Identifying the best ways to encourage teams to come up with suggestions of performance improvement, recognize the tools and tricks which are best to identify changes and rewarding employees who contribute to performance improvement, could be a time consuming task.
However it is extremely important to create an environment where the changes sustain and performance improvement investments generate returns. For the sake of improvement, changes that are being made should stick and for this reason change management is very important.
Five ways that can make those changes stick are:
- Make the Improvement Real – Work with employees to get a substantial victory – something that is undeniable and will lead the team to be convinced of the program.
- Translate and Communicate the Benefits of the Change – Translate the improvement in a way that is believable to workers on the factory floor. Make sure the information is provided to them in a clear way.
- Celebrate Real Victories – Even the Small Ones – If the success is real, translatable, and well comprehended, it deserves a celebration, irrespective of its size. If the real improvement is encouraged with a genuine celebration, it has the potential to generate additional performance improvements. This also helps to coagulate the changes that have already been made.
- Make Reverting Hurt – Most often than not when individuals regress to an old behavior, it’s because it took less time or effort than something new. One has to be sure of elevating the personal cost to perform tasks the old way by giving away the techniques that were in practice or process that made the old methods easier than the new ones.
- Discipline is Not a Dirty Word – It is of prime importance that management implements work rules that have been clearly explained to the staff.
Change management is extremely vital as the only way to get a return on investment from the projects undertaken with performance improvement is to make them to stick to the changes.
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