Redesigning the HR function: making the change
Section three of the Personnel Today Management Resources one stop guide on redesigning the HR function, covering: managing change; planning change; implementing change; post-change requirements; and monitoring and improving. Other sections.
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Use this section to Find out why change needs to be managed carefully See how to decide what changes you could make
Plan what to do after changes have been made |
Having looked at why change is necessary and how the current mindset of HR may not be completely prepared to take on the challenge, we can now look at what is needed to make things happen. This section will help you think through what changes you need to make or are making, so you can be reassured you will get to where you need to go effectively and efficiently.
Typically, change is driven by a decision to introduce some
new structure, technology or process. Decisions on what to do flow from there.
Take a look at Figure 3, a 4x4 model of organisational change.
This shows that there are two dimensions to change:
There is a four-stage process to follow
There are four different aspects of change to consider.
This may seem straightforward and perhaps slightly obvious in theory, but as we look into actual change processes, we see that in practice stages can be minimised or ignored and some aspects may not be considered with enough care.
Before going on to look at the four stages, think about what the four aspects are.
Feelings about change
Inertia is a great comfort to us all. Defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as '. . . the tendency to continue in some state, to resist change' it is what makes doing anything differently in an organisation difficult. However much better alternatives may be, the devil we know is a preferred person to live with.
Prosci
has suggested a flight and risk model of organisational change1 (see Figure
4).
During normal times
people operate in a comfort and security zone, but things change as soon as
something threatens to alter their way of life. This could be change itself or
merely rumours of change. People immediately start to move towards feelings of
worry and uncertainty, manifested by falls in productivity and passive
resistance to change. How quickly they do this depends on such things as
previous experiences of change within the organisation, the organisation's
values and culture and current change processes.
As levels of worry and uncertainty increase, they may take employees into the risk or flight zone, where people may decide to leave, customers will start to notice problems and there may be active resistance to change.
Reaction to change is inevitable, so what those responsible for managing the change process must do is to take the necessary steps so people spend as little time as possible in the zones of elevated uncertainty (path 2 rather than path 1).
This is why it is vital to think carefully about how people in an organisation will feel about and react to change. This analysis needs to have two key objectives:
predicting and channelling the views of those many who will be subjected to the change.
There is a lot of writing about and tools available for solving these problems. Some talk about attitudes to change coming from three directions: emotional, rational and political. It is sometimes thought that many of these tools focus too much on the emotional rather than the political or rational dimensions of attitudes to change, which has led to perceptions of them as being 'too soft'.
This is an important area where the best guide is the informed thoughts of someone with knowledge of the business and an understanding for what will and won't be the most effective things to do in the situation, remembering that people in different functions and at different levels may react completely differently. If this analysis is neglected, the change may never be authorised or the new arrangements never used.
Processes and organisation to adopt
What are people going to do differently and how should they be organised to do it? Sometimes this aspect is the main objective of the change, as in the adoption of a service centre structure or outsourcing. At the very least much of it flows naturally from a decision to change, say, the technology. Of course the new processes and organisation to follow must offer advantages over the old arrangements in terms of such things as efficiency, cost, and so on.
The problem here is that often thinking about new organisations and processes required is too narrow. There is a tendency to focus only on those jobs or processes directly affected by, say, the technology change, service centre adoption, or outsourcing programme. There is generally a lack of appreciation about linkages between roles, the effect on reporting lines, or the impact on the broader processes, so when changes are made there are unexpected knock-on effects.
This issue must be addressed early in the change programme. Part of the requirements definition process must seek to fully understand and define the changes expected and required in all affected areas. Requirements definition is not then simply a document produced for a vendor competition, but one that fundamentally clarifies how the roles, management structure and business processes of all stakeholders and other parties will be affected by the proposed change.
Behaviours and skills
If you change organisation, roles, processes or indeed anything, think about the behaviours people will need to show and skills they will need to carry out the processes correctly.
We can broadly identify three categories of skill and associated behaviours:
technical skills: specific skills required to use the new systems and carry out some new processes
contextual skills: broader skills required to carry out the job as it is now defined. How have the new systems and processes affected related activities within a job, and what new skills are needed as a result? Perhaps for example, the job has become more sales oriented, or more managerial; or requires more of an operational orientation
soft skills: more general skills required to deal with changes in relationships, such as the need to work more or less in a team, the need for more negotiation or communication, the need for a more coaching managerial style .
