Guide to Delivering and Embedding Change

Professor Graeme Martin

Graeme is Director of the Centre for Reputation Management through People (CRMP), course director for the Masters in Clinical Leadership rn in conjunction with the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow.. He also teaches and holds visiting appointments in Sweden, the USA, Italy, Columbia and Australia, is a member of the scientific committee of IDRAC in Lyon, and has been instrumental in recently establishing a Centre for Employer Branding and Reputation Management at Peking University, where is he a visiting professor. Following an early career in personnel and industrial relations management, he has published widely in the fields of HRM and change management. Currently, he is editing a book series for Butterworth Heinemann on Advanced Human Resource Management Practice, has published five books on HR and numerous articles, book chapters and reports for organisations such as the CIPD. He is working on a further book on strategic HRM. Graeme has consulted widely with a number of private and public sector organizations in the UK, Sweden, Australia and Switzerland. He is currently working with a Swedish-based multinational, a Swiss-based multinational, a UK-base insurance company, an Australian recruitment consultant; the NHS in Scotland, Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board, NHS Lothian and the Public Sector People Managers Association. He was, until recently, a member of advisory panel to the Scottish Government on public services reform and human capital.

This guide will take you though the role of HR and the HR practitioner in delivering and embedding change. It is based on extensive experience in the field of delivering major change across the public and private sectors. HR practitioners can add huge value by guiding their organisation through change, and ensuring it is delivered at the right pace, even when it is unpopular and may seem unnecessary to those eager for swift action. Therefore one of the essential skills for any HR practitioner to master is the successful delivery of change. An HR Leader, Business Partner or Specialist may be called upon to play one or more of four primary roles in change:

  • Change Leader/Owner, taking full responsibility for the planning and implementation of their own change project. The most obvious of these would be an HR Director transforming all or part of the HR function, but it could also be on a smaller scale, for example a restructuring of a team or the introduction of a new intranet-based service.
  • Change Educator, bringing specialist knowledge and expertise to help clients understand more about the structure and process of successfully managing change. This will often fall to the Centre of Expertise specialists and may involve running workshops, designing practical tools or making available other resources, such as reading materials or theoretical models.
  • Change Advisor, working with clients directly through the process of designing and implementing change, challenging and guiding them to get it right. This role will often be the remit of the HR Business Partner, for example in the restructuring of the sales function, or could also be played by the HR Director in the case of wholesale organisational change.
  • Change Participant, being part of a change that affects them personally. In this role any HR practitioner can use their knowledge of change to set their expectations of the process, troubleshoot problems and understand and manage their own and others’ reactions to events.

Achieving mastery in change management involves first understanding the architecture of successful change: having a clear picture of all the elements necessary for a sound process, built on a solid foundation.

There will also be skills, tools, methodologies and interventions you can use as the change progresses, but the greatest value can be in the quiet insistence that sufficient time is spent on laying the foundations and preparing the organisation for the change to come.

  • Chapters
  • Chapter 1: Guide to Delivering and Embedding Change - The Architecture of Change
  • Chapter 2: Guide to Delivering and Embedding Change - Relevance
  • Chapter 3: Guide to Delivering and Embedding Change - Readiness
  • Chapter 4: Guide to Delivering and Embedding Change - Robustness
  • Chapter 5: Guide to Delivering and Embedding Change - Responsiveness
  • Chapter 6: Guide to Delivering and Embedding Change - Key Skills for HR in Change - 1
  • Chapter 7: Guide to Delivering and Embedding Change - Key Skills for HR in Change - 2
  • Chapter 8: Guide to Delivering and Embedding Change - Summary