Hi there,
A few of my friends told me this past few weeks that they are going through a lot of change, especially around their Health & Safety programs.
So I decided to dedicate this blog post to this topic and share a few observations + scientific findings with you here.
When I was teaching in business school, I used to always say this about change in social settings like any community or an organization: “Don’t do it TO them, it has to be WITH them by THEM” and I think this pretty much sums up the key takeaway that I am trying to say here.
Here are 5 Key Observations about Designing and Developing News OHS Programs
1. The ones who need it the most are those least equipped to receive it
If you sort departments based on who needs more support on their health & wellness, you will see the ones who need it the most are the ones least able to get it.
There is no easy solution here.
A lot of times you just have to acknowledge this and find a way to break things down to the smaller units so that you can start the help from somewhere.
There are some assessment options that help you with putting people into different buckets of high-risk versus low-risk which helps with the triage and the prioritization.
2. Middle managers can make it or break it
Decisions may come out of the board rooms but the ACTUAL change always happens by middle managers.
Middle managers have the highest amount of influence in any change initiative.
They have full control over employees’ perspectives and attitudes.
Senior leaders may send the communications but employees always look at middle managers to make a sense out of it.
There was this research in 2009 comparing successful organizational changes and unsuccessful ones with each other.
One of their key takeaways was the fact that organizational initiatives are more likely to have positive outcomes when middle managers take responsibility for the change and involve their teams.
3. When in doubt, ask employees
It’s impossible to run a successful program inside your organization without using employee participation as your guiding principle.
Some organizations create a “Steering Group” that represents all departments and the employer’s side through HR. They make decisions about ethical boundaries (how to ensure anonymity) and they communicate the decisions and messages back to their departments.
Employee participation helps with:
(1) making sure there is a fit between the solution and the issue;
(2) each program begins with building rapport, trust, listening, empowering, and respect;
(3) makes the change a lot more smooth and you can rely on your steering group to get employees’ buy-in and support when there is a bump on the road.
4. It won’t go that far without senior leadership support
Employees look at any programs that come out of HR as an intrusion into their daily responsibilities. The sooner you accept this fact, the better you become at managing people.
Because of this inherent resentment, it is very critical for HR leaders to have support from their top executive leaders.
5. Target Change Readiness Before Targeting the Change
This might be a bit more technical and beyond the scope of this weekly newsletter but still, I think it is worth mentioning it.
Change comes with a lot of hassle and trouble. Nobody likes change. So, no matter what is the change you are targeting, it is important to convince your employees and all the other stakeholders that change is needed.
Here is how:
(1) most employees should be convinced that the current solutions are not sufficient;
(2) most employees should agree it is the right time to introduce new solutions;
(3) most employees should agree the change has a significant benefit for THEM;
(4) most employees should feel motivated to contribute and play their part.
Some of you may think that this is too ideal and that the REAL world is not like this.
Well, I can’t disagree but the closer we get to this ideal scenario, the easier your life is going to get.
But if we think about WHY this scenario is far from the real world, it is actually on us:
(1) People who run these programs are very familiar with the details but they often forget that the other employees don’t really know and they don’t really even care and it is our job to give them information and convince them to care.
(2) Spending time and resources on the actual change makes sense, but spending time and resources on preparation doesn’t make sense. A lot of executives see preparation as a form of procrastination (which might be true in some cases), but eventually, this assumption holds HR people back from engaging with their employees before introducing the new programs.
I hope these 5 observations can help you implement your programs more successfully. Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions about implementing and designing occupational health and safety programs.
Want to create a work environment that supports Healthy High Performance in your organization? Click here to learn more about our Enterprise Solutions and talk to our team.