If change is to happen smoothly and painlessly, each of these categories must be addressed. In practice, what normally happens is that only the technical skills are considered in any detail. Some thought may be given to the context of the work, but hardly any to new soft skills. Identifying and outlining the depth of response to these issues must take place during the requirements definition phase, as the lead time on some of this training can be quite long. Furthermore, part of the solution must include a decision as to who is to be deployed where and therefore who needs to be trained in what.
Technologies to adopt
Finally, of course, technology and facilities will have to change. Frequently these get the most attention, but while they are important, no change programme that installs new technology or facilities will deliver any value unless it is looked at as part of a broader change embracing the other aspects outlined above. This is perhaps the fundamental reason why most IT implementation projects run into problems. One study2 into IT implementation projects reports that:
90 per cent fail to achieve their intended goals
80 per cent are delivered late or over budget
40 per cent are abandoned before completion.
Dismal reading, and yet what is curious about the statistics is that while there is general agreement by all concerned about why this happens, few people do what is needed to avoid the problems. The same study reported that 60 per cent of people managing implementation projects agreed that organisational issues were more important than technical ones, but that most of the projects they were involved in had not adequately reviewed organisational issues.
Now let's move on to look at the four stage process of change.
This is an important, but often superficially treated stage. There is a view that one should just get on and execute the change, without properly confirming the shape and benefits of that change. Think at all times of the old adage 'measure twice, cut once'.
Starting from where you are, you need to do three things:
develop a vision
prepare a business case
engage your stakeholders.
Develop a vision
The first step is to decide what you want your HR department of the future to look like.
What is HR's role going to be (for example, how does it compare with Figure 1 )?
What shape will HR have (number of people, centralised or decentralised, role of managers and employees in carrying out HR-related activities, extent of outsourcing, use of shared service centres and so on)?
What part will automation play; what forms of automation will be used (for example self service technology)?
What about the issue of localisation versus standardisation of processes?
Without a vision, you cannot know what you want or where you are going, which of course will make planning your route very difficult.
The vision will also guide your decisions about new technologies, organisation, processes and the behaviours and skills needed to support them.
Prepare a business case
Your vision of the future should be more attractive than that of the present. But what is better in this desired-for future? The answer should contain statements about things being done more efficiently and effectively and that should lead on to quantitative estimates of how this is going to benefit the business financially.
In preparing the business case you will have to answer a number of questions.
What are the costs, both visible and invisible?
Visible costs are those, for example, of the technology being purchased and direct costs associated with its implementation. Invisible costs are downturns in productivity while the change is being implemented and those due to employee resistance.
What is the baseline?
If in the future you want to be able to talk about the benefits that redesigning HR has brought to your business, you must define your baseline position. Gather hard measures about how well HR is performing and what impact it is having on the business before you start making any changes.
What are the benefits?
You will need to make well-reasoned estimates about the benefits of proposed changes, both direct and indirect, tangible and intangible.
Does the change contribute to the organisation's strategy?
Does introducing new HR systems and processes fit in with what your organisation wants? If it does not see radical changes in HR practices as forming part of its strategy, the chances for implementation success are much reduced. Think about personal agendas of the business directors: these may help you.
Answers to these questions will form the basis of your business case. If you are going to move on further than just daydreaming about the broad sunlit uplands of the future, you must have a robust business case, and how to put this together is considered in more detail in Section 6.
Technology v business change budgeting
The root cause of many
problems in projects involving the implementation of new technology lies in the
pattern of investment. Businesses typically do this by investing 80 per cent or
more of the total budget in the technical inputs and directly associated process
change, and the remaining 20 per cent or less in the broader, supporting
organisation, associated process and wider skill changes (what we call 'business
change'). And they do this despite the overwhelming amount of evidence that
shows this is a route to disaster. As mentioned above, when people involved in
business change management processes surrounding IT implementation discuss this
issue, they acknowledge the importance of investing adequately in business
change activities, but in practice do little about it. Curious.
Living in the past
This diagram illustrates the changes in costs that have occurred in the years since IT solutions started to appear.
In the beginning every project was bespoke, and this meant high technological costs. But now greater technical skills, more competition between suppliers and standardisation of technological approaches means the costs associated with the technology are much lower. This has brought technological costs down, so that when installing preconfigured software technological change, costs are in fact small compared to the costs of business change.
