Get Innovative in Helping Employees to Accommodate Change

By: Chuck Frey

You can find in this article a grasp overview of reasons for change in our organization and how it could be boosted by applying innovative approaches.

Business context is morphing so rapidly today that it is outstripping employees’ ability to accommodate change in their behaviors and work processes. So what is a company to do? Slow down to match the change tolerance of its people? Clearly, that’s not practical.

When you develop your change management initiatives, why not incorporate appealing elements like mobile technologies and “enterprise gamification” to encourage employees to support the desired changes?

Gamification is defined as using game technology in a website, service, community or application to drive participation. Games used to achieve a business result, such as corporate learning or customer education, are growing in popularity in companies large and small – because they work. Games may be used to educate employees about your business processes, to help them learn effective thinking and information processing strategies, or to improve their problem-solving capabilities.

Mobile technologies: In many companies, IT departments view mobile technologies as a security risk, and strongly discourage employees from using them. This view is outstated; any business change initiative should take advantage of the wide portfolio of mobile hardware and productivity apps to boost corporate productivity at all levels. Like any innovation initiative, a few small pilot programs could be devised to test whether or not these mobile solutions will deliver the needed results.

One strategy is to deeply embrace the “Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)” movement and officially allow employees to get their jobs done by using their own devices and even their own apps – within clearly proscribed limits, of course. This trend is happening anyway; studies show that the majority of employees are using their mobile devices to check e-mail, Facebook and other social channels at work. Why not officially sanction their use to capture and share creative ideas, enable employees to participate in internal social networks or manage their task lists using their beloved mobile devices?

Chances are, your enterprising employees will reveal applications that you may have never considered that can be a boon to productivity and efficiency. With proper policies in place, these mobile tools can be used to help drive innovation, while also preventing expensive security breaches.

Bringing the two trends together

Why not combine these two trends – gamification and the rise of mobile devices – to help employees to manage change? With their beloved mobile devices in hand, employees could participate almost any time, anywhere.

For example, a good starting place could be a sales team challenge, in which a games is used to encourage salespeople to keep the firm’s CRM database up-to-date.

When developing change management initiatives, you need to think broadly and creatively to motivate your employees. Consider the case of this Brazilian agency where employees get free beer on Friday evening if all them submit their timesheets on time. Doesn’t that sound rewarding?

One thing is abundantly clear: Workers of all ages are no longer motivated by simple “change is good” presentations from senior management. You need to be innovative in the ways in which you approach change management to engage employees today, as these examples clearly show.

By Chuck Frey