Marketing Management's Blog

When you think about the millions of dollars organizations spend each year on IT programs of work, wouldn't it be prudent knowing that employees actually understand and most importantly embrace the reason behind the changes? There is one way of ensuring that employees and their managers have got the message and truly understand the reasons for the new system implementation. And that is the means by which leaders communicate focuses on the change message.. Let's start with reviewing how most organizations manage technology based change. If your organization's approach to this type of change is new skills training and employee communication strategies that include stakeholder management (translated briefings), intranet and email updates then that's not managing change, rather it is focussed on information. So what is the difference and why do we need to do anything more than provide information? IT systems are not introduced for the sake of a new system itself, they are introduced because there are benefits to be realised from a business management perspective. This may include more information on customer profiles and identifying other products or services clients may be interested in purchasing, the changes might focus on back office systems such as greater information for human resources management or accounting or they may focus on the supply chain and logistics. Whatever the reason there is a business reason for change and this is what employees need to understand if the full benefits of any system implementation is going to be realised. Let's look at an example. This financial services organization was introducing a new back office system. In the past employees worked in separate divisions so customers were transferred from one area to another to process their request. The new system meant that all of the customer details were now available to employees and that they would now work in teams and "own" the customer from the commencement to end of transaction. It was a complete system and work style change so before specific system training was introduced a simulated work area was established and employees were taken through the customer experience. It was important that they understood the benefits to the customer by looking at the changes through the eyes of the customer. This way we created the "Aha" moment, employees got the message better than any intranet, information session or email bulletin could have conveyed it. And when employees went into system training they clearly understood the benefits and business reasons behind the changes. Implementing a structured team briefing process can reinforce that understanding. The five key things to remember when communicating technology changes. 1. Be very clear about the business reasons for the changes - who will benefit and what will those benefits be? 2. Establish why those benefits are important? What will the impact be on the organization? 3. Decide the key messages for your information strategy - what will you need to communicate, to whom and when? 4. Concurrently design an engagement strategy at key points in your project plan that will engage employees at all levels in the reason for the technology changes. Your leadership effectiveness will be the key skill requirement here. 5. Remember to ensure engagement the message is not about the system itself but about the business reasons for the changes. Finally, as transformational leaders can you take the same approach to managing system changes and apply it to every new organization? The answer is clearly no because as every organization's culture is different, so it follows that every approach to change management and leadership communication must be different to maximise the investment and potential of the system changes that are implemented.

Let's talk about how communication of changes in information technology is generally done. One common approach could be training impacted employees on required skills together with the usual internal communication channels including updates using the company intranet and emails, and meetings and briefings. However just letting employees know what is happening will not result in employees embracing and understanding the changes. There is a big difference between managing how employees change to adapt to the new system and implementing an information and education campaign.

Changes in an organization's IT infrastructure do not happen just to update systems, but because there is a business case that justifies such changes. The reasons for such changes could be a need to improve the understanding of the customer and thereby identify new products and services, or because human resources and accounting demand greater information, or there is a need to fine tune supply chain and logistics. Whatever reasons are identified there is a need for employees to understand the reasons why in order to translate investment in IT into increased profits.

Let us cite on example. There was an organization that updated their back office. The system in the past had employees working in separate sections and customers had to be transferred between departments to complete a transaction. Now, the new system enables all employees to view details of each customer enabling a team of workers to "own" a customer from the start until the end of a transaction. The flow of work as well as the IT system that help define the workflow was new and so systems training as well as work flow simulation was undertaken in order to let the employees understand the customer's experience. The simulation enabled the employees to see how the changes looked through the eyes of the customer. That is, when the employees finally understood it was of a level of understanding that no intranet, briefing or meeting, or long chains of email could ever hope to accomplish. It was clear that the employees had a clear understanding of the reasons why the IT program had to be changed as well as the business reasons underlying such changes.

Five things you need to remember when introducing technology upgrades. 1. Speak clearly about why this can help business - What the benefit is for the company and how it will be implemented. 2. Give reasons why the benefits outweigh other options. 3. Know the key messages to share about your new strategy - what do you need to say, to what departments and when should you say it? 4. Develop an engagement plan when it comes to organizational change and make sure that it reaches employees at all levels so that they all understand what the reasons for the changes. 5. Make sure that you share information about how the business will benefit from the new system and avoid talking about the system itself.

One question that needs to be considered by transformational leaders is whether it is okay to use a generic approach when communicating systems changes. The answer is usually no, as there are many different ways to communicate change tailored to the specific culture of each organization.