However, people working in technology change projects still seem to have a mindset that most money should be spent on the technology. Projects are costed so that technology absorbs most of the investment, and business change gets what is left.
An explanation, perhaps. In the early days of businesses introducing IT solutions, it was necessary to invest heavily in the technological aspects. However, today's sophisticated hardware, standardised approaches to software development and the much higher levels of skill and experience among IT professionals mean technical problems are the exception rather than the norm. Most problems that occur when IT systems are introduced are due to either:
systems not fitting in with what people actually need to do (poor vision or requirements specification)
automation exposing the inefficiencies in existing manual systems (poor alignment with the broader organisation)
technology not being used (poor behaviour change programme, or poor alignment of technology with the broader organisation).
In the specific case of HR administration, the HR software companies have interpreted the needs in all businesses to be broadly the same and HR systems reflect this. Essentially they all do similar things and work in similar ways, so as far as the technology is concerned, there should be no need to cost a project on the assumption that it is moving into unexplored territory, with evil goblins lurking behind every project milestone.
However, the actual HR policies and definitions used in a particular business which are required to set up the software (and data standards) for the particular company are often not fully standardised, and can be hard to standardise quickly, let alone tailor to those practices adopted by HR software companies. This frequently presents companies with a choice, sometimes referred to as the choice between 'vanilla' and 'customised' implementation, but in fact this is in many ways a false dilemma. Unsupported customisation of a large-scale HR package should be avoided, but equally some company HR practices cannot be changed or are inappropriate to change.
This is why there is no such thing as best practice which if implemented would enable the business to use the technology smoothly; nor is there fully configurable software which if used can be shaped to exactly reflect your business. Consequently, for HR implementations in particular, and for self service implementations especially, you cannot avoid extensive business changes to support the project, involving the development of specific organisational, process, and skill-based solutions that work for the particular business.
Unfortunately, this business change is typically not happening. HR technology, including service centre implementations, is being dropped straight into existing HR environments with little regard to the business change problem.
Given that most implementations are going wrong
in some way, something needs to change. Let's look at this challenge using a
standard creative thinking technique. What if we reversed the proportions and
spent 80 per cent on the business change and just 20 per cent on technology?
Perhaps things could only get better? After all, given a budget of £100,000,
which is better: spending £80,000 on a sophisticated solution that does not work
or £20,000 on a simple solution that does?
Engage your stakeholders
Your stakeholders are anyone with an influential interest in the future of HR and the business. They are necessarily a smaller group than the broader group of users and affected parties, and are key because their approval is generally required for the change programme to go ahead.
Some stakeholders are obvious, for example key people in the HR department and senior management, but it is important to think more deeply about whether:
other people have an interest
there are sub-groups within these groups that may have special interests
there are people who have conflicting interests.
It is important to take your analysis to this level so you are aware of individuals or small groups who may have hidden agendas and try to influence decisions so that they benefit.
Stakeholder analysis is important not just to identify the core stakeholders, but because you will be able to use the analysis to determine a number of other important pieces of information for your project:
What is the broader group of affected individuals who will need to be informed of what is going on to enable them to adjust and collaborate appropriately at a later date?
Who are the individuals and groups who will be directly affected by the change and need to acquire new skills and knowledge?
Who are the informants and other people who should be interviewed to gather information as part of the analysis and solution design?
How do you carry out a stakeholder analysis? While you can do some analysis on your own and by asking around for information, you will find it most valuable if you can initially do this as a small group activity within the department.
The table below suggests a process you can follow.
Use your stakeholder analysis to:
identify how these key people feel about change
decide how they are likely to react to whatever you decide to do
plan strategies you need to follow to make sure that these people endorse your proposed change.
From your thinking and planning stage you will have a clear idea about what you want your changes to achieve. You will generally have a specification for the types of solution you think you need to implement.
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Stage 1: Thinking and planning checklist Are you ready to move on to the next stage? I have a clear vision about what I want the future HR department to look like [ ] I have a fully costed business case to justify the changes I want to make [ ] I have identified stakeholders to these changes and am taking their opinions into consideration [ ] |
The next stage is to get down to the detail of the solution and find suppliers. There are four key steps:
With the relevant informants and stakeholders (see stage 1), specify the design of the solution taking account of the whole business: what organisation and how many people will be required; what are the required new processes; what new technical, contextual and soft skills will be needed; what kind of technical solutions are there that can meet the needs?
