change management
The rollout of a new technology. A more
creative setup in the office. The reorganization
of a company’s structure. Change
is a constant in today’s fast-paced business
environment.
Nowadays, many workplace changes are
cross-disciplinary. Managing these moments of
disruption often falls to HR professionals who
increasingly bridge the gap between senior leadership,
IT managers and the workforce. Not
only should they have the knowledge and skills
to identify when change is needed, they also
need to know how to successfully implement
that change. As easy as this sounds,
enacting change can be a fraught process
to manage. It’s frequently against
human nature to react favourably
to change, so employees tend to
dig their heels in and resist it
at all costs. Companies are
struggling to come up
with adequate change
management strategies,
and
according to one study, no less than 70 per cent of
major corporate change efforts fail.
With this challenging landscape in mind, HR
professionals should remember that it’s just as
important to manage a change from a people
perspective as it is to manage it from a logistical
perspective. To successfully enact change in
the workplace, they should adopt marketing best
practices and treat the implementation of a workplace
change as the development of a new product.
Just as it’s much easier to sell a product to a consumer
if they’ve seen a compelling promotion for
it, change will be much more appealing to employees
if it has been marketed to them.
STEP INTO THE EMPLOYEES’ SHOES
A profound understanding of the consumer is
at the centre of every successful marketing strategy.
Only when you truly understand what your
targets want can you build a marketing strategy
that positions your product in a way that makes it
so attractive that the customer can no longer live
without it. Likewise, HR professionals need to
gather information about their employees’ points
Romolo Tavani/shutterstock.com
Change Marketing
ENCOURAGE WORKERS TO ADOPT CHANGES BY
APPLYING MARKETING BEST PRACTICES
By Martin Brooker
HRPATODAY.CA ❚ OCTOBER 2015 ❚ 49