Jo Brobbel, Shell
Raising spirits with outsourcing plans
Dorlis Ouellette, Philips
Tolerance, trust and respect
Edgar Craubner, MAN
Integrated from day one
Lennart Ohlin, The Linde Group
A big step after 23 years
“ If employees’ views are neglected, projects are likely to fail.”
This was the verdict of a study conducted by consultants Towers Watson in April that looked at HR as a critical factor in mergers and acquisitions and outsourcing projects involving the transfer of large numbers of staff. According to the research, 42 percent of companies that had defined HR activities, in articular communication, employee involvement and integration of corporate cultures, as a top priority reported success.
In less successful projects, the figure was 15 percent. In short, as the authors of the study point out, “in successful deals, HR activities are three times more likely to contribute toward helping decision makers reach their strategic goals.”
Best Practice visited T-Systems professionals in the USA, the Netherlands, Sweden and Germany and asked former Philips, Shell, Linde and MAN employees about their transition to the Deutsche Telekom subsidiary.
* Management consultants Tower Watson, an organization with 14,000 employees worldwide, studied 404 projects with a high number of staff transfers. 38 percent of the deals they looked at from the last three years were worth between 500 million and 5 billion US dollars.
 | A question of acceptance The success of ICT projects depends ultimately on staff satisfaction and their willingness to actively support changes. User Communications improves employee buy-in by meeting their specific information needs. Making changes to business processes often requires more resources and time than envisioned. Rarely is this a question of project management procedure or technology; it is much more frequently down to a lack of communication among stakeholders, in particular with the employees who are affected by the change. T-Systems provides a User Communications service (UserCom) to ensure that IT projects run smoothly, and to increase acceptance amongst participants. UserCom is based on studies and methodologies such as the acceptance matrix developed by Mohr and Wöhe*, which asserts that, at the beginning of a process of change, 95 percent of people can be classified as potential ‘opponents’. A natural initial resistance and fear of the unknown results in an unwillingness to accept change. Symptoms can include unease, delaying tactics and even out-andout sabotage, and consequently, unpredictable additional effort and expense. UserCom addresses these issues by incorporating people into the change process. The starting point is a tailor-made communication plan that is coordinated with the customer. A key element is the recruitment of senior executives as project ambassadors, and other senior decision makers as opinion leaders. Specific measures are then deployed to gain the buy-in of individual employees: UserCom includes, for example, brochures, leaflets and presentations on the aims and benefits of changes. The distribution of a single-page overview detailing the key changes to all desks on the morning of the switchover has proven to be very effective. This provides users with guidance and reassurance from the outset. The deployment of online platforms with information to read or download is helpful in making clear the ways that the business benefits from the changes, providing advice for typical concerns: How do I log onto the new network? Who do I contact if I have problems? Do all lists get transferred to me automatically like before? Answers to these and other questions are available in the FAQ or in Webchats with project team members. UserCom works because it provides information and support tailored to a variety of target groups, promotes step-bystep learning, and involves employees by encouraging them to give feedback and engage in dialogue. This promises a significantly smoother transition when implementing new ICT solutions. Key benefit: The intergration of new ICT solutions does not meet with resistance, and can be performed smoothly and cost-effectively. * Mohr, Niko, Woehe, Jens Marcus (1998): Communication and organizational change. An approach for effective communications management during change. | |
