Embedding Well-Being and Resilienceto Support Change Management

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Featuring a foreword by Professor Cary Cooper

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I’ve spent the last 40 years focusing on the well-being of people at work and during that time I’ve seen a huge amount of change. The impact of technology, the introduction of flexible working, huge increases in diversity and the evolving contract between the employer and employee. Of course, change undoubtedly affects employee well-being – it usually involves some pain (particularly at the beginning) but very often it leads to a happier, more productive employee and a better business.

Well-Being and resilience, however, have not traditionally played a large part in the management of change, but now we’re starting to hear calls for that to become the norm. In my view, employee perceptions of the way senior leaders manage change have deteriorated over the last five years, suggesting we are as far away from ‘getting change right’ as we have ever been. The research literature – and there is a lot of it - is full of ‘do’s’ and ‘don’ts’ regarding change management, but it seems to me that we still haven’t found the right formula for implementing change successfully on a consistent basis.

In that context, I’m very pleased to be able to introduce this timely new perspective on the interaction between well-being, resilience and change management. It’s been designed to challenge organisations to think about the connections between their change and well-being strategies - and how one can positively influence the other.

Senior leaders are often accused of paying too little attention to the psychological impact of change. This may well be true and papers like this can certainly help us to better understand the wider organisational cost and consequences of poor psychological well-being in the workplace; outcomes which can often be triggered by change initiatives such as restructuring, redundancy and work intensification.

At Robertson Cooper we’re fortunate enough to have a wide network of well-being and HR practitioners and this paper has benefited from that fact. It has been informed by the views of industry leaders who discussed this very theme at a recent roundtable event hosted by myself and Ben Moss, the Managing Director of Robertson Cooper. On the day the group established some real momentum in relation to new ways of thinking about change. The common consensus was that change efforts need to be more people-driven rather than process led, and this paper sets out a new model to do that.

I hope that you enjoy reading this piece as much as I did. If it seems relevant I’d encourage you to get involved with the work and events we have planned over the coming months, including, a practitioner guide to outline how to use the model inside your business.

All the best,Cary

Foreword

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“Resilience is not about responding to a one time crisis…it’s about continuously anticipating and adjusting…It is about having the capacity for change before the need for change becomes obvious. The goal is an organisation that is making its future rather

than defending its past.”

(Hamel & Valikangas, 2003)1

‘Change’ – now as much a part of everyday business speak as ‘recruitment’, ‘diversity’ and ‘CSR’. But have we got so used to the fact that ‘change is the new normal’ that we’ve lost sight of what really makes it work?

According to research, 90% of businesses have experienced a period of change within the past year2 which bears out the fact that for most of us it does, indeed, no longer represent an exceptional occurrence. But recent surveys of senior leaders show that while we may be used to change, familiarity doesn’t necessarily translate into successful implementation: 86% of leaders reported anticipating significant change at some point over the next 12 months, but only 52% believe their organisation has the skills and capabilities to change successfully3. Could it be that this mismatch has contributed to a reported failure rate of up to 60% when it comes to implementing change4?

Of course, organisational change has a long and chequered history – with great successes, but also famous failures. For many years, change efforts were seen as discrete projects and approaches would be developed accordingly - by mapping out a very structured, linear process. Change effectively became about ticking a number of boxes before reaching an end goal. However, as economies and businesses became more global and complex we started to see ‘change’ somewhat differently. In a faster moving world, organisations have to deal with an increasing amount of change; it occurs simultaneously and the dividing lines between change efforts are significantly blurred. Change models have developed in response, and yet we still see these worrying predictions about the success rate of major change initiatives.

Change was never easy, but given the years of practice we’ve had there still remains a suspicion that existing change management models and approaches, while valuable when structuring a change process, are missing something important. Could it be that the focus on cost and process has meant that important people factors are being habitually missed? The psychological impact of change is well known – established theories describing the journey from resistance to acceptance are covered on every change management course – but this is only half the story. When people are energised, feel good psychologically and resilience levels are high their response to change improves significantly. This presents an opportunity for organisations undergoing change everywhere and the rest of this paper explores how these important factors can be harnessed to drive existing change efforts.

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The well-being and resilience gap

Modern change is fast-paced, multivariate, often unpredictable and even precarious. Of course, business processes need to be sophisticated to handle it, but there can be little doubt that this new environment also requires resilient employees who have the adaptability to thrive whilst dealing with uncertainty; learning new skills, taking on new ideas and continuing to deliver business results during change.

