Context
Change is a
basic fact of life for call centers.
Whether it is staffing changes, technology and system enhancements, or the
consolidation of centers, it is very likely that your call center is
experiencing some sort of change initiative. In fact, successfully managing
change was identified as the number three
challenge for call centers in preparing for 2006, according to
the "Top Challenges in 2006" tutorial series.
While supervisors may not play a
formal role in developing the change management approach, they are critical
in making organizational changes successful. This tutorial looks at
the three roles supervisors play in managing change.
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Below are the
five change management plans developed in a formal change
management process.
Which change management plans involve supervisors? |
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* Training as a change
management plan focuses on classroom instruction. One-on-one training
is considered individual coaching as addressed below.
Supervisors as
communicators
Isn't the
communication group responsible for communicating with
the organization? Well, the answer is yes and no.
Your organization may have a communication group that
creates much of the format, content and copy that goes
into corporate communications. However, when
employees are hearing about a change that is taking
place, they prefer two senders
of messages (key research finding from
Prosci's 2005 Best Practices in Change Management
benchmarking report).
| Number 1
Sender |
Number 2
Sender |
| They want to hear the
business messages about the change (why)
from executives
and senior leaders |
They want to hear about how
the change impacts them and their group from
their
immediate supervisor |
Supervisors
communicate in a number of different ways and in a
number of different directions:
When
preparing supervisors to be communicators, be sure they
have access to the information they need about the
change and the business. Communication is the most
effective when employees are hearing aligned messages
from both their supervisors and the leaders of the
organization.
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Supervisors as
coaches
Coaching, from the change
management perspective, is the support a supervisor provides to their direct
reports. The importance of coaching is based on the relationship and
trust between an employee and their direct supervisor. No one else in
the organization has the type of influence
that an immediate supervisor can have.
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Two Key Coaching Roles |
| Group coaching
activities |
Individual coaching
activities |
Group coaching activities are used to
provide information about the change, teach employees the ADKAR model
(Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, Reinforcement) and facilitate an
ADKAR exercise. (For more information on ADKAR, click
here.) Depending on the change and your organization, you may
want to use several group coaching activities throughout the project's
lifecycle. Group coaching sessions help build a common vision and
commitment from the group and give employees a chance to share their
concerns in an open environment.
Individual coaching activities are
conducted in a one-on-one setting. Individual coaching is often
iterative, where supervisors use multiple sessions to have conversations to
identify where an employee is struggling with the change and how to help
them overcome barriers to change. This type of coaching includes
one-on-one training with agents.
Supervisors as
resistance managers
When you introduce
organizational change, you are bound to encounter resistance. People
are naturally fearful of the unknown and comfortable with the way things are
today. In the formal change management process, change managers
proactively identify what resistance to the initiative might look like and
where it is likely to come from. Although the change management plan
does include some strategies to prevent or mitigate this resistance,
supervisors will play a key role in identifying and managing resistance when
organizational changes are implemented.
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To be effective
in dealing with resistance, managers and supervisors must know
how to: |
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1.
Identify the root
cause of resistance |
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2.
Engage with employees to
overcome the resistance |
To
identify the root cause of resistance,
use the
ADKAR model. Since ADKAR describes the stages of successful
change, failed change is often attributable to one of the five elements.
Supervisors can use ADKAR in formal group coaching exercises, individual
coaching sessions and in informal conversations with employees to understand
what is causing the resistance.
Second,
overcoming resistance requires the knowledge, tools, and
skills to actively deal with resistance once the root cause is identified.
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First, resistance must be
viewed not only in relation to the actual change initiative, but also
related to the personal context
(what is happening in the person's life that may be
contributing to the resistance)
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The
organizational context
(how past changes and the relationship between the employee
and the organization impact resistance)
Next, managers and supervisors
must have concrete steps they can use to deal with resistance, like those
presented in the Motivating Call Center
Agents Toolkit.
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