5 Easy Ways to bring about Change Management in Shared Services - by Hansa Sharma

It is a known fact across industries that the toughest part of any project implementation, change initiative or innovation is the change management during and post implementation. In a Shared Services environment, constant innovation and new change initiatives are the driving forces for success. The success of these initiatives lies in bringing in effective change management amongst employees and business partners who are used to the old models of working and find it difficult to change course as and when new technology and processes are implemented.

So how does one go about effectively bringing about change in the way people work? Should we force down the changes and dictate the new system to be followed? Or do we approach these teams and make them see the benefits of the change? What should be the right mix?

The right way would be a subtle mix of both. In my experience of setting up new processes in Shared Services, there are many factors that helped bring this change. But there some key ways of how we have been able to effectively handle change management in the real time scenario.

Listed below are 5 ways that were effectively used to drive change in the Shared Service Center in our organisation:-

Create calm in chaos

We often get bogged down by the chaos around us. And this is the moment we give in to the pressure and give up changing things and become part of the chaos. The trick is to remain calm when everyone else is doubtful. People want to be led. Be the leader who is composed in chaos. When they see someone calm in the midst of chaos, they generally tend to think that everything is under control. Keep your calm, because you know that the system that you are implementing is going to kill the chaos. People will see value of the new system/process when the new system is able to correct things that were hitherto difficult to handle. They will begin to accept the change.

Be prepared to get mauled

Yes, it going to be that way in the beginning. Every resource averted to the new idea will want to point out all the possible flaws in your new idea, tool or process that you want to bring in. The trick here is to believe completely in your plan of action and its results. You will have to be diplomatic though.

This strategy worked well for us when we wanted to implement an online Employee Onboarding system. Although the teams involved were aware that the implementation would bring in 50% of cost reduction and save 40% of time for the Recruitment, Onboarding and Background (BG) verification staff, there was rejection of the new portal and process. The recruiters believed that it would double-up their work, the documentation staff was not sure if things will work on time and the BG team was not sure of the movement of documents. But by patiently and systematically convincing and proving the benefits to each team involved we were able to implement the project successfully. Today none of the team can think of going back to manual system.

Slow and steady still wins goody points

Being slow may not be the best trait these days, but when it comes to changing people, it doesn’t happen overnight. You may have to re-emphasis on the benefits of the tool/process/system repeatedly. You will need to show results, deliver exemplary service, and go an extra mile in the initial stages to prove that the new system is actually helping them. Be open to suggestions, feedback, improvements & criticism.

A live example of being able to hang in just a little longer proved very useful for us when we wanted to implement a Business Shared Service (BSS) Model which would bring in a single helpdesk for all employee queries including HR, Facilities, IT, Training, Resource Management and Finance services. The HR service was already on the ticketing/case management model and working with SLA’s and metrics. However to implement the same standards across the teams was a daunting task. The IT team was particularly averted to this model and did not want to work with a SLA driven approach. Each time we wanted to implement the tool, they would put spokes in the wheel and stall the project. After 6 months of continued efforts which involved accepting and changing certain aspects, we were able to implement the BSS model across the organization. Today it’s the lifeline for all employee queries. We were able to successfully bring a culture change. Employees have successfully changed over from the culture of randomly sending e-mails to systematically logging their issues in the portal.

Sometimes the whip is required. (But play the Good Cop/ Bad Cop Routine)

Don’t be all good and agreeing all the time. You will need to put your foot down and ensure your project runs the way you have intended it to be implemented. Too many tweaks in the process may ruin the benefit it is meant to deliver. Keep using the 80:20 rule to prioritize actions that are critical to the mission.

The Good Cop/Bad Cop routine was played effectively as members of the implementation team took roles of the Good Cop/Bad Cop. While the Bad Cop continued to put pressure on the teams to adopt and use the Shared Services way of working, the Good Cop ensured all teams involved agreed on mutual terms and worked towards the successful implementation of the project.

Don’t get complacent once the project is implemented

Often, post implementation, we generally tend to relax and let it go. The key for successful implementation would be constant improvement and constant control of the process and operations of the same. This should be governed by a strong SOP and controls that will never let the project fail. People will see the difference the sustained effort brings and will believe in you more in the future. Document every step of the project implemented, create knowledge and transition documents and let the world know what changes you have brought and how it has helped the organization.

Conclusion

There is no one solution that fits all for successful implementations. You will need to formulate your style and method of driving change effectively when implementing new systems. The methods mentioned above few of them that i was able to use and successfully drive change initiatives in our organization.

How to convince your C-Suite to use Shared Services as the prime engine for their organisation.

Most Shared Services’ professionals would agree and believe that the Shared Services way of working is the right way to set up and run internal processes of an organisation. But do your C-Suite executives believe in the Shared Services way? How do you convince them to design the organisation and provide more funds to your initiatives based on the Shared Services model? Are lowering costs the only objective of a Shared Services setup? Or are there other ways to project the ROI of Shared Services?

Shared Services ' Strategy to Transactions' Framework

Here are views of how to project Shared Services as a Strategic Model to implement, operate and fine tune the internal strategy of your company.

Currently, many CXO’s believe that the work of Shared Services is to efficiently manage transactions to lower operational costs. While lowering costs and bringing efficiency is native to Shared Services, what many people don’t know is that Shared Services, with their voluminous data and process handling capabilities, are slowly developing the capability to implement concepts such as Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI). With most of the Shared Services transactions moving online now, Shared Services, if designed well, can tap into Big Data for various predictive and preventive technologies which can help organisations move away from transactions and work on projects that give organisations the edge over competitors.

So how does Big Data and AI help the organisation achieve its Internal Strategy?

It is a well-known fact that 70% of internal strategy implementations of organisations fail due to various reasons. There have been many articles written and many views shared on this topic. Shared Services with its systematic Knowledge Management, Compliance Management, Operations and Problem Solving culture can be the answer to bring down the failure rate of implementations thus enabling more success for the organisation’s initiatives.

All that would be needed from the C-Suite executives would be to articulate their Internal Strategy for the organisation and Shared Services, with their Knowledge Management Systems, will be able to convert them to various policies and business processes. With the help of the Shared Services Compliance Management systems, risk scores against each process and policies can be assigned to each of the controls that manage the polices/processes. Shared Services, with its innate ability to handle Big Data, can map all company transactions captured through their transactions hub back to a business process and in turn to a policy on a real time basis. This matrix of Strategy – Policy – Process – Transactions Framework will then give a real time view of the ‘Risk’ associated with the company’s internal strategy. So what you have is a system of mapping every transaction in the company to the internal strategy and the risks associated with it.

So instead of waiting in periods to review your strategy, the C-Suite gets a real time dashboard of what’s going right in their strategy and which part of the strategy needs a quick fix to get it back on track. Shared Services can own up to ensure the organisation is back on track immediately. This way, CXO’s can concentrate on the external strategy of the company and leave the implementation and operations of the internal strategy to the Shared Services. The problem of doing reviews in periods is that there may have been irreversible damage done to your strategy which could have been avoided if the systems were able to capture them as and when they were taking place. Seems more of a scene from a sci-fi movie? Well, it’s really not that difficult to implement…

So what tangible resources are required to make this a reality?

Although there is no one single tool that can achieve this today, this concept can be easily implemented with an amalgamation of various tools that are currently available in the market. So what tools do we need?

ITSM Suite: ITSM Suites, generally called ‘Case Management Tool’ in Shared Services are available in plenty. Most of them fulfill the need of capturing data to enable Big Data and AI. However, they need to be tailored to the needs of the respective business functions such as HR, Finance, IT, Facilities etc. This generally is not a herculean task but will require meticulous work from the Shared Services team.

These tools enable Six Sigma concepts of DMAIC which is required for continuous improvement of the organisation. What this tool ideally does is to capture all transactions of the company either through self-service, calls or e-mails and convert them into systematic data for analysis and subsequent changes based on the analysis. Over a period of time, if this suite is implemented well, it can provide instant answers to employee queries and issues thus enabling AI. This will also provide real time trending on Process and Policies implementation thus enabling instantaneous view of the organisation’s strategy not just to the CXOs but also to all employees in the organisation based on their areas of responsibilities. This way all employees are crewed into the organisation’s strategy and vision.

If the ITSM suite does not have an inbuilt capability to manage knowledge and process compliance, additional Knowledge Management and Process Compliance Management tools need to be implemented. The Process compliance tool will play a major part in providing real time risk analysis whereas Knowledge Management tools will help in managing knowledge which will be required for AI related initiatives in Shared Services.

If the combo of the tools are implemented well, the internal strategy of the company can be realized efficiently, effectively and rapidly to give the organisation an internal edge over the competitors. With this framework, Shared Services will no longer be a transaction hub but a Strategy enabler for the organisation.

All CXO’s want their organisations to move as fast as a jet plane to achieve the organisation’s goals. But what is important in a Jet plane is the efficient Jet engine which enables the Jet and the people in it to propel at that speed.  Shared Services, if implemented well, can be designed to be the internal jet engine of the organisation which efficiently and effectively hums to provide the speed and reliability for the organisation to achieve its goals.  So in short, Shared Services is now ready to move from the classical ‘Cost Saver’ Organisation to a savvy ‘Strategy Implementation’ Organisation.