Assess the extent of the change proposed and the attitudes of the affected parties throughout the organisation (drawing on your stakeholder analysis). Draw up a change plan
Carry out a vendor selection process, using a specification of requirements drawn from the first two activities
Build a detailed business case around the selected supplier(s).
There are two main problems that occur at this stage:
Some companies treat this stage as essentially a vendor selection process and concentrate on creating a statement of functionality before they have really bottomed out with the stakeholders the detail of their requirements
Some companies focus only on defining the solution in terms of one or two aspects of the business (i.e. the technology required) without seeking to understand the change implications for the whole organisation.
Both problems must be avoided. The basic approach should be to create a blueprint of the new organisation that covers all of the dimensions listed above (organisation, process, skills, technology). This blueprint may need to go through a number of iterations, not least with the stakeholders already identified in stage 1, to ensure it meets business requirements without detracting from valued current practices. Generally speaking, businesses need to spend considerably more time on this stage. The outcome should be fairly specific templates of the new organisation, which are then compared with the existing situation to identify the activities required to produce the change. Together the activities make up the change plan.
In principle, a change plan will have four main workstreams:
'Main event' workstream (implementing the technology, building the shared service centre, moving work processes to the outsourcer)
Organisation and process realignment (you must address the impact of the main event on all the 'surrounding' processes, jobs, reporting structures and so on)
People realignment (you must address the need to rebuild the capabilities of the broader workforce and the alignment of HR policies to enable the change)
Change management (stakeholders must continue to be managed, while users and other affected parties must be engaged through appropriate communications to ensure support).
A key requirement of this stage is to ensure you do not draw up a blueprint or specification that cannot be met. Talk to potential suppliers prior to issuing any request for proposals (RFP) to see what the possibilities are, so that your specification is practical and financially realistic. Once the requirements have been fully defined, issue an RFP to identify suppliers who can best provide the solution that meets the requirements.
Many important issues arise in this stage and this guide has devoted specific sections to them: How to go about developing a supplier specification is covered in Section 5. The kinds of solutions you may be considering, for which you may be looking for external assistance, are discussed in Section 4. The challenges of building a business case for your change programme are addressed in Section 6. A review of the issues to be considered to ensure you have an appropriate specification has already been addressed in a number of places earlier in this section. There is, however, one further ingredient to the activities in this stage: how to adequately prepare for managing the change itself. The rest of this section addresses this.
Understand the impact of the change
Developing the change plan is a key step in the completion of this stage. This involves understanding how long it takes to build and train in the new technology, work practices or role structure. However, the more difficult aspect is knowing how the affected parties within the organisation will be persuaded to adopt the new arrangements. Assessing this accurately is essential to creating a realistic change plan. In essence, this is an assessment and specification of the change management activities required to help people adopt the necessary attitudes and behaviours.
In this sense of course, making big changes to the way HR works is no different to any other major business change process. Equally, it tends to be an area that is wholly overlooked at this stage. It is crucial to create a plan to manage the change process in such a way that you get:
understanding from everyone involved and affected, to minimise suspicion and resentment
acceptance, so everyone is prepared to contribute fully to the change process
support, so you get what you need from key individuals and groups within the organisation
behaviour change, so you get the actual changes in behaviour expected in your original vision.
Here are some questions that may be appropriate to ask yourself to help shape your thoughts on the likely depth of the changes you are proposing, likely responses of the people affected, and appropriate actions you will have to undertake.
Will the change to shared services have a positive impact on the organisation's structure?
Making radical changes to the way HR works will probably mean the end of many administrative functions. How will you manage this? Redundancies are bad for those that leave and create the 'survivor syndrome', where those that remain feel guilty and alienated by the organisational changes leading to the redundancies.
Can the changes be used to turn people seen as costs into people developing the business and creating profits?
Will the change to self service enhance the organisation's culture?
People used to having regular contact with HR staff may find carrying out their HR transactions through a computer or a telephone challenging. They may not readily adapt to the culture of taking more ownership of their personal information. You will need to show them what the benefits are to them personally.
Will the change to more accessible HR data change power distribution beneficially?
Departments or individuals whose sense of importance depends on the knowledge that they, and they alone, control, may resist any change. Junior management may find themselves with access to more information than previously, potentially affecting their relationships with more senior staff.
What training will people need?
