Why You Should Measure the Results of Your Workplace Change

As the old saying goes, “change is hard.” However, tracking the effectiveness of your change initiative is a great way to demonstrate to stakeholders that the effort was worth it. The results also provide the insights you and your leadership team will need to provide continual improvement to ensure employees remain satisfied, engaged, and supportive of your change effort. Today, TC Workplace lead, Nick Srebrow, talks about The Clearing’s POV on workplace change management and his favorite ways to track the success of your change initiative.

The Importance of Change Management in the Workplace

Before we dig into measuring workplace change success, it’s important to talk about the challenges of implementing change itself, the common pitfalls our experts see in the field, and what workplace change management is in practice.

When solving complex problems, many organizations overemphasize the technical aspects of the effort and neglect the social or cultural issues inherent in change initiatives. At The Clearing, we recognize the importance of addressing logistical, technical, and social complexities together and delivering support that resonates with the unique elements of your organization’s culture. We achieve this by employing proven change management strategies to communicate a clear narrative about what is changing and why, as humans are naturally resistant to change.

Change management in the context of the workplace focuses on reducing resistance, mitigating risk, and generating genuine enthusiasm with employee-focused and responsive solutions. As a workplace reaches the end of its transformation, staff start to adapt to their new environment and adopt new ways of working. This allows for leadership to begin measuring how successful the effort was in service of understanding staff reactions, providing lessons learned for future change efforts, and showing where adjustments can be made.

Measuring Workplace Change Success

The Clearing uses a variety of methods to gauge the success of the change throughout the entire project. Our goal is to be as objective as possible without searching for specific positive or negative reactions. We work with client leadership teams to select the success metrics they are looking to track and choose the methods of metric gathering that work best with their workforce. Using a workplace move as an example, topics often covered during our feedback gathering include: the move process; communication and engagement; new ways of working; shared spaces; and tools & technology.

We use the following feedback methods and typically recommend an appropriate mix of these tactics to our clients to use after change implementation. Below is a list of our favorites, including tips on using them in your organization.

• Send out a survey to staff who were involved in the move to understand their experience before, during, and after the transformation
• Include quantitative questions to gather an overall understanding backed by data and qualitative questions to allow for a greater understanding of responses
• Surveys can be hosted on the client’s preferred tool (e.g., SurveyMonkey, Microsoft Forms)
• If available, compare the results of the survey against data collected prior to the transformation to see how opinions changed over time

• Meet with small groups of staff and other stakeholders identified by client leadership to explore reactions to the transformation
• The more intimate nature of the focus groups allows for more space to build on employee responses and gain greater insight

• Leadership within the organization can provide feedback they hear from their direct reports, ensuring responses across all teams

• Allows for staff to provide just-in-time feedback without needing the formality of a full survey
• This gives staff flexibility with when they respond and offers the client a chance to rectify issues as they arise

• Quick questions to measure satisfaction on an internal website or during an engagement event offer a greater chance of participation with a group that is already engaged in the transformation process

• Use video conferencing platforms’ attendance features or in-person sign-ins to track the number of participants at engagement events hosted by move-related stakeholders. Additional data can include how long attendees stay and which events attract the most people
• Keep track of the number of staff who volunteer to give feedback in surveys, focus groups, comment boxes, and more to understand what percentage of the organization is willing to provide their opinion
• Use digital tools to understand how often staff interact with communications about the transformation
• Use an email formatting/delivery platform (e.g., Constant Contact) to display how often emails are opened or links within emails are clicked on
• Internal websites (e.g., SharePoint) can provide a variety of data points on the communications posted to their sites, including how many clicks a link gets and when they get the most clicks

• Using existing data and processes from Human Resources, track the number of employees who leave the organization pre- and post-transformation, especially if any cite the workplace or the change as a reason for leaving in any exit interviews

If you’re considering a major workplace change and need a thought partner, I would welcome a conversation. And if you’re in the midst of a change effort already, I am available to help you set up a reporting program to measure the results. Reach out anytime at nick.srebrow@theclearing.com.