Why employee engagement is crucial for successful change
In order for an organisation to grow and improve, change is inevitable. However, this can often raise questions and uncertainty amongst staff wondering how this may impact their day-to-day work. Resistance to change is rarely because people do not want to evolve and support strategic goals, but is more often because staff are not involved in early decisions or able to apply their experience to planning. This can leave a lack of clarity around what is changing, why, and how this will affect their day-to-day work. This is why successful, sustainable change begins with a shared understanding of goals, support from management and empowerment of staff to actively contribute to how change is implemented.
Creating the culture for change
Without buy-in from teams supporting the organisation, even the best solutions will have little impact. Process management is an approach that takes support as its starting point by involving staff and giving them ownership in how the objectives of the change is achieved. Operational teams are the ones who know the work processes best, including all the relevant exceptions in how services are delivered. They also have valuable experience to make suggestions for improvement and can therefore be the driving force behind change, rather than an obstacle. They are best suited to assess the impact of changes on the organisation's core services. After all, staff are aware of the bottlenecks in their current work and often already signal the need for change.
Successful change requires a balance between management guidance and active staff involvement; it is the combination of top-down and bottom-up approaches that makes the difference.
Improving processes together
Engagement doesn't happen by itself; it needs to be organised. By working with cross-functional teams to map out the current situation (AS-IS), it becomes clear how processes actually work. This includes hidden exceptions and bottlenecks - many of which have not been communicated before, but are experienced on a daily basis. In doing so, staff feel heard, which increases support for the changes. Starting with small, visible improvements delivers immediate results and motivates people to carry on. In this way, you build, step-by-step, a positive culture of continuous improvement.
From imposed change to people-driven change
When staff actively contribute and feel free to share their ideas, a different dynamic emerges: change no longer comes from the top down, but from within the organisation itself. This requires collaboration, transparency and space for feedback within a culture centred on learning and improvement. In this way, people continually find better ways of doing their work as the process unfolds. Those who see the results of their contribution develop a sense of ownership, and it is this impact that makes change most sustainable.
Fit for purpose with Engage Process
The Engage Process platform puts this into practice, specifically designed to support a structured lean approach. With the Modeler, operational, cross-functional teams can map out processes and exceptions in real-time during process workshops. This is supported by an accessible interface including Drag-and-Drop, Show/Hide® and Switch View® functionality. By placing current state (AS-IS) and future (TO-BE) process maps side-by-side, the impact of changes becomes immediately clear, with analysis data to support. The value stream map also highlights where bottlenecks and opportunities for improvements lie, and which steps do not add value for the customer and could therefore be eliminated.
With the ability to publish approved processes, the new services are incorporated into a central resource - a Digital Process Handbook, complete with roles, responsibilities, procedures, and ways of working for the entire organisation. Via the feedback module in the Viewer, staff can continuously contribute suggestions for improvement, enabling them to play an active part in shaping the improvement objectives and making continuous improvement an integral part of their day-to-day work.
Conclusion
When it comes to transformation and change, staff engagement should not just be an afterthought, but rather, is the key to success. Organisations that invest in openness, collaboration and ownership create a culture in which change is no longer hindered, but supported for the long-term.
Download the whitepaper "7 Steps for a Successful Process Workshop" here to discover how organisations can actively involve cross-functional, operational teams in mapping and improving processes.
