Personal View: Change management is the catchphrase for 2022
The pandemic has forced businesses of all sizes to become aficionados of change management to remain viable.
Typically, organizations embrace change management to tackle intentional changes such as a merger, new software platforms, or a product launch. Primary tenets of change management center around understanding change, planning change, implementing change, communicating change, and measuring the results.
When (as the saying goes) the only thing constant is change, how can you plan? In this new pandemic world, human resources professionals are leading the charge in equipping businesses to weather these changes. Especially for small businesses, a human resources partner can help establish guidelines and management practices to best manage disruptions and changes to work routines, sinking morale and productivity, heightened anxiety, remote work, recruiting challenges, and other issues stemming from the pandemic.
The way things are shaping up, the pandemic problems of 2020 and 2021 will continue into 2022. But the good news is, we’ve learned how to adapt. Here’s a rundown on the challenges we’ll continue to meet in 2022, and how business management can team up with human resources to tackle changes — and challenges — head-on.
Workplace culture
A 2021 Gartner survey shows that 75% of executive leaders believe they are already operating within a culture of flexibility, yet only 57% of employees indicate that their organizational culture embraces flexible work.
Culture and flexibility have certainly been put to the test, and the numbers show there’s a gap between perception and reality. A company’s culture is reflected not only in professed workplace values but in the total experience of the employee. Have you opened a dialogue with employees? You can’t establish good guidelines if you don’t know what your employees are concerned about. And be sure to continue to emphasize and clearly communicate safety/COVID protocols so employees feel safe.