Change vs. Change Management – How to Prepare Your Employees for Organizational Change

Organizations are always striving to improve.

Whether it’s leveraging the latest technology or implementing better internal processes, organizations are constantly finding ways to do business better.

What’s the difference between change and change management?

Change is simply a movement out of a current state by implementing a period of transition to reach a desired future state. For example, moving to an integrated system from legacy systems or introducing new equipment to a certain business process.

Change management is about facilitating organizational change by supporting the workforce through their transition processes. For example, individuals’ access to new integrated databases, upskilling the workforce as new products impact how jobs are done, or executing newly documented and managed processes.

How does change management occur?

There are different levels of change management.

Individual change management – Requires an understanding of what motivates people to change and how leaders can incorporate tactics that facilitate individual change into the day-to-day business operations.

Organizational change management – Requires looking at long-term goals as a key part of implementing change on a company-wide level. Often used in project management processes, leaders need to focus on identifying teams that will be affected and supporting them through the process.

Enterprise change management – Requires restructuring in every aspect of an organization. Leaders need to think about leadership, projects, procedures, roles, processes, and organizational structure to identify how to effectively implement change.

Why should organizations care about change management?

The world is always changing, and companies are changing along with it.

Change is a common part of an organization’s growth and success.

There are different types of changes that can occur such as developmental change, transitional change, and transformational change.

Having a well-thought-out strategy is key to adequately managing change for not only company success, but also employee satisfaction.

Change management targets the different levels within an organization to identify the necessary steps that need to occur to ensure that change is correctly implementing for long-term results.

Change management also ensures that employees have the tools and knowledge needed to perform their jobs after the changes are implemented, their questions and concerns are answered, and they understand how to perform their new responsibilities efficiently.

How can organizations plan for change and change management?

Well, coming up with a plan is already half the job completed.

The other half is to execute.

At SHEA Global, we can help you develop a broad strategy that equips your organization with the right solutions to tackle change with ease. Whether you want to focus on new business processes, implementing new skills, upgrading equipment, or something else, we will work with you to ensure a successful transition.