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Change, Change Management, guest blogger, Project Management

Why Private Equity needs good change management support?

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Undoubtedly strategic change management has a major role in corporate transactions and restructurings. Many deals are either unsuccessful or do not deliver the full value expected when people and organisational change impacts are ignored or poorly planned for. This directly results in loss of revenue and delays in realising the value of the deal or restructuring initiative.

There is a big focus on ‘cultural fit’ and all things related and nowadays Private Equity firms are investing considerable time and resources to better understand a target company’s organisational dynamics before concluding any deal. This could be a major factor in realising value from the deal down the line. An organisation’s culture could either make it or break it over the long term. Thus it becomes vital for senior leadership to define the culture required for success, or in the case of M&A’s, creating a vision for the future that will aim to bring the best of both organisational cultures together to deliver maximum value for all stakeholders.
Collective behavioural patterns determine how work gets done in an organisation and that in turn relates directly to performance, motivation and the ability to cope with internal and external change. Ignoring these important factors is a major strategic risk for PE firms and can ultimately affect the realisation of value from any deal. Ignoring or poorly managing organisational change can easily result in:

  • Poor employee engagement, motivation and ultimately performance;
  • Serious resistance to change and low levels of morale across the organisation;
  • Ambiguity around the organisation’s value system and beliefs, which lead to disillusionment amongst stakeholders;
  • ‘Jumping ship’ and loss of key talent and senior leadership;
  • Poor business transformation and change planning resulting in the slow execution of the transaction or restructuring initiative.

Vital to countering these strategic risks is the effective visioning, planning and execution of business change. The process requires effective management of corporate messaging, people and cultural / behavioural change. It is most critical for the workforce to be aligned to the strategic objectives of the organisation and customer needs. Organisations that focus time and resources on doing this effectively have ultimately had higher levels of transaction success in the past.

In conclusion, the key areas that require the most attention during the transaction lifecycle (from a business change perspective), are:

  • Identifying the behaviour sets that will lead to a successful integration or restructuring exercise;
  • Determining the strategic drivers that will help to reinforce these behaviours in the future and implementing them successfully during the transition phase;
  • Understanding the organisational cultural differences and similarities and working with key parties to ensure these factors do not hinder the transaction process. Understanding this clearly will enable the creation of a shared / common vision for success;
  • Ensuring the change management strategy is being tracked and resulting issues being dealt with promptly via a well-defined change agent network.

Having structured change management plans in place will provide the levels of confidence in dealing with organisational change successfully and lead to a more successful transaction for investors in the medium to long term. It will provide the basis for realising deal value more quickly!

Vellendra Sannasy is an Organisational Change Professional with extensive experience in leading strategic and operational business change. Vellendra has worked with global organisations in the UK, US, Asia and South Africa, with a great appreciation for cultural diversity and different ways of working. He is also the Founder of StratChange Consulting, which is a niche consultancy, providing strategic and operational guidance to C Suite Executives and Senior Management teams undergoing complex organisational change.

guest blogger, Happy work environment, IT Project Management

5 Ways That A Wellness Program Can Save An IT Business Money

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In the Information Technology (IT) business, maintaining project profitability often requires keeping personnel costs at a minimal level. However, rising health insurance premiums coupled with new health care reform legislation is putting an additional burden on IT companies. For employees who spend eight-plus hours a day working on intense projects at their computer stations, the need for routine wellness care is vital to their productivity and quality of work. Not having access to affordable health care support means illness, injury, and lost work time for your most valuable investment: your people. Therefore, it’s up to each IT company to ensure the health and well-being of all employees.

A corporate sponsored wellness program can be a solution to reducing the costs of health care in the workplace. Here are five ways a wellness program can save your IT business money this year.

  1. Reminds employees of risky lifestyle behaviors. The IT world can be a very high pressure work environment, leading employees to engage in risky health behaviors such as smoking, drinking, and overeating. The long work hours can also be damaging to physical and mental well-being, due to being stuck at a desk a lot and not getting enough exercise. Having a wellness program on site allows employees alternative ways to deal with stress and help reduce risky behaviors, which over the long run improves employee performance.
  2. Provides access to self-managed wellness care. The best wellness program can empower your employees to take better control of their health and well-being. Providing onsite wellness benefits, such as a corporate gym, massage therapy, an employee assistance program, flu shots, and more can help employees see you are vested in their success. Web-based wellness programs, which cost pennies as compared to doctor visits, provide even more value by reminding employees to take care of their health and reach important wellness goals.
  3. Reduces health care insurance premiums and sick time. A study conducted by Harvard University in 2010 advised that when employees have access to corporate wellness support, this reduces the cost of health care insurance premiums and sick time. For each dollar spent on an employee wellness program, health premiums drop by $3.27 and an additional $2.73 is saved in absentee days. That can be significant for an IT department that deals with frequent illness or absenteeism.
  4. Prevents catastrophic losses due to illness and injury. Imagine an IT workforce that’s healthy, mentally and physically strong? When IT employees are given the opportunity and encouragement to take advantage of a corporate wellness program, they are less likely to experience preventable ailments common in IT (neck pain, stress headaches, back injuries, repetitive motion injuries) that cause them to miss work or file workers’ compensation claims.
  5. Increases workplace productivity and project management. To boost your IT employee performance levels, add a wellness programs like fitness programs from Aligned Modern Health. This can give employees a healthier outlet to reduce stress, eat healthier, and get up out of their chairs for some exercise. These activities have been shown over and over again to improve physical and mental well-being, meaning you benefit by having more productive and high performance employees on board.