Robertson Cooper’s current research data shows that change has a significant, negative psychological effect on the UK working population5. Over 30% of approximately 100,000 people say that change is a source of pressure that ‘troubles’ them at work. It also ranks consistently among the top three causes of stress over the past five years. Additionally, a review of Robertson Cooper’s General Working Population data for 2013 (N=32,500) showed that currently the biggest barrier to positive psychological well-being is the belief that organisations are ‘changing for changes’ sake’. So all-in-all, from an employee perspective, there can be little doubt that the way change is managed represents a key enabler (or barrier) for well-being and performance at work.

The predominant way of thinking about employees’ response to change is shown in Figure 1. It is natural that change brings some type of emotional response: indeed, phases such as shock, denial and ‘the valley of despair’ do frequently cause resistance and ultimately present a barrier to the effective management and implementation of the change.

Figure 1. The emotional response to change6

However, imagine the difference between managing change with a whole workforce that is energised, lined up behind the organisation’s mission and feels resilient…versus one where trust and morale are low, communication about goals is poor and staff feel dependent on the organisation. Quite a contrast.

When the majority of employees have high levels of psychological well-being and resilience

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we can reasonably expect to see an initial period of anxiety and uncertainty, but with the right management and communications this can quickly be turned into positive energy, enthusiasm, openness, positive commitment to and participation in the change7. On the other side of the coin, where psychological well-being is low, individuals are more likely to view ambiguous events as ‘threatening’, which can be unhelpful and destructive in a setting where change is taking place8. Positive psychological well-being and resilience are therefore qualities and enablers that change leaders and managers can seek to foster in all forms of change.

The point here is that well-being and resilience are not simply about building people up so that they are able to deal with increased workloads and pressure; they are beneficial qualities that can be built into the way an organisation works. Resilience protects businesses during times of change – it has a positive effect if focussed on as a short-term measure, but it should also be developed and managed during more stable periods. To reiterate the quote from the research that opened this paper:

“Resilience is not about responding to a one time crisis…it’s about continuously anticipating and adjusting…It is about having the capacity for change before the need for change becomes obvious. The goal is an organisation that is making its future rather than defending its past.” (Hamel & Valikangas, 2003)1

Avey, Luthans and Jensen (2009)9 go further:

“…resilient individuals are better equipped to deal with the stressors in a constantly changing workplace environment, as they are open to new experiences, are flexible to changing demands and show more emotional stability when faced with adversity”.

By embedding a resilient response to change, businesses can effectively shorten the time required to realise its positive impact. Figure 2 illustrates the difference between managed change with and without a focus on personal resilience.

Figure 2. The effect of positive well-being & resilience on the change curve

Adapted from: Michael Loh (1995)Re-Engineering at Work, Gower Publishing Ltd

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Again, received wisdom here is that there is an inevitable dip into negative impact at the start of any change process. Our contention is that all organisations should aim to flatten this initial stage and move much more quickly, into the upward section of the curve, maintaining momentum to avoid slipping back. By creating a situation where the organisation can respond positively to change more quickly, you are ‘designing in’ significant advantages in terms of implementing change successfully and managing potentially negative outcomes for the workforce (e.g. increased stress, absenteeism, turnover etc). When you get well-being right strategically and connect it to your change processes, the efficiency of the implementation rises and resistance/residual damage to morale falls. Just a 1% efficiency gain could be worth huge sums, but in reality the percentage efficiency gain could end up being much bigger than that.

Having established the link between well-being, resilience and change, the rest of this paper sets out a new model for organisations to realise the advantages available.

A new model for managing change incorporating well-being & resilience

A 2012 survey3 of senior business leaders indicated that the majority of leaders recognised the importance of well-being and resilience in achieving “lasting change”; the authors identified the key drivers of successful change to be leadership behaviour, employee behaviour, organisational culture and mindset. However, the leaders questioned here accepted that these characteristics are often overlooked due to the perception that they are the most difficult to define and influence. Instead they conceded that organisations tend to continue to focus on deliverables that are traditionally easier to measure – such as cost reduction and structural change.

In response to this kind of finding and the positive evidence for the benefits of well-being / resilience presented in the introduction, we have developed a new change model. It is designed to incorporate the development of organisational capability around well-being and resilience, as well as other people related factors, such as embedding the right behaviours, improving employee readiness and their motivation for change. In this context, the psychological impact of change is more than just a consequence that requires short-term management – rather, it calls for a broader, more proactive approach, where training and culture development are not connected to any one specific project.

