Is change really a planned for event? Do HR practitioners diligently refer to the theory books when dealing with a redundancy, merger or acquisition? In this feature Annie Hayes, HR Zone Editor, reports on what’s really going on at UK plc when it comes to change management.

Why change?
There are many reasons why organisations need to change. Economic pressures, the political climate, the impact of legislation, globalisation and competition, the drive for greater performance, profit chasing and more effective delivery. Whatever the reason HR’s goal is the same, to get from A to B without impacting the smooth running of the business and with the least resistance and most success.

Sharon Cooper, HR Director EMEA at IPC Information Systems, a US company supplying specialist telecommunications equipment to the financial services market was recently confronted with harmonising the organisations terms and conditions as a direct result of an acquisition of four or five other smaller businesses. “Many of the employees were reluctant to give up the more favourable clauses, but we had to do it.” Change therefore is often a reactionary process to something that has to be done to merge two cultures.

While for Samantha Saint-Crewe, Change Manager at Alpha Retail, part of the Alpha Airports Group operators of stores, bars, restaurants and pubs in the travel retail arena, change has been the direct result of an efficiency drive.

“Over the last two years we’ve undergone a huge change programme. We’ve moved from a de-centralised to a centralised model focused on our supply chain. Previously each store did their own ordering for example. But the real trigger was driven out of a change to our till system – SAP was introduced and we’ve moved to a more technology based way of working.”

But for Jackie Pownall working in the Organisational Development team for Manchester City Council the changes that have occurred have been as a direct result of the Government’s Gershon review with the aim of achieving a better way of working.

“We run 33 different ‘wards’ and have been developing a programme for people to work and think differently. Take our housing staff for example – if they were looking at making a house more secure in the past they might just put up the railings but now we’d like them to think about contacting the police about crime, liaising with the grass cutters and in essence looking at the broader picture.”

So ‘change’ occurs for different reasons in different sectors and can have many different drivers.

What’s the theory?
There’s a wealth of change management theory for HR practitioners to pick through from John P Kotter’s eight steps to successful change, to the Kubler-Ross change curve which highlights the stages we go through when we experience some event of change, to the ‘freeze unfreeze theory’ which recognises three stages which must be successfully achieved in order for change management to be successful and permanent. But do HR practitioners actually use these theories in practice and if so what, if any help are they?

In a recent Any Answers post on HR Zone, member Eddie Newall made his views known: “I can’t recall ever seeing anyone apply change management theory in any of the organisations I have worked for, in terms of SWOT analysis, project management or any other techniques advocated for successful change management. I worked for the NHS for 30 years and the culture always seemed to be to just get on with it.”

And many of our HR Zone members agree. Paul Corbin commented: “I would love to see theories used in reality and although I see change project managers walking around with change management books under their arm, it would seem that none of the content makes it into practice.”

But not all our practitioners concur. Mike Morrison, a consultant for RapidBI Limited recalls how as a training manager for a large, private hospital he successfully deployed a change project with the help of a simple change model. “It took 15 months for us to reach number five in the customer care chart and 18 months to obtain Investors in People. Change can be managed but it needs total commitment from the development team and the senior sponsor. It also needs simple tools.”

And for Pownall a thorough analysis of all the change theories was a crucial part in deploying their change project at the Council. “Our research academics presented all the theories to us and we’ve used Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the Seven ‘S’ Model, PESTLE, business process re-engineering and Kotter’s eight step model. We’ve utilised them in different ways to design training and our communication plan. In essence they’ve provided a tool to enable us to do our job. PESTLE for example gave us a framework to ensure we didn’t miss anything.”

Many of our members, however, including Martin Schmalenbach believe that theory plays its part but that’s not the total answer: “Theories can help in educating and raising awareness. Project management and these structural tools can help change run more smoothly. I’m not sure that managing change in the sense of actively leading the organisation by the hand according to a plan/schedule and prescribed set of interventions will do the trick, however.”

Mike Healy who has been involved in change management as a training manager, organisational development manager, consultant, HR Director and Chief Operating Officer agrees with Schmalenbach: “I found that process and structure is useful for providing some kind of map or general direction but it does not necessarily buy agreement or support … I found in the line role that the theories acted like tenets of faith which I had to hold onto but the day to day reality of delivering products and services needed to be dealt with first.”

Overcoming resistance to change
According to Mick Marchington and Adrian Wilkinson commenting in People Management and Development organisations can overcome the fear of change by involving stakeholders in the process: “There is overwhelming evidence that the best way to reduce resistance to change is to involve those whom it is going to affect in the decision-making process. Individuals who have been involved in the diagnosis, planning, devising and implementation of change are far more likely to feel positive about it.”

And it’s a point that members are united upon. Saint-Crewe reflects on the efforts Alpha Retail put into their communication programme: “The communication strategy was huge, 40 people were seconded to it. There was genuine involvement – the idea was that real people would be involved in driving it. We were talking to people a year before changes happened and it helped us retain them – in the end we only lost two employees from our Head Quarters.”

Member Jeremy Thorn believes that commitment and support is the key: “Commitment to ‘change’ MUST start at the top and never waver, to be successful. And that does not just include trite ‘injunctions’ – but consistent personal adherence to the organisation’s Mission, Vision and Values.”

Mercer, Human Resource Consulting agree – according to their extensive study into change management amongst the top five best change practices is effective communication and leadership and commitment from senior management.

Cooper, however, adopted a more forceful approach to manage the resistance: “We took a chameleon like approach which involved cajoling and persuading people towards the change.”

For this HR Director knowing what the objections would be before communicating the changes was vital in managing them. “Managing the cultural issues was the most difficult thing – we had to think through how we were going to sell it.”

And Pownall also supports a move away from the softly, softly approach: “We took away our customer service support systems to make it ‘uncomfortable’. It was a shock tactic.”

Just having professionals in charge is one method of overcoming resistance. Saint-Crewe believes that having HR people on board for a change management project can help and says that adaptability is a key skill: “Not every change is going to go to plan. General core HR skills are invaluable too.”

Marchington and Wilkinson emphasise the role that HR can play in overcoming resistance to change: “The HR function is regarded by some managers as free from the typical conflicts that take place between production, marketing and design, and thus more likely to be ‘objective’ in its approach to managing change.”

Successful change management is therefore a combination of deploying the right skills and having the right people in place.

Conclusion:
Managing a change project is a challenging process, the drivers and triggers vary from organisation to organisation and the way it is dealt with varies from one to the other. On the whole our members wouldn’t advocate theory over practical planning but support having an understanding of it and using that to underpin the key facets of a change programme.

Approaches seem to vary too between the sectors – in the public sector example, at Manchester City Council the change programme was handled in a strategic fashion with reference to academic theory but in many of our private sector examples change occurred in a more haphazard manner.

As Cooper says theory has its place but can’t ever supersede logic and sense of direction: “At the coal-face you can’t follow academic theory blindly. On reflection it may be useful. The better approach is to plan and be thoughtful.”

Adapting to the sector, context and change at hand it would seems is the only way to manage a change project effectively whether that be with or without reference to academic theory.