Change is a fact of life and is essential for survival. In the modern business world, new organizational priorities and developments occur every day. If your business doesn’t update itself, it stagnates.
With new trends and technology evolving, customers’ needs are changing. For any business, the key goal is to impress customers. When the customer needs change, your company must also adapt to the change.
If your business can’t keep up with the change, you’ll lose relevance in the market. If you want to make your business more efficient and streamlined, know the types of organizational change you need.
While organizational change can be disruptive when initiated, it improves employee productivity. Also, the consequences of ignoring change are more threatening than change itself.
Without a solid plan for organizational change implementation, it can’t be smooth. For successful change management, understand where to start and how to go about it.
But wait, do you know the types of organizational change your business can adapt to? Here are 3 main types of organizational change models you can implement.
Strategic Transformational Change
While all types of changes will impact some aspect of the business, not every change is transformational. For instance, minor shifts to current policies and tools can influence but won’t completely redefine the business.
While a successful change will completely transform a business, the wrong move can have disastrous effects. The success or failure of a transformation change will depend on the implementation strategy.
In achieving positive results in transformational change implementation, serious planning is a must. Make sure to identify your ultimate goal and develop a solid plan on how to achieve it. Proper preparation and continuous change management are key for a successful transformational change.
Examples of transformation changes for an organizational change include:
Updating Business Mission with Growth
For any startup, the main focus is lead generation and conversion. In this phase, a business concentrate on different marketing strategies to attract clients. But, after establishing a solid customer base, the focus shifts to more on upselling.
In such instances, a business will need to update its mission statement as it evolves. This helps to keep employees and other stakeholders on the same page with the new goals and objectives.
Introducing New Technology
While technology is designed to make lives easier, it has a steep learning curve. This could make technology-related changes challenging to implement and achieve the intended results. For this reason, companies will opt to stick to what they already know, which at times can be disastrous.
If you decide to introduce and put in place new technology in your business, it should be coupled with a great plan. Your employees ought to know the need for the new technology. Inform them why it’s better than the existing one and how you’ll support them.
Thus, highlight all the new solution’s benefits and why it’s necessary for your business. Also, build confidence by explaining how different change management tools will support employees. This may include regular check-ins, in-app training, or internal chat to handle employees’ queries.
Structural Organizational Change
This type of change involves major shifts in team organization and management hierarchy. Also, it may include changing teams, employees, or department responsibilities.
Structural changes will affect most, if not all, the human resources in a firm. As such, you want to prepare your employees for the change to avoid frictions or resistance.
Examples of organizational change at the structural level include:
Mergers and Acquisition
In most cases, mergers and acquisitions are the major cause of structural change. To manage change in mergers and acquisitions, it’s important to;
• Eliminate role redundancies
• Define new roles and responsibilities
• Redefine organization goals
• Train on new technology
Creation of New Teams and Department
A structural change could also comprise of smaller organizational changes. This may include the creation of new teams when the need arises. For instance, if you identify some of your employees are good in analytics, you can create a separate and dedicated reporting team.
However, be prepared for tensions resulting from personnel or duties shifting. To avoid or counter any negative outcome, justify the need for change and its benefits. Explain clearly all it’s positive and how it’s about strengthening every individual.
Personnel Organizational Change
Personal change occurs when an organization experiences huge instant growth or layoffs. This type of change can cause a huge employee retention and engagement shift.
If employees sense layoff, anxiety and fear reign affecting their morale and productivity. Regardless, if the change is necessary, the company must move forward. However, in such turbulence, motivate your staff and display genuine compassion.
Also, while mass hiring may present several benefits for a business, it has challenges. Mass hiring can sign growth, but a firm becomes prone to cultural changes. This comes as a result of new members trying to integrate with the existing culture.
Also, employing new staff requires training and continuous support during their onboarding. The high number of new staff implies the management will have to shift their duties to training new employees and offering guidance. If a transition is not handled, then it can result in inefficiency, chaos, and impede growth.
Before hiring, a manager should evaluate the impact of new hires on the company. Will they lighten the workload and fill any skills gaps?
Determine if it will be easy to integrate with the current team. This can help facilitate a successful change implementation. Also, consult organizational effectiveness consultant for the best advice on managing personnel change.
These Are the Major Types of Organizational Change
Organizational change is key for any organization. It helps a company reposition to meet its goals, objectives and maintain competitiveness. However, implementing organizational change can either make or break a business.
To succeed, proper planning is key. Here are the different types of organizational change you can adopt.
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