Never underestimate the amount of training required to support the introduction of new systems and processes, in terms of financial investment and time needed. Training is almost always left until the last moment when both of these resources are running out, sometimes with disastrous results.
Ensure training is designed to help people do what they need to do, not to show them what systems can do.
Be particularly aware of the potential mismatch between people with technical and customer-facing skills. Some HR activities are extremely complex, for example, pension administration, and require high levels of technical skills and knowledge. Such people may need considerable help in adapting to revised job roles where they might be expected to talk directly to an employee with a problem: in a shared service centre model, for example.
What health and safety issues might arise?
Will changes in the way things are done have any health and safety implications? Will staff who have never used computers before be expected to use them? If so, what health and safety issues might this raise?
What impact might there be on internal relationships?
However monolithic or bureaucratic an organisation may seem, it is essentially made up of people playing out relationships, indulging in politics and trying to fulfil personal agendas. Introducing new ways of doing things is bound to cause reactions that will change the balance.
Knowing who your people are and what is important to them can give you important clues that can identify what will work and what won't. Introducing new things gradually gives time for personal networks to adapt gracefully.
Time changes carefully
Plan the implementation
of changes for periods when work pressures are at low points. Introduce changes
incrementally (for example, business unit by business unit), but ensure they
take into account the need to keep the business moving forward.
When drawing up a plan for implementing changes, it is useful to recall our idea that there are four work streams:
the main event (i.e. the implementation of new technology, the setting up of new facilities and the recruitment of people specifically for this)
organisation and business process realignment (for example the impact of the main event has on such things as other processes and reporting structures)
people realignment (for example the implications for the skills and knowledge of the workforce not directly connected with the new technology but who will find that it changes their work)
alignment of stakeholders and others,(i.e. winning the hearts and minds of all people with an interest in the change or who will experience it, so that they accept and embrace the new way of working).
You can imagine that the starting times for initiatives aimed at tackling these four work streams and how long they will need to operate for will all be different. Start well in advance of the main event and ensure you have enough money in the budget to finance them adequately. Remember the 80:20 split, try to avoid spending all your money on the technological change.
Plan to manage reaction to change
Disruption is caused by two things: change and reaction to change.
Minimise disruption caused by change by working through the suggestions mentioned previously in this section. Minimise disruption by doing what you can to keep the level of reaction low. There are various things you can do to help this:
make sure people can see a benefit to them of the new way of working
provide strong leadership from senior management
reward people for using the new systems
set milestones and targets for showing success.
The most important thing to be sure of at this stage is that people in the organisation are behind the change. If they are, they will much more readily put up with teething troubles. Let's take a look at some strategies you can follow to get people's support.
There are several different strategies you can follow to help make the implementation more successful. Whichever you choose will depend on your own organisation and the nature of your change project.
Get the support of trendsetters
The fashion industry knows that the way to persuade people to buy new clothes is to get celebrities to wear them. Celebrities, for better or worse, set trends. Who are the trendsetters in your organisation? Who do people look up to and follow? They may not be managers, or senior people. They could be someone who has been happily doing the same job for many years and who, as a result, knows lots of people throughout the organisation. They could be the person who organises social events and so who talks to people all the time.
They are the ones to influence. Persuade them of the benefits of new systems and processes and let them spread the good news. People are more likely to believe them unquestioningly.
Accentuate the negative
Newton's Third Law of Motion says that to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This applies when you are selling new ideas to people: the more you tell them something is good for them, the more likely they are to resist the idea. So telling people that they should use a new system or follow a new process because you think it is good is quite likely to make people react against it.
The alternative strategy is to accentuate the negative aspects of the old system. Make people aware of the problems they currently have: things are too slow, mistakes keep getting made, everything is so complicated, and so on. Then gently make people more aware that something is happening that will sweep away all these sources of frustration. They may even thank you.
Play on what is important to people
Introduce systems and processes that fit in with what people in the organisation value. If people see the organisation as being dynamic, stress the innovative, leading-edge nature of the changes. If they see its traditional values as being important, stress the accuracy and reliability that the new ways of doing things will bring.
Provide strong leadership
Make sure senior management are completely behind the implementation of new systems. Ensure they can articulate a vision of how the change fits into the organisation's overall strategy.
One way in which this leadership should be manifested is in providing a budget for a full-time project manager to oversee the implementation of the changes. All too often major implementations are added to someone's existing job responsibilities, another example of how organisational issues are under-funded.
