Creating Change Management Training That Works

7 Ways to Ensure Effective Change Management

When it comes to implementing new change in any organization, the usual reaction is less than encouraging.

The major reasons for this could be poorly implemented change in the past, unclear communication leading to fear of change, a lack of clarity in terms of the process involved and the most likely reason-it’s human nature! Regardless of the reason, the key to any successful change management process is having the right change manager on the team alongside subject matter experts and learning professionals who can bring together the right plan.

After conducting a survey of Learning Leaders from top organizations across North America, TrainingFolks learned some very interesting information about internal learning organizations and their challenges when it comes to change. 

Here are some of the top statistics that came from the survey that focused on organizational change management and best practices.

While 90% of Learning Leaders stated that their internal training organizations are responsible for sourcing training for change, only 25% believed they were effective at doing so.

This makes sense if you consider who may be responsible for carrying out corporate training for change across the organization. If it’s a new software implementation like Salesforce for example, many companies may opt for having their IT department provide the training. Why could this backfire? 

Well, for one, an IT specialist is not a training professional! Designing, developing and delivering effective employee-centric software training is not an easy feat. On top of that, ensuring that the content and delivery meet the various learners and their styles is additional work that only a true professional dedicated to employee learning and development can achieve effectively. 

While it may make financial sense, in the beginning, to stay internal, the truth is, that the long term impacts could end up costing the company much more.

71% of leaders said their top challenge was schedule delays and delays to the change initiative training.

Again, when you are working with an internal team, there are always other projects or priorities that must be considered. Moving off the change initiative training onto another project for a week can seriously impact the milestones in place. Missing deliverables and prolonging communication to those that are affected by the new change not only impacts user adoption but also begins to generate the feeling that the change lacks importance.

69% of respondents stated a lack of consideration during project timeline planning was a secondary challenge that they had to deal with.

Working with an experienced team in change that includes an instructional design consultant and a change manager can deal with this problem and provide a structured approach. When working internally only, its easy to become pigeon-holed and not see other factors that could impact your project plan. When an external consultant is on board, they’re able to focus solely on the change at hand and deliver an accurate and attainable project timeline for successful training and change implementation.

Finally, 95% of Learning Leaders found best practices to successfully implementing change by partnering with a company with experience in that form of change.

When working with a change management consulting company like TrainingFolks, learning departments can complete their teams with the best experience and knowledge applicable to their change.

An instructional design consultant can complete a training needs assessment based on the change initiative. Once the change management plan is approved, they can also complete the design of the training that you’ll need to impact user adoption positively. 

By being able to take an impartial look at the employees or other stakeholders involved, the final recommendations and program speak specifically to the needs of those individuals versus what top management may assume will work.

Working with contract trainers also ensures that your change initiative training is completed quickly and accurately across the organization, whether that be one office or multiple ones on a global level. 

Having a contract training partner provide the right trainers for your subject matter and learners locally, also helps to save the company money while taking the burden of training off internal employees’ shoulders. This then allows them to continue on their day to day responsibilities which also impact the company.

Best Practices for Effective User Adoption Strategy 

1. Ensure leadership and stakeholder buy-in and customer learner content to each learner’s need

2. Provide appropriate funding and build real examples into the training program

3. Supplement your internal team with external delivery resources

4. Align the strategy with long-term business goals

5. Communicate clearly, consistently and throughout the change process

6. Identify, evaluate and secure necessary resources as early as possible

7. Develop proper training metrics so that programs can be modified easily

Download your free eBook entitled 6 Tips o Effective Corporate Change here.