Rebecca Sinclair is Chief People and Corporate Affairs Officer at American Tire Distributors.
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Have you ever tried to implement a big change in your organization but didn’t know where to start? If so, consider what your biggest obstacles were, like scalability, sustainability, time, buy-in or engaging and communicating with your workforce.
All of those things are part of change management. But what if I told you there are ways to minimize those obstacles? I call it being a catalyst for change and using our ability to scale to make sustainable, impactful changes.
Strong change-making goes beyond a leader’s ability to make an initial impact. It’s an iterative process that centers on their ability to generate and maintain momentum among their employees. If done well, people will know how to navigate the change by the time it’s fully implemented.
A New Approach To Change-Making
When I first joined American Tire Distributors, someone told me, “You have to know tires to sell tires.” I certainly didn't know tires, but as the new chief people and corporate affairs officer, I had a vision for this company and a unique way to approach change. And it required a bit of disruption.
HR is not just here to solve team member problems; we are here to solve business problems. When we start with business problems, we enable the people that allow us to engineer from there. You have to identify the problem before you can solve it, and then you must use a different lens to look at what you could do.
In my early days with ATD, I noticed there was an opportunity for everyone to learn. So I decided to start by providing bite-sized learning. Using AI-based technology, I was able to communicate with the entire team and upskill and reskill employees by peppering in new skills and ways of thinking. By committing to change, we were able to help reskill a sales force of more than 200 people.
How To Become A Change Catalyst
Making organizational changes is less about getting something done and more about implementing an end-to-end process. Most people view change as black and white, only incorporating change management to inform and train employees. But implementing systemic-level change requires an omnichannel approach.
Organizational leaders, particularly in HR, are well positioned to view change management as a reengineering process. They stay involved from the very first conversations on strategy and know the importance of following through with employees after a project’s completion. This requires leveraging modern digital tools and communications frameworks to effectively prepare your people.
As you begin to rethink your change management process, I recommend using a three-phase approach.
1. Secure buy-in from senior leaders.
We always hear that there has to be buy-in from leadership to make substantive changes in a business. As I navigate strategic change-making, I’ve discovered that you'll naturally secure buy-in when you can communicate the power and the impact the proposed changes can make at an enterprise level. To move beyond a supporting role and into true thought partnership, you'll have to think bigger about your ability to solve problems and ensure leadership can see your vision.
2. Consider your organizational structure, talent and tools.
As HR professionals, we have to know how our tools, strategies and learning methodologies enable our businesses to sustainably scale a big change. We must also know how those tools empower employees to adopt and thrive within the evolving, agile people technologies that exist today.
Without the proper tools, we get stuck trying to figure out where things went wrong. The old-school approach to learning and development—the employee takes a class, and HR observes the behavior—isn't the best way to solutionize. With a modern digital toolset, you can actively measure, build and sustain business functions. These tools are made to show the degree of expertise your people are working with, giving you a data-driven pathway to improving your processes.
3. Use technology to communicate with each employee and track progress.
Ensuring you have efficient, accessible technology requires a lot of time and research. For ATD, I conducted a wide search before I found a tool with the right combination of learning technology and communication capability that met our needs. It gives leadership the ability to assign study items, track team members’ upskilling progress and communicate with anyone at any level of the organization.
When HR departments use tools to their fullest potential, we can help every individual in an organization adapt and thrive in changing environments. The right learning technology can also help you evaluate whether potential changes are sustainable and scalable.
The most critical throughline in your process is data and insights that enable you to pinpoint where something’s not working and be able to adjust in real time. This incisive, proactive use of data will bridge the gap between HR as a support function and HR as a thought partner.
Moving Beyond The Support Function
In the modern economy of business, HR cannot serve as simply a support function. That won’t materially impact the continual transformation of any business. Our greatest value is in the people-enablement function of the future.
As catalysts for change and curators of culture, we’re thinking through the psychology of our people and their needs at a macro and micro level. When HR leaders are effectively included as collaborators and keyed into the business’s problems, we're able to follow through and incorporate change into the very DNA of an organization.
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