the decision. This also means that any business plans in place may change. Focus and resources may be shifted leading to significant change for employees.
Business replanning implications
Given significant disturbances to business-as-usual activities, what are the options in terms of existing change initiatives? Most organizations will be in the middle of reviewing or re-planning existing focus areas including change initiatives. The following are some of the likely scenarios.
The role of the change practitioner
Impacts of changing plans
Given most large organizations are already undergoing various change initiatives to stay competitive, the changes caused by the coronavirus adds to the volume and pace of existing planned set of changes. The project management office, as well as other planning teams will benefit significantly from access to change impact information and data to make balanced decisions on any business replanning activities.
Some of these include:
Model likely scenarios of moving initiatives
The other area in which the change practitioner may add significant value in the business replanning exercise is in helping to articulate and visualise the impact of moving initiatives. As outlined previously, these could be the result of re-sequencing, re-prioritisation or scenario planning to better manage risk exposure for the organisation.
In modelling the impacts of various scenarios, key call outs include:
Plan restructuring exercises
Often restructuring exercises are lead by senior managers with the guidance of human resource partners from a people and HR policy perspective. However, the value of the change practitioner is in designing the restructuring as a project, containing scoped phases and planned according to a sequence of logical steps based on sound change principles. After all, restructuring exerts the highest impact on individuals more than other changes.
Restructuring is no different than other change initiatives. There needs to be clear articulation of the reasons or the ‘why’ behind the restructuring, logical articulation of how decisions are made, clear detailing of impacts to the organisations and people overall, and a series of planned steps in which to engage impacted stakeholders to support them through the change.
Adjusting change approaches to fit in with virtual working
With the sudden switch to working from home or virtual working, some employees may not be familiar or comfortable with this way of working. Existing change initiatives may have been designed with face-to-face sessions such as town halls, training sessions etc. With the virtual working environment change practitioners need to readjust the change approach and think through ways of driving effective change virtually.
These include such as:
Continuous engagement of employees during this change
In order to proactively engage the employee during this time of change, follow core change principles. For example, engage early and continuous to outline the direction of the organisation, and check-in continuously to gage employee sentiments to assess their change journey. Adjust and pivot as needed to provide any additional support. Share any wins such as examples of effective virtual working tips and employee profiles. Share stories of how effective teams have overcome the potential challenges of social isolation and still deliver solid business outcomes.
