30% of workers experienced SIGNIFICANT job changes in the past 12 months. — PwC, Global Workforce Hopes and Fears Survey 2024.
Couple this with myriad challenges associated with people’s non-work environments, and that’s a lot for anyone to shoulder.
I’ve coached a number of these folks whose managers and employers have accommodated their needs during job change in wonderful ways and, conversely, whose managers and employers have essentially left them to fend for themselves.
Here are a few suggested best practices to help achieve the former:
- Ensure that the employees understand WHY the change is necessary. Not all will likely agree with the rationale, but they at least need to understand it.
- Sustaining the change takes support and reinforcement. Employers shouldn’t assume that because they communicated the change, employees are bought in and moving forward.
- Ensure role clarity for those whose jobs are changing as well as for their colleagues. Role confusion is frustrating, counterproductive, and demotivating for employees, and generally quite costly to the business.
- Don’t forget that transitioning to a new role typically involves the employee transitioning OUT OF their previous role (or at least some/many of those responsibilities). Too often, the business is so focused on looking forward that it neglects the work that was being done previously.
- Ensure that revisions to compensation, job titles, org charts, etc. coincide with the actual change in employees’ job responsibilities. I’m continually amazed at the amount of “clean up” that occurs after an employee’s job change is presumably “official.”
- Provide intentional follow-up and support for the affected employees. They are naturally going to have questions, concerns, and fears, and waiting for the employee to bring these forward does not demonstrate empathy or foster a sense of care and belonging.
- The manager and employee should agree on what the first 90 days should look like, e.g., goals and objectives, resource requirements, training and education, culture/teaming, administrative aspects, establishing new working relationships, reviewing progress, etc.I realize that some of these may seem basic (“no-brainers”) but many companies and managers don’t handle change effectively at all… for a number of reasons which we won’t address here.
Handling these types of aspects related to employee job changes can help make the situation tolerable, effective, even successful. Or, ignore them at your peril!