Don't assume that because you are implementing an IT system the project manager needs to be an IT person. The most important criteria for selecting an appropriate project manager should be their track record in the successful integration of new systems into organisational practice.
Make sure people feel confident about new ways of doing things
Ensure you provide whatever training and other support materials needed for people to feel completely confident about the new processes or roles. Focus training efforts on the trendsetters: their communication skills will be invaluable in making sure informal on-the-job training is effective.
Align the speed of change with culture
In some companies, where possible, and making sure that you do not interfere with the continuity of business-critical functions, it is appropriate to introduce new ways of doing things bit by bit. Implement one piece of functionality at a time, business unit by business unit. In other companies, a more dramatic approach may be necessary.
Although circumstances may require the opposite, it is worth noting that a stepped approach to change will always lead to more effective adoption by the users. It allows people to learn things slowly and minimises the sense of overwhelming change that can cause a negative reaction. Having learnt how to carry out one new process using a new system, they will find it much easier to move on to the next new process, building on what they know. This may mean it takes longer for people to climb the learning curve, but they will get to the top. Pushing people too quickly makes it more likely they will jump off half-way up.
In practical terms, this will also make it much easier to fix unanticipated technical problems.
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Key points for helping organisational change Enlist the support of trendsetters Accentuate problems with the current situation Know what is important to people and use this Have strong leadership Make sure people are confident about new processes and technologies Introduce change slowly |
During this stage you or your selected suppliers will carry out the detailed technical design and build based on the specification developed in Stage 2, and then implement those designs in accordance with the change plan, refining it as you learn.
The key ingredient of this stage is competent, business-focused project management. All too frequently the job is handed over to the IT department or the technology supplier: big mistake. It is essential the HR function can provide or hire HR-competent project managers with experience of the scale and type of project being undertaken. They do not necessarily have to be a technology expert, but must understand large-scale change of the type being undertaken from the business (i.e. HR) point of view.
In this stage it is typical for all eyes to be focused on the technical aspects of the change, where the suppliers will do such things as:
set up the shared service centre facility
install the required hardware and software
outsource the selected business processes.
Inevitably, given the narrow specifications that tend to get produced in Stage 2, what often gets neglected at this stage are the broader organisational issues, the downstream changes to business processes linked to the technical change and any new soft skills that people will need. The strategies for change management equally will not have been thought through. Often volumes of one-way communication are used as a substitute for a proper change management plan of action.
Figure 8 shows what can happen if all these
issues have been neglected or not thought through adequately during Stages 1 and 2.
Line 1 illustrates what can happen when not enough effort is put in at the thinking and planning and specifying and selecting stages. Because implications of the change have not been thought through and there is no clear vision to aim for, crises appear during building and implementing. Deadlines are approaching and problems keep popping up, and the result is that the amount of effort needed to keep things moving forward rises dramatically. Then, even after go-live in Stage 4, a high level of effort is needed to deal with the unanticipated organisational issues that arise.
But consider the wonderful world of line 2. A considerable amount of effort goes into thinking and planning and then specifying and selecting, so that everyone involved knows what the end result will be, and as far as is possible, issues along the way have been anticipated and contingency plans prepared. Building and implementing goes smoothly and after go-live there is a steady but manageable amount of work going into coaching and improving.
The line 1 approach to project planning is a key reason why most projects go over budget. This is not to say that planning and specifying are easy. They need high quality skilled and experienced people to invest a considerable amount of time, and the project must have excellent project management steering it throughout its lifetime (which, of course, includes the coaching and improving stage after go-live).
Traditionally, systems implementation and many other large scale change projects end at Stage 3. The stresses and strains of implementation and going live are over, everything seems to work (or most things anyway), everyone thinks: "Thank goodness that's over. What shall we do next?" But it is also the stage where clients start blaming suppliers, users avoid using the system and things start going wrong.
However, what we need to realise is that, as Winston Churchill once said: "This is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end, but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." It takes longer to change people than to change things.
Figure 9 is based on data taken from a large
number of multi-million pound ERP implementation projects3.
The analysis shows that the average time to implement large ERP systems is around 20 months. Given that many people involved in the project will feel it has taken half their lifetime, it is not surprising they want to put it behind them. But the reality is that it will still be on average seven months before they can tell whether or not the change has yielded benefits. Surprisingly, perhaps, given the scale of such investments, research has shown that only 17 per cent of organisations do any formal monitoring of business benefits3.
