Many organizations require and implement changes, but the majority of change initiatives fail because of resistance. Tackling resistance is of the utmost importance, and change leaders must ensure that all stakeholders, including employees, have a desire for change. In addition to organizations requiring change readiness in order to introduce change initiatives, change readiness, including employee readiness, is also correlated with successful change implementation.
What Is Employee Readiness for Change?
Many change management models focus on vision, sponsorship, resources, and communication without taking change readiness and employee readiness into account. According to Project Management Institute (PMI), employee readiness can be defined as “the psychological willingness of affected people to cooperate in bringing the change to fruition.” The key drivers that impact change readiness include cultural readiness, commitment readiness, and capacity readiness. When it comes to people, a lot of readiness is focused on experience, knowledge and ability, and availability.
Change readiness focuses on two main elements – change commitment and change efficacy. Both must be in sync, i.e., stakeholders must not only commit to the change but must also believe in the possibility of change.
Change Commitment
Employees must be willing to partake in change initiatives and implementation and all stakeholders must be willing to work together in order to achieve it. While not all employees may have the same level of motivation or commitment or even the same reasons behind the motivation, this motivation must exist for successful implementation. Thus, change commitment refers to employees’ and other stakeholders’ resolve to take part in the change.
Change Efficacy
Change efficacy refers to whether stakeholders believe that they can effectively implement the change initiative, i.e., whether they are collectively confident in their ability to do so. This depends on a number of factors, including time, demands, resources, etc.
Measuring Employee Readiness for Change
Now that we’ve answered the question, “What is employee readiness for change?” it’s time to discuss how this can be measured. To determine whether or not employees are ready for organizational change, a business can use employee readiness assessments. According to Prosci, two assessments are essential before any change initiative – the assessment of the change and the assessment of the organization.
Part of assessing the organization is considering employee readiness for change. An employee readiness assessment measures how prepared employees are for the change initiative and whether or not they are able to perform at the level expected. It also measures the level of resistance that is expected and why this resistance is present.
Employees are asked about their perception of the organization’s readiness, their personal readiness levels, and their understanding of the change and its impact on themselves. Ultimately, employee readiness assessments allow those in charge to choose the change management framework that’s best suited for the company’s needs and can minimize employee resistance while maximizing the effectiveness of change management strategies.
Promoting Employee Readiness for Change
Whether the change is expected or more abrupt, it’s essential to get employee buy-in for successful implementation. Employee readiness for change ensures that an organization can successfully transition from the old state to the new state with minimal resistance, but it’s not always easy to come. The following are some of the ways organizations can encourage employee readiness.
Clarify Vision
Transparency and open leadership, combined with a clear vision, results in an organization that has a strong change foundation. This way, whether the change is new or expected, there’s an environment that accepts change and facilitates openness and employee readiness.
Ensure Organizational Change Readiness
All organizations must face change eventually. However, while it’s not easy to change when a change is sudden, organizations can take care to have members and systems in place to tackle this head-on. Making an organization ready for transition and ensuring that change readiness is a priority trickles down to employees and ensures that they are ready to accept changes when the time comes.
Facilitate Employee Engagement
Employees undergo a personal transition when they are faced with organizational change. They must deal with emotions and psychological stages such as denial. Part of accepting the change and creating buy-in comes from employee engagement. When leaders use emotional intelligence and keep employees’ experiences in mind, they can ensure transparency, minimize resistance, and reinforce trust. In doing so, they can boost employee engagement, and thus, employee readiness for change.
Leverage Leadership
Leveraging leadership is another way organizations can ensure employee readiness for change. Good leadership, especially change leadership plays a large role in motivating, inspiring, and even challenging employees. Leaders can set an example for employees to follow and thus, ensure employee readiness.
Ensure Communication and Feedback
Communication, especially two-way communication, is an essential part of encouraging employee readiness. By connecting with employees and determining their level of engagement based on open communication, motives and intentions can be cleared up, and relationships can be nurtured. This, in turn, can help organizations be more aware of employee readiness, while simultaneously encouraging it.
Summary and Conclusion
From tackling the question, “What is employee readiness to change?” to discussing measuring this via employee readiness assessments and promoting readiness in the workplace, this article has highlighted the importance of change readiness and its role in successful and sustainable change implementation. Change readiness isn’t just the recognition of the need to change, but the organizations’ and employees’ ability to work together to achieve the change. With companies changing and growing at a faster rate than ever before, it is integral for organizations to prioritize employee readiness for change so they can ensure successful implementation and keep up with their competition.