Reducing Change Fatigue in the Workplace With Laurence Spring

1/20/21

Laurence Spring

Thousands of businesses have had to adapt to the changes that COVID-19 has imposed. From implementing new safety protocols to building digital strategies, these shifts have not been easy. Unfortunately, these types of changes can leave staff feeling uninspired, unmotivated, and overwhelmed. Based out of Schenectady NY, the Founder and CEO of Valorem Change Consultants, Laurence Spring believes that a roadmap is the most efficient and effective way to implement extensive changes across your organization and reduce workplace fatigue. With decades of experience in leadership and management roles, Laurence Spring is here to share his best advice on how to reduce transition fatigue and instill the spirit of excitement in your staff.

Laurence Spring understands the risks of a poorly planned transition or change: low employee engagement, reduced productivity, mistakes, and general burnout. Change can have a ripple affect across an organization, which can trickle down and create a toxic work environment. However, with proper management, a thoughtful plan, and a little bit of encouragement, he claims that change can actually empower your workers. Creating clear goals, involving your team in the process, building realistic timelines, and listening attentively can keep morale high, and he is here to outline why.

Begin With the End in Mind

Creating any organizational changes, whether it is a project, task, or launch, should have a definitive goal or target to help keep teams motivated. What are you moving towards? What is the intended outcome? If you cannot clearly answer these questions for employees, you are likely to run into problems. Laurence or 'Larry' Spring explains that when you decide to make structural changes to your organization, it is vital that you outline exactly what it is you are doing and why. Justifying the frustration of a transition to your team can be more easily managed when you have a definitive goal in mind. He states that not only will this create a roadmap for long-term implementation, but it can have a lasting effect on morale.

Expand Your Team’s Level of Involvement

Before you implement any major changes, encourage your team to become engaged in the process of development. Laurence Spring explains that this approach leaves people feeling empowered, allowing them to feel like the change is happening with them and not to them. You can do this through active collaboration sessions. Depending on the size of your organization, it might make sense for each department to brainstorm individually. Every department will function differently, and trusting that they know how to most effectively implement change in their department will lower transition fatigue. Allowing everyone to share their pain points and opinions during the planning stage can help them feel empowered.

Build Realistic Timelines

The logistics of managing a major organizational change will impact some staff more than others, so it is vital to keep equity in mind, not equality (equality focuses on creating the same conditions for everyone, while equity accommodates the unique needs of everyone to achieve the same outcome). Depending on the workload of each individual team member, you may want to coordinate different timelines based on existing pressures, projects, and workloads. While it is important to clearly outline transition timelines, it is just as— if not more— important to adapt to the needs of the organization accordingly. While you need to be clear about your goals, being flexible with your methods will allow your team to remain agile when problems arise. Teams who recognize that management is willing to adjust timelines depending on the needs of staff will be much more likely to stay motivated throughout the process.

Listen

No matter how successfully you manage an organizational change, you will likely experience growing pains, and it is not always easy to anticipate exactly what they are going to be. Laurence Spring explains that during a period of transition, it is important to have open channels of communication for team members to provide honest feedback with management. If an existing system does not work for an entire department, it may be time to reconsider your approach and divert resources and energy accordingly. Often, the concerns of a single team member will be echoed by others, so keeping the door open is vital to maintaining morale.

If you are about to embark on your first major organizational change, it might be useful to work with someone who understands how to manage the process. As someone with unbeatable expertise in organizational development, Laurence Spring believes that he can help any business build a transitional roadmap that excites and enlivens teams. If you have never successfully implemented changes in your organization, he can help you plan, build, and implement change that leaves workers feeling empowered, excited and motivated.

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