By: Charul Dhingra, Associate Director ─ Consulting

As the world struggles with economic uncertainties, organizations grapple with challenges arising from changed client priorities. A critical and urgent need is to ensure business continuity and customer satisfaction by collaborating with various organizational teams. Spearheading continuity by utilizing data to drive change management is now imperative.

Let’s first understand what change management means. Change management is a systematic approach to transitioning from an existing situation to a desired future state. It involves the transformation of an organization’s goals, processes, and technologies. Organizational change management helps employees adapt to business changes. To make informed decisions about driving the change, one needs to have clarity on valuable insights into the current state and the vision of the future state. The role of data is significant in this context. Without data-driven change management, it is only a frivolous and wishful act of putting things into perspective. It lacks a clear strategy based on historical performance and industry benchmarks.

Here are five key insights into how to use data to plan, implement, and evaluate organizational change:

1. Higher Return on Investment (ROI) for transformation programs ─

After the pandemic, employees no longer want to rely on instructor-based sessions for implementing new tools. Instead, they want to be empowered to choose the most convenient learning resources. Digital Adoption Platforms (DAP) platforms like Whatfix and WalkMe offer sharp analytics on consuming knowledge assets created as learning resources for large implementation programs. These tools can create helpful resources like guided walkthroughs, personalized on-demand help, and automated workflows. Data derived from these tools helps understand the bottlenecks in the process flow that keep users stuck. Additionally, it aids in reducing dependency on training, thereby reducing the overall change management cost.

2. Data-driven conversations ─

Using data to understand employee sentiments and predict attrition rates based on their experience working from home is still relatively new. Companies can now make better decisions about their employees with this crucial step towards the future though we have not yet reached the level of maturity where digital engagement tools like Perceptyx/Waggl.com are widely used. These are some of the leading employee listening and people analytics platforms. Using communication tools can facilitate ongoing conversations with employees during change efforts. Change managers can associate this conversation with the advancement of their initiatives. Their data streams could be critical for developing predictive models of change. Creating dashboards that enable high-level forecasting and real-time visualization of social sentiment could just be a game-changer.

3. Decisions backed by data analytics ─

Managing the perfect blend of a work-from-home and work-from-office workforce is complicated. With the help of reports, managers can create rosters and ensure the right mix is maintained while taking care of employees’ health-related constraints, too. Data is leveraged to communicate the “why” and “how” changes in their work location schedule. This includes communicating the rationale behind calling people into the office. It is essential to design a thoughtful “back-to-office plan” considering the collaboration patterns of other teams to avoid ambiguity.

4. Productive collaboration via analytics ─

With remote working as the new normal, organizations saw an opportunity to empower employees with digital video conferencing and collaboration platforms. Communications are focused on collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams (MS Teams) for meetings and knowledge management. These tools help fill the void created due to the absence of in-person interactions with dispersed teams. Analytics on employees accessing and communicating through MS Teams is valuable. Additionally, monitoring the types of devices they use to connect to Teams aids frontline managers in tracking the productivity of their globally dispersed teams. The information extracted from the reports is used to understand usage patterns better and align training and communication efforts accordingly.

5. Employee welfare supported by analytics ─

Employee health data is being used by organizations to design wellness programs to address specific needs of employees. Regular organization-backed health assessments and insights from employees’ wearable devices guide the development of initiatives that promote physical activity and stress reduction. Dashboards track the welfare and support of its workforce during tough times. For instance, organizations used reports to analyze the impact of COVID-19 on the health of their employees and their families. The reports provided a valuable resource for determining the number of employees and their family members affected by COVID-19 in different locations. Based on the analytic reports, decisions were made to establish support services like ambulance services. Another decision was to share data on the availability of blood sample collection centers near employees’ residences.

Data analytics helps track employee working hours, overtime, and burnout patterns. The derived information may be used to design and implement policies encouraging a healthy lifestyle with a balanced work-life. One of the benefits of this approach is that it can boost job satisfaction while reducing employee turnover.

According to Deloitte‘s report on “Data-driven Change Management using Transformation Intelligence™,” organizations that perform well are 3.5 times more likely to utilize data to inform efforts related to change.  When shaping changes, they are also four times more likely to consider worker input.

Organizations that utilize data-driven strategies for change management experience greater success than those that do not. Organizations benefit from increased transparency, employee participation, and control when data drives change management decisions.

Conclusion:

According to recent research by IDC, it was discovered that although 83% of CEOs aspire to establish a data-centric organization, only 25% of organizations have achieved this status. A data-centric organization is one that optimizes the utility of its data, regards data as a strategic asset, and relies on data for making pivotal business decisions.

Organizations can leverage data as an asset to manage significant organizational changes. Change leaders take the challenging times as an opportunity to channel this wealth with sound, actionable analytics and insights. Data can help organizations make informed decisions and achieve their objectives, even in the face of emerging challenges.