Don't redecorate your way out of a needed change in behavior!

Don't let your ambitions for change stop at becoming a relocation project

?It is not at all uncommon for many of the assignments I and my colleagues work on starting with management seeing an opportunity to save money by reducing office space. It is a perfectly reasonable and rational reaction to the fact that more and more people want the opportunity and may have the opportunity to perform their work in places other than the office as well as in the office.?

In the vivid picture of goals or objectives our customers also often set, there is often also an ambition to see opportunities in the "next normal". It can be:

·???????Create an attractive workplace you want to visit

·???????Attract talent

·???????Improve internal collaboration skills

·???????Increase creativity

·???????Increase engagement

·???????Improve productivity

·???????Increase well-being

·???????and others

During the "journey" that started with the fact that it was a project initiated and run from a local or real estate perspective, it turns out that there are tremendous interests and benefits in changing the way we do things in the business.

Suppose that we let the project be handled only as a pure relocation project and we solve the logistics and interior design in a brilliant way. What happens then? We will find it a bit inspiring for a period. We may save a few dollars and for the moment we have a shiny modern place to show off to our friends. ?

But what happens to collaboration, creativity, commitment, well-being, and productivity? Probably not so much unless we also choose to spend energy and time on actual efforts to DO something different. This would also be the part we call CHANGE. ?

What are we going to do then, you might think? There are probably many ways and paths and the first is probably to devote yourself a little to navel gazing.

When was the last time we managed a change within the company? What did we do and what were the success factors? What engages our employees? What is important for them? If you are a leader - what do you need?

Spend time ensuring that management shares the ambitions with the project and clearly define what success is so that everyone can connect with that image. Define what problem you are solving and why you must solve it. I dare say that it is unnecessary to try to move forward without this last point being assured.

The next part is to involve and engage the organization. Think that the state you want to achieve is that employees express a longing to start working in the new. There are no longer any other obstacles than that the doors should be opened to the physical environment and all that then stands in the way is our own behaviors.

To cope with this condition, what we call Change Management is required, which has been roughly described above but which needs to be adapted uniquely for each project and for each organization's conditions in order to be as successful as possible.

But if you just want a short little bulleted list of what is important to consider, you can think about the below.

Be sure to create:

·???????Awareness or Consciousness of the change. The English expression "sense of urgency" can be good to have with you.

·???????Willingness or motivation to implement the change

·???????Knowledge for change

·???????Ability implement change

·???????Reinforce or remind of the desired behavior

This and much more can be said about how best to succeed or what you need to think about in order not to fail with the change work but let your ambition at least have the chance to lead to change so you have not just bought a beautiful new interior. It soon becomes old and worn and another redecoration project is likely to be initiated.

To sum it up. Acknowledge that change will require lots of engagement with your employees and you are likely to be more successful if you use a solid process with methods and tools to guide in reaching your target.

#nextnormal #gotowork #changemanagement #sustainableworkplace "hybridwork"