How to become a great HR leader.
How to organize change in HRM through leadership.
Great leaders can identify when change is needed and implement the organizational transformation. They are also able to define when change is a risk or what should be allowed to remain the same, or simply improved upon. This is especially true in human resources. While HR often functions as a “behind the scenes” department in many businesses, implementing change in that area often has far-reaching work culture consequences that affect other areas of the business. Therefore, leading successful HRM changes is important. Here are some things to think about when considering organization transformation and strategic change.
Consider Your Reasons
Instituting a massive organizational change not only takes a long time to fully implement, it should take a good amount of time to arrive at the decision to begin with. Sometimes it’s obvious, especially for leaders who are hired to take over for someone else, that a change is needed to continue growth or increase the health of a business. But most leaders still need an understanding of who will be affected by a change, who will need to buy in for it to be successful, and what a measure of a successful change would look like.
It’s important to understand the reach of organizational change and not begin change processes to imitate another company or push for solutions that might have worked for one business but aren’t a good fit at another company. Wise leadership knows that their reasons for change are worth the work and effort and not simply to copy a trendy organization.
Learn (and Lead) From Example
In deciding on and implementing change, business leadership can look to other successful organizations – not to copy, but to learn from and be inspired by. It’s always interesting to look at organizational transformation examples from other companies and ask “Would that work for my business?”
One example of a company that publicly led organizational change is Starbucks. At one point, corporate leadership called for them to close all their retail locations to retrain staff on quality control and customer service. This was the first step in driving organization-wide change that would lead to better products and more loyal customers, but it came with a risk, as closing thousands of stores meant loss of revenue and potentially unhappy customers.
Looking at how all kinds of companies created change – whether it was adopting new policies in HR to pushing for process that would create better products – is beneficial to better understanding what areas may benefit from change in your organization, as well as questions to ask as you go about organizing changes.
Have the Right Strategy
Again, one business can’t simply decide on a change goal and use another organization’s strategy or methods to get there. The organizational transformation strategies your company uses will likely be inspired by other strategies that have been used in other industries, but will also have unique attributes based on everything from number of employees to the specific goals the change is intended to help create. Deciding on a strategy that encompasses everything from goal-setting to measuring effectiveness is one of the best ways to create lasting, successful change and ensure your change project doesn’t fail.