Figure 3 (overleaf) shows the new ‘Resilient Change’ model, which builds on traditional process-led models to create a people-driven approach underpinned by well-being and resilience. As such, it is designed to be used alongside existing models and provide a ‘well-being lens’ during change. By breaking the change process down into four manageable areas; leadership and management; context and motivation; performance management and development; strategic view of well-being & resilience – organisations can begin to streamline their approach to achieve more efficient and sustainable change.

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Figure 3. A new model for ‘Resilient Change’

We now present the key features of the first three areas, before outlining the benefits of connecting them together as part of a strategic and integrated approach to well-being and resilience. In doing so, we provide a clear rationale for the structure of the model and explain how these areas can add value to your change management processes.

Leadership and Management

Your CEO and other operational leaders play an important role in articulating a strong vision for change and communicating that vision through line managers to the front-line of the organisation. Whilst traditional change models emphasise this role clearly, it’s not simply about top-down communication of priorities and processes. In the new model, providing a clear sense of direction remains a key task for leaders but they are also encouraged to create an environment where employees can take ownership of change. This means the workforce is supported to drive and engage with change in a way that fits authentically with the existing mission and culture of the organisation. Each team within a business will react to change differently, but when leaders and managers understand the impact of their behaviour on the well-being of their staff they can effectively personalise their approach, cascading the change strategy in a way that accounts for these

Adapted from: Michael Beer and Nitin Nohria, “Cracking the Code of Change,” Harvard Business Review 78, no. 3 (May–June 2000): 137.

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differences while generating trust and good will in the process. Emphasising the need for employees to look after their own levels of well-being at a strategic level only translates to real behaviours if staff see their managers doing it first; in this way, line managers give ‘permission’ for their direct reports to prioritise their own well-being and resilience, whilst also supporting them to do it effectively. Leaders are, of course, influential but it takes cohorts of engaged line managers to create the kind of environment suggested by the model. In this sense it asks you to question

the way you use this important group in traditional change approaches. For example, do you see them as ‘enforcers’ or do you ask line-managers to facilitate discussions, where they provide their own perspective on the change and ask employees for their own take on what successful change will look and feel like? When the latter happens and line managers understand their own impact on the well-being and resilience of others, employees are no longer reacting to a process that is out of their control, they become part of the change. Again this isn’t simply about minimising the negative response

to change, but increasing employees’ active participation and engagement in the drive to make it a success. Communication that encourages employee inclusion in discussions about change results in employees feeling valued and trusted.

We would contest that it’s time for line-managers to move beyond an enforcement role and develop an awareness of the psychological impact change can have on employees, to better understand the reasons behind any uncharacteristic behaviours or drops in performance. This is about embracing a more proactive and preventative approach: managers who are aware of the psychological impact of change, and the ways in which they can influence the well-being of their team, can harness the benefits of positive well-being and resilience to maintain an engaged and productive workforce.

Managers are the operators of any change process, but it is leaders who define reality within an organisation and the quality of their input in a change context filters through the other three elements of the change model presented here. Board-level and senior executive buy-in to this kind of approach is key to holding together the rest of a successful change strategy and implementation process.

Context and Motivation

We’ve suggested that leading with a focus on well-being and resilience can help you to manage the psychological impact of change, by creating a sense of direction and a better working environment for employees who you are taking through it. But how can organisations create the motivation for employees to actively participate in change and actively seek out opportunities to influence it?

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There is an opportunity for organisations to move from seeing change as something that needs to be ‘managed’ to overcoming the fear factor and viewing it as something to be actively ‘embraced’. This is very often about making the change personal for employees – what will they get out of it? Most leaders know that they cannot expect employees to be fully engaged with change efforts just because it is likely to create successful outcomes for the organisation. But it is possible to acknowledge that a period of change will be challenging while also promoting the positive – for example, the opportunity to take on new roles and responsibilities that will lead to self and career-development. In addition to this, if the argument that change will lead to a great sense of fulfilment and happiness is convincing and authentic, employees are much more likely to get on board – ‘something for the organisation, something for me’ can be a very persuasive thought!

Creating this sense of individual opportunity means proactively evolving the psychological contract between employers and employees from the start. Raising change as a key part of life in the business also allows recruiters and managers to identify whether an employee and organisation are the right match for each other in this context too. This approach can create a level of confidence and trust between employer and employee which will strengthen the organisation’s capacity to implement change in a sustainable way.

Of course, in situations that may lead to restructuring or redundancy, it’s unrealistic to think change can be framed as a positive ‘opportunity’ for all employees. However, it is still possible to prioritise the well-being of staff; for example, by providing tools and training to develop personal resilience during times of uncertainty, organisations can help to create skills that employees can draw on throughout their working and non-working lives. In the new psychological contract, employers have