By: Neha Sukhwani, Specialist, Organization Change Management, LTIMindtree

The post-pandemic boom in the IT service industry has forced many companies to build robust processes and systems without compromising their cyber security. Data management and security have been of utmost concern for many IT giants. Process gaps need to be fixed with immediate effect. Cloud-based tools are in trend, as these can be used from anywhere and on any device. Flexibility to use applications from outside office premises and networks lead to cautious use of data.

However, a rise in business-as-usual requirements highlighted the issues mentioned above for many companies, resulting in poor business functions, shutting of businesses, or significant losses. This led to a major change in the business operations, performance, and enabling tools to function smoothly without obstructing business, work from home, and data security. Organization change management came out as a savior for companies, as through Organization Change Management (OCM), many companies were able to manage these change operations smoothly.

To understand and analyze the change impact, a change-readiness assessment should be conducted to assess the organization’s readiness on levels of motivation, knowledge, awareness, and challenges. Change impact assessment is another fruitful exercise that helps analyze change at various levels such as Organization, Process, Tool/system, Technology, and People Mindset and Behaviour.

But is OCM required only to manage change at the user level?
The answer is NO. Changing mindsets and behavior is a challenge at various levels in the organization.

1. Leadership alignment and engagement – It took the pandemic to help leaders understand the importance of secure, expensive systems, and secure processes. If the leadership is not aligned with the new system, tools, and technology requirements in an organization, the whole change initiative can flip. The idea is to communicate/educate the whole organization from top to down. This workshop will also help leaders to understand the change by understanding the vision of the change, the risk involved with this change, and how to mitigate those risks to build a sense of engagement. Leaders will further communicate in their organization. When employees hear from leaders about their vision for the program, they understand the growth, potential, and importance of change and are expected to collaborate better.
2. Program Management – Project Managers need to be convinced that the system/ tools/process brought into the organization are going to help solve their problems and not increase the daily workload. A workshop for project team alignment is designed to partner with the project team and ensure they fully support the change. The expected outcome is that the project team is in-sync and knows how to contribute to the change journey. Their current operating approach is mapped with the change management approach and the change management success KPIs are agreed upon.
3. Stakeholders – Business teams, developers, engineers, and process owners are various members who are directly impacted by the change and must work towards implementation or transformation. But they need to be change-ready to be able to understand features/technology that will no longer be available for use. For example, reports that can pull out from new tools, data records that can be maintained going forward, etc. A workshop with stakeholders and role-based focused group discussions can help them understand the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of the change. The stakeholders must understand how the change is impacting their roles and responsibilities. The outcome of the workshop is the informed stakeholders, who are aware and ready to contribute to the change journey.
4. HR – The resources can be trained on the new system/tool/process/technology so that the same resource can be utilized in the new ways of working. If there is any disconnect between the new and old system, the resources might not want to use the new tool, and the whole initiative might have to be rolled back.
5. Dependent DU/PU – New systems/tools/processes/technology are mostly linked to other connected tools/process/functions/delivery units, etc. The people handling these dependent tools/services must be informed continuously so that they can prepare their DU/PU with coming shifts and associate actions that might be required from their side.
6. Key users/ end users – The rest of the workforce should be able to understand what’s in it for them and for their role so that they adapt to change organically and make the organization a better place to capture growth. To help them adapt to change, many interventions can be planned, such as training, communications, self-help documents, videos, etc.
7. Sponsors – Last but not the least are the sponsors of the change. They are involved in the change journey from the inception of the change idea. They must be informed about the actions, receive constant updates, be advocates of the change, and must be communicated about the next steps, risks, challenges, and mitigations.

Conclusion
If all/most of the above-suggested audience is identified, it will help implement change effectively. An organization will not find itself in a situation where the important change messages are not reaching the impacted audience. Once the correct impacted audiences are identified, there will not be a situation where, despite your best efforts and creating change interventions, you find that awareness and action by your target audience are missing. Communicating key messages to a specific audience hits the bull’s eye and helps in the easy adoption of change.