Suitably chastened, you will vow to always monitor business benefits. What can you do?
Coach and train
There will be a continuing need to give people the necessary technical, contextual and soft skills they need to support the change process. How long this will need to go on for will vary considerably, and you will have to constantly monitor people's behaviours to see what areas need to be strengthened or where you can discontinue support. Bear in mind that changing people takes longer than changing things. If you haven't done enough people change work during implementation, you will face many problems at this stage. But even if you have, you will need to continue to coach, reinforce and refine their understanding of how to operate under new work arrangements.
Monitor and improve
You will also need to find out how well people are getting on with the new systems and processes. This will provide feedback and help you guide and reshape your coaching.
Go around the business and ask these questions:
What is working well?
What do people find easy to do?
What do people find easier than before?
How are the changes helping them?
Are they saving time or making fewer mistakes?
Do they see new things they can do that were not possible before?
Are some people learning how to do things particularly well so that they could pass on their best practice?
What is working less well?
What do people find difficult to do?
What do people find more difficult than before?
How are changes hindering them?
Are things taking any longer or are they making more mistakes?
Are they now not able to do useful or important things that they could do before?
Are there any particular needs for training or more information?
Have the changes introduced any potential health and safety issues?
What other changes have occurred?
Have the changes revealed any desirable organisational changes?
How have working relationships changed as a result of new systems and processes?
Have there been any unexpected changes of any sort?
Where possible, get hard measures for answers to these questions and compare with your baseline figures.
Also, take a look around at what is happening in other organisations. Benchmarking yourself against businesses with similar issues of size and scope can help you see how well or otherwise you are doing. There is an ever-increasing amount of information available in the public domain about the redesign of HR. See:
Shared Services and Business Process Outsourcing Association (www.sharedxpertise.org/)
Shared Service Centre Ltd, (www.sharedservicecentre.biz/)
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To carry out a systematic stakeholder analysis start by thinking of eight general categories of stakeholder. Internal People and departments working inside the department, for example HR staff Clients People using your services, other employees, senior management and so on Suppliers Groups or organisations that you work with to help you to deliver your services. For example, current IT suppliers, consultants Financial These are the agencies that provide you with money, perhaps the finance director Community Communities affected directly or indirectly by what you do. Employees' families would fall into this category Citizen action These are formal or informal groups that appear to support or oppose the issue. An obvious example here are trades unions Legal and political Legal and governmental bodies that control or otherwise have an interest in what you are doing. Moving towards a more technologically-based HR system may mean more involvement with regulators of the Data Protection Act and the Disability Discrimination Act Media Not true stakeholders, but important as a conduit for information. If you have an internal staff newspaper you should consider how this can be used. While these eight groups provide a useful way of taking into account all possible types of interest, remember that some people may fall into several different groups. For example, someone working within HR may also be an important member of a trade union. Each role may give them a different and perhaps contradictory interest. Only the opinion-formers in these groups are relevant as stakeholders. Later you will be able to use the same analysis to determine affected groups for general communication and training purposes. |
Here is an example of a table you could use to capture the results of your stakeholder analysis. To show how to use it, there is a possible contribution in the first category.
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Particular organisation or individual |
Nature of interest |
What their interest is | |
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Internal |
Head of administrative staff in HR |
Positive and negative |
Positive, aware that this could make their work more interesting. Negative, afraid of job security |
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Clients |
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Suppliers |
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Financial |
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Community |
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Citizen action |
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Legal and political |
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Media |
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References
1Prosci (2004), Understanding resistance: Prosci's Flight and Risk Model, Change Management Learning Centre, www.change-management.com
2Doherty, N. F. and King, M. (2001),'An Investigation of the Factors Affecting the Successful Treatment of Organisational Issues in Systems Development Projects', European Journal of Information Systems, December, Vol. 10.
3Meta Group (2003), Deriving Value
from 21st Century ERP Applications, http://www.metagroup.com/us/home.do
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Personnel Today Management Resources one stop guide on redesigning the HR function Section one: The argument for HR redesign Section two: The changing role of HR Section three: Making the change Section four: A guide to the solutions you may be considering Section five: Specifying requirements and selecting suppliers Section six: Building the business case Section seven: Summary
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