Dealing with change in the workplace PowerPoint for HR

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morning morning morning good morning good morning to you so you know we love to talk HR and this morning is no different we have attorney at law Maya kelman coming in uh in this segment that we usually share with the human resources management association of Barbados so good morning to the entire membership uh so wonderful that you've worked to be able to form this partnership so people really can check in so Maya is here with us today good morning welcome good morning and good morning Bas good stuff good to have you with us leading and managing change in the workplace my my my now Where Do We Begin because uh you know as as the old people would say change is the only constant yeah I was that there is so why is it important to have um an effective change management strategy when we talk about the work environment you know as you was just saying t-a change is the only thing that's constant is one thing that is guaranteed in life and if that is the situation in our personal life it is no different in the organizations and the reason why organizational strategy is is important is because it's a valuable tool simply because it serves as a backup plan a contingency plan when anything goes WR you know we have political changes in parties we have um changes in the way how we do business new products new Services um just recently yesterday um I was able to log on and watch my colleagues um engaging in um advocacy via YouTube um and so years ago I believe that 30 40 years ago I don't think that the legal profession as reserved that it is would have um adopted and acknowledged the S emerging technology so change is very critical to organizations even in terms of what the courts when we're talking about or referencing your particular profession what the church the the courts have been able to do owing to covid yeah uh who ever thought that you would go to court by Zoom yes you know so how do you work to get ahead of that uh in the the segment uh not the one just before but just down the line we talked about uh some of our media people going to China and observing how much Advan they they've Advanced with technology as we expect because you know they make a lot of a lot of stuff there so is it sufficient for an organization to have just a strategic plan an overall plan or do you have to kind of hone in and say okay this is the plan for change in each specific area yes I think it it requires a meticulous approach um you know it would some people will be more resistant or hesitant to change but it's very important for the growth of an organization because as Society changes you need to keep up with society and the laws all right we we know that a lot of the times there's a lot of resistance yes to change how do we get our employees to change the mindset to accept change well um I would say first of all you have to harness the power of communication you have to be able to speak to your employees let them know what is going on and of course there are certain high level conversations that every single employee would not be previewed to but I think an employee should not be left in the dark so if you're doing a merger acquisition any kind of major shift within an organization layoffs these are these employees need to be um attuned to that so that they can be able aware of what you know is going on in the organization is there a a particular category of person or worker that you find might be a little more resistant to change uh I don't know if there's and there probably is data to support uh we we obviously didn't do research in that area but based on your personal observation yeah certainly personal observation and data for sure um I I don't want to offend anyone but it's always be a battle between the generation zeners and the Baby Boomers and it's always the older generation who's always resistant a lot of times to change especially when it comes to technology and new ways of how to do things you've seen that a lot when we talk about getting meticulous and um you know really getting granular with the way that we approach uh change and managing it uh what are we talking about specifically uh because we certainly have to go beyond a bunch of papers yes that we Shuffle around yes it's more an it's more personal and an internal thing that you have to focus on before you can actually physically Implement and monitor the change so you have to get this bayin and as I said before this bu comes first of all with harnessing the power of communication being transparent with this communication telling your employees how is this change going to impact them personally and how will it impact the organization as a whole do you find that um you know companies in this part of the world are transparent when it comes to honestly sharing about what's happening and I I understand fully the concept of not being able to share information with everybody obviously because um you know if you're you're doing mergers as you said Acquisitions uh if you're going to be doing um some people transitioning out of the organization o to things like attrition and things like that you know there will be changes so you won't be able to share everything but have we practiced a culture of transparency I don't think completely to be quite Frank and then persons are always left in the dark and then it it becomes even more an emotional kind of thing and where people have to be grappling with unemployment and well being and overall employee Wellness I don't think that we are as transparent as we ought to be to employees we owe it to them and the external stakeholders it's absolutely true and you know if we if we sit and reflect on um you know honestly on personal experiences and so on and we look at what's happening in society a lot of the times uh people at a management level are carrying on conversations about what they want to do but they never kind of um clue in M the employee who will be impacted whether it's uh the fact that they're the ones who will have to carry out these changes or get up to speed with these changes so in trying to move Beyond just the paper shuffling and the rhetoric talk what do they truly do how how do you affect it can you uh simply uh take it on as an entity or must you maybe have an expert coming to assist I would say that you can have both you can have um an organizations the top level of course speak to um obviously the lower persons within sister the um the organization subordinates and of course if you have that budget in your organization you can also have a consultant coming um there are change management Consultants I've actually specialized in that particular area as well and I've done some certifications in that and there you can actually go into an organization and assist them with their change management process whether it's implementing a new process a new system you you know um and help them to implement and also monitor it cuz it's not enough to just implement it you have to be able to monitor it and evaluate it and how important is it to be able to uh I hate to use this term but hold your employees hands as you make these changes so that they can truly come along particularly Baby Boomers and other Generations that you're referring to Yes um it's very important and giving them the resources because we were saying earlier before how we go but you can't just push it on Persons as a boss I said that you got do this say this is a new system that's not the approach it can't be the Approach at all um the approach has to be one that has to include patience compassion and empathy you know culturally barbadians are known to be very resistant to change but it's the only thing that's constant you have again to let them know why is important to them um why is it important to the organization as a whole and by giving them the necessary resources so if you are going to implement something like a technological Advan you have to be able to provide that support those resources and budget for them so that the employees you know feel fully supported and heard within this particular change as we transition into something new wearing your hat as attorney at law is provision made under the erra for employees to uh kind of be protected when these changes are made so that they're not pushed out well yes there is to some degree ra requires some serious not happen to be quite Frank but there is as it relates to um restructuring um for sure and um layoffs as relates to those particular areas um you know when it comes to c a certain amount of persons being U made redundant there obviously has to be certain consultations and the like so there is some Provisions under the erra and of course the common law that we that we treat to in these particular instances and if we shift Focus From the employers cuz we've been talking a lot about implementing change but let's shift focus a little bit to employees uh where do they sit in terms of uh what are how they can lend their voice to any changes coming in the organizations they serve I love that you said that because it's not it's a two-way street in my mind I think that you need both persons you need two hands to clap um and employees um throughout that particular process should be able throughout the consultations in meetings um they should be able to give their voice if someone if a manager comes and say look this is a new way that I want to do things a new system you want to implement as soon as that person begins to give their you know take on it you shouldn't be like man shut up and Isa is the boss and this is the way how it's supposed to be then listen to them as I said practice empathy practice patience um allow them to finish it you may not be able to see it their way um because you may have some succession plan in the mind as to why you're doing these things but you have to allow your employees to be able to um give their take on it and planning is Paramount yes uh there's so many organizations and it's it doesn't necessarily come from a a negative place but there's a negative outlook when you say uh when is this due yesterday you know so let's talk about the importance of giving the right time frame to be able to truly ventilate and Implement yes certainly again it goes back to communication um being able to communicate that effectively to an employee an employee has to be clear on when timelines are you know needed because certain things have to be prioritized as you could appreciate over others and that has to be clearly articulated to an employee um on All Occasions so that we don't have a situation where an employee is left in the dark doesn't know that they were supposed to do this and that you know through effective communication and that happens within the hybrid setup so you know you have the normal brick and water but if you have persons in specifically any professional spaces who um do remote working that is just as critical um in maintain the particular change through effective communication and I think this is all exacerbated sometimes we get so upset and challenged when we are in a workplace and you walk by someone and then the next thing you see a big document in an email so again coming back to communication um how important is it to you know do a conversation and not just kind of push paper yeah um that's very critical um as I said sometimes it gets it gets heavier because there's an emotional side to it you know everybody's emotions are all flared I deal with emotion I'm in the business of emotions and it's all about managing expectations and emotions you know you have to understand why employees do the things they do and you have to get very you know personal to be quite very human understand them they understand you so that we can have some level of buying it wouldn't have 100% Buy in and that's just the reality of it everybody's not going to agree to it but having the Buy in um to certain level that's important well the truth is uh we don't necessarily need that 100% buying from everybody we don't uh depending on the roles that they will play but uh as you mentioned at the center of all of it is communication um and you know I would like for us to leave this conversation and uh you know talking about that actual plan and kind of laying out that road road map from from idea or like an add from idea to uh feedback yeah yeah or to execution to execution and a feedback is equally as important as well because you can do a whole set of changes and then if it doesn't work there has to be a structure in place to be able to revisit it as well correct you have to be able to so from the idea you come you have this idea you want to implement a new service you want to implement a new product within your organizations you have the consultations not just with your internal employee sometimes you have external um stakeholders that touch and concern the business um being able to meet with them back and forth to tease out certain issues that come about and then of course we go straight into the um the implementation if you need assistance from a consultant outside or within your organization you can marry the two and then of course getting the level of bayin and implementing the actual um you know change initiative whether it's a new product a new service um you know new technology and then of course there's the implementation the feedback back and the evaluation so that is important yeah we could talk about this forever because we've not even touched on on the the people who come into organizations and they you know they said this is what I want for this particular department or organization and everybody at the outset who doesn't fit for whatever reason uh their ideal of what it should look like they just want to get rid of them you know and uh you know i' I've I'm dealing with with a situation like that right now that that has been shared with me so hopefully Nicholas will come next time and we'll be able to delve further into some of that yeah so thank you so much for coming in Maya and sharing with us thank you T lots to think about leading and managing change in the workplace and when we talk about managing change it's important for us as employes to think about how we can manage change as well because it really can spill over into to our uh personal lives too uh particularly if you don't feel like you're keeping Pace With The Changes being made and the Breakneck speed that technology is going at you know it can leave us behind in a snap so make sure you stay on top of things morning morning morning good morning good morning to you