Eighty percent of all large-scale incidents are traced back to failures in the execution of Management of Change processes, according to Chemical Engineering Transactions data.
As businesses become more and more complex, things are constantly changing in the workplace. Managing said change can be tricky—especially when it comes to the Operational Risk of the organization.
The Washington State Department of Labor and Industries defines Management of Change as “a best practice used to ensure that safety, health and environmental risks are controlled when a company makes changes in their facilities, documentation, personnel or operations.” The extent to which organizations execute Management of Change processes holistically directly relates to their ability to achieve reliability in operations by reducing risk and uncertainty.
A core component of effective Management of Change is communication across the organization throughout the entire process, and the complexity of the change on the organization will affect how the changes should be communicated, executed and implemented across business units and locations and by various stakeholders.
Research shows that organizations that achieve the best results from the challenges posed by Management of Change do these things well, including:
- Ensuring that stakeholders of all departments, business lines or locations are involved in all phases of managing the change.
- Understanding that an even bigger challenge is including all affected employees.
- Identifying what additional regulatory changes could be involved in the change.
- Having a streamlined mechanism for identifying and tracking all components of the change across all entities.
- Deploying an engagement strategy across the workforce so that all affected employees understand the reason for the changes, how their role will be affected what the desired outcomes are, and how their actions affect the rest of the organization.
Effective Management of Change is a business imperative and a strategic driver of Operational Excellence because it mitigates risk, ensures safe processes and reliable operations, is inclusive and communicated effectively, provides financial visibility and protects the organization’s reputation in its surrounding communities and the marketplace.
Sphera recently released an e-book titled, “Management of Change for Complex Organizations.” Download this report to learn about the nine essential components necessary for successfully managing change.