Keeping Employees Engaged through Change

How do you keep your employees engaged through change? You are probably implementing several changes right now in your workplace. Chances are, you’ve adopted at least some tools from the organizational change management (OCM) toolbox.

• Create awareness about the need for change.
• Build desire around the outcomes of the change.
• Share knowledge and make it readily available.
• Develop people’s abilities to operate in a new context.
• And, finally reinforce the behavior changes you seek through communication, incentives, and storytelling!

But are you aware of how many changes your employees are truly experiencing? And have you given them the tools they need to process all those changes, all at once?

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The Limitations of Change Management

One of the limitations of OCM, in my opinion, is that it treats each change as its own process. The best practitioners will also consider related change initiatives and weave the stories together. But when multiple initiatives coincide, conflict, or compete for people’s attention, employee engagement suffers. And, let’s be honest, some of the changes don’t have anyone managing them at all! No wonder it’s hard to keep employees engaged through change.

What’s Missing from This Approach?

While many organizations carefully manage individual change initiatives, they often fail to build their employees’ capacity for responding to change in general. This means employees are less productive due to worry and uncertainty. They are more likely to experience burnout. When your team members have a consistent, repeatable, and predictable way to consume any change, they can more efficiently adapt to the specific changes they’re facing.

Help Your Employees Stay Engaged through Change

By building a learning culture in your organization, you can take away some of the risks associated with uncertainty. Specifically, you can work with Lead at Any Level® to help your employees respond to change more effectively. Our course, The Journey from Panic to Purpose, is available as a live webinar series, a one-day training event, a self-paced online course, or as an external seminar. In this program, we can guide your employees through their own “Hero’s Journey” for a specific change they’re facing. And they can use this formula to process other uncertainties at work, at home, and elsewhere.

Amy C. Waninger improves employee engagement and retention for companies that promote from within. She is a Prosci Certified Change Practitioner and the author of seven books, including Moving from Panic to Purpose. Learn more about Amy and her work at www.leadatanylevel.com