Change is a part of every day life and the better able your organisation is, to deal with change, the more resilient and ambitious your business can afford to be. Gone are the days when we can all go to the same office and sit at the same desk to perform exactly the same task that has kept us employed for the last 20 years or more. The world is moving faster, technology is making things quicker, or smarter. We can work from any location in the world where we have a good internet connection, still meeting and chatting with our colleagues face to face, throughout the day. (This is a good thing right?)
Likewise consumers are moving with the times too, demanding that we are more ethical, environmentally friendly, that they are treated fairly and respected for their vulnerabilities. If they are not, I assure you they will walk! So, it makes sense that business models are agile and open to growth to support demands i.e. operational or consumer. That’s why regular business strategising, planning and reporting is essential. Keep planning for change and make sure the business you run is excited and ready for the next round of changes!
In our last topic, we talked about Business Planning, so now that business objectives are plotted out against your chosen timeline (3- 5 years is perfectly workable) you will likely be discussing the types of activities and tasks each objective will demand from your organisation. This is the point where you might want to engage your Functional Directors and their Team Leaders or Managers to find a ‘best fit’ for each of those tasks. Aligning all of your chosen activities to the correct functions will start to uncover the types of resource needed to perform tasks through to fruition too.
Processes: When a department is in the position of receiving a fresh work stream from its Executives/Board; Managers would be well advised to review all of the things that they already do every day (find the detail of this in your Staffs’ How To Guides or Processes). See where they can slot the new work in amongst the things that people already do, or where new ‘How To Guides/Processes’ need to be written to support people. Sometimes you might completely stop a selection of the things that your staff are doing and replace them with new tasks instead. In this case you would bin some old ‘How To Guides/Processes’ and replace them, or amend them to fit with the new work in. Ensuring that the everyday things that people do are documented in this way, gives Management the opportunity to ‘plug’ any uncertain gaps with the right controls. That will protect the business too. This is all well and good if your new processes require the same skill sets, but if not a chat with your HR department will help you to decide what to do about that.
Roles, and Responsibilities: Your HR department will help you to assess current roles and responsibilities, offering advise on staff development plans, or a recruitment drive, or even re-deployment for some employees. Quite often you will find that your staff have all the right capabilities to perform the new tasks allotted to your department already, but that they are not available at the right time. If this happens you could send a request to change the delivery time, stating your business case clearly. The Leadership Team/Board should expect to get quite a few requests to alter time lines during their consultation period, when initiating a new business plan. This is all part of the process. Often dates will need to be juggled around to make the most of the staff resources available. However, if your proposed delivery dates are rejected, it may be time to consider interim resource to get the work started or even completed (if it’s a one off job that is).
Policies: Finally, your company’s policies are there to support everybody, in decision-making. To help you follow the same ethics, values, rules and behaviours that your organisation has always subscribed to (They represent your company’s personality). They will help support your business case, when you want to write it, show you who to go to for the tools and guidance needed in changing circumstances and ensure that everyone is treated consistently and fairly.