While workplace wellness programs can be a cost effective way to make your IT workplace better, there are some ways to experience even more benefits. Roll it out with full management support, be consistent, and keep employees informed about new resources they can use to stay healthy at work.

Tess C. Taylor, PHR is a certified Web Content Manager, Human Resources Professional, and Career Coach with nearly two-decades of writing experience. Tess also founded the popular blogazine, The HR Writer. As a regular contributor to multiple HR and Business publications, including Benefitfocus, Dale Carnegie Institute, HR Magazine, PayScale, and US News Careers, Tess is dedicated to educating others about important human resources and marketing topics worldwide.

guest blogger, Project Management, Project Management Careers Advice

The Project Management Survival Guide

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Project management is a fast paced highly involving world of deadlines, information and teams. So how can you survive it all and come out with your and your colleagues sanity intact? Well Here is my survival guide.

Words to Live By

Each Project Management Leader should have the mantra of “Don’t Panic”, friendly text optional. Panic at any level will spread and cause mistakes, so if you feel it coming on, take a breath, count to five and trace the problem to its source, clearing up any other issues that may have sprung up around it in the process.

High Definition

Know what your project is about, have clear goals and make sure the investors and yourself know why the project has been requested, what will be produced during it and what the successfully completed project will have and when it will be.

Negotiation

No one likes to feel forced in to something so learn the art of negotiation, it is much easier to have a team member or employee do whatever task has been set willingly rather than have them fight you or become unhappy which will bring a very obvious note of discord that could disrupt the rest of your team.

Just Communication

Communication is vital to your survival, Don’t just talk at people, remember to interact with them! Listen and give appropriate well thought out responses when questioned as this will encourage others to do the same for you. It is also a good idea to document all communication and correspondence that goes on throughout your project as this will leave everyone on the same page and with a thorough understanding of each aspect of the job. This will be irreplaceable if something happens to a team member as their stand in or replacement will be able to review past notes and comments and pick up where they left off.

Building Bridges

Get your team working as one, even if this means going back to basics with team building exercises that is okay, one day spent on this could mean a much happier work environment with no miscommunication or unfounded resentments. Treat your team equally and help out with suggestions, mentoring or offering an ear for some counselling if needed.

Decisions, Decisions

Make sure there is a process for decisions when they need to be made, this way no one person has the “fate” of the project hanging on them, though is need be you can step in to make an executive decision – just remember that each team should be taught to see both sides of their point and you need to be able to do that too.

A Plan For Everything

You may not like hearing this but it has to be said; Plan for everything, even failure. Look at your project critically, what happens if everything goes wrong? Set aside some time to investigate this and work out some fail safes with your team, this way you’ll be prepared for every eventuality and you’re much more likely to succeed.

Vari thinks that survival guides are needed for most things from zombie apocalypses to engineering project management.

Project Management Communications, Project Management War Stories, project teams

When relationships fail – project management woes

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Interesting topic, as relationships are the basis of life – whether it is partners, children, pets, colleagues, or suppliers to name a few. So how do we keep a relationship healthy and happy? A starting point has to be managing expectations, you commit to a certain level of engagement and this must be clear from the outset. Most of the time, with personal relationships this tends to be easier as you agree to call or do something and as long as you keep on top of your commitments then you have a healthy relationship. In work it can be difficult to juggle relationships especially when you are very busy and are constantly asking for parties to do something for you (usually because it is in the plan). So when things occasionally go sour or you inherit a bad relationship with a client or supplier, what should you do?

Come back

  • What went wrong – talk to all involved to get a greater understanding of when the relationship started to struggle.
  • Discuss feelings – all sounds very touchy feely I know but just listening to others and letting them vent their frustrations can relieve tension greatly.
  • Listen to all points of view – don’t just listen to those who shout loudest, take time to speak with those who seem to be happy (it is often these who are just “getting on with it” grumbling under their breath).
  • How can we put things right? Having taken in all views and opinions it is time to sit down and work out a strategy to improve the working environment moving forward. Take an inclusive approach, call a meeting with all involved and talk through your ideas and reassure everyone that you are acutely aware that things need to change and will.

I remember back when I first started managing my own projects, my programme director told me to refer to the plan with workstream leads who were not prioritising my projects. I did as I was told for a while but found that this corporate threat was damaging my relationships, I decided to take a different approach, bearing in mind I was working within a matrix environment so often had to go to their managers with the threats. I decided to spend some time with each workstream lead, visiting them in their work environments, having a coffee and chat about their workloads. I found that explaining the benefits to them completing their commitments to my projects and sympathising with their woes really started to build relationships to the point that they were very honest about statuses and pressures from others within the business. From this I met with other managers to discuss how we could all get what we needed. It wasn’t completely fool proof but certainly made for a more productive and happier work environment. Just remember that yes there is a plan but just because it is there doesn’t mean it will be followed without some intervention and management of expectations.