Session 2
12.00 – 12.45 Plenary Session 2
"Change Management in Difficult Times"
Linda Holbeche – CIPD
Linda is Research and Practice Director at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), which she joined in July 2007. Immediately prior to joining CIPD Linda was Director of Leadership and Consultancy at The Work Foundation and previous roles include Director of Research and Strategy at Roffey Park Management Institute, Management Development manager for American Express, various senior teaching positions and a spell in publishing.
Linda has a strong interest in helping organisations and individuals achieve sustainable high performance. Her career history combines extensive experience and expertise in management and organisational development with a strong track record in leading-edge research. Linda specialises in leadership development, the development of human resources professionals, organisational development/change management and executive coaching.
At The Work Foundation Linda restructured and developed the leadership and consultancy practice and related operations, and initiated a major research programme exploring the link between leadership and high performance. At Roffey Park Linda carried out assignments with a wide range of UK-based and international clients, providing consultancy on leadership, HR development, change and organisational strategy. She also ran a Strategic Human Resources network, as well as directing open programmes on strategic leadership, strategic human resources and managing the people side of mergers and acquisitions.
Linda is author of over 40 research reports, including studies of International Leadership, Organisational Politics and Succession Planning in International Organisations. Her books, including Motivating People in Lean Organisations, (1997), Aligning HR and Business Strategy (1999 and 2001), The High Performance Organization (2005) and Understanding Change: theory, implementation and success (2005), are all published by Butterworth-Heinemann.She has co-authored several books including Reaping the Benefits of Mergers and Acquisitions (2002) and contributed chapters to various books. She is chief editor of the Croner journal Developing HR Strategy, member of the editorial board for Strategic Change (Wiley), book series editor of The New Skills Portfolio and co-editor of The HR Series (both for Butterworth-Heinemann).
Outline:
In today’s turbulent and highly competitive business environment, organisations in every sector are subject to pressures to improve performance and to restructure/change practice. However, managing change can be very challenging at the best of times. Research suggests that up to 70% of change efforts fail, since the very process of change can undermine both employee morale and performance in the short term and also limit the organisation’s ability to change effectively and frequently in the medium term. In difficult times such as these, the challenges are multiplied.
So how can organisations both improve performance and embrace change? In this session Linda Holbeche will show how organisations can be ‘built to change’ in a fast-changing context. She will share findings from a recent European HR survey which highlights the actions organisations are taking in the current cost-cutting environment and the impact of these actions on employee commitment. Linda will compare these findings with those of a recent CIPD survey of 3000+ UK based employees. What stands out is that even employees not directly affected by redundancies are still worried about the future. So is it an employer’s responsibility to make sure that employees are coping with these anxieties? CIPD argues that it is, and Linda will highlight some of the state of the art people processes which will equip organisations to become ‘change-able’.
A crucial test is how an organisation treats its employees in bad times – because when the good times return, employees will remember. Linda will highlight some of the practical ways in which managers and HR can deal with tough decisions and help employees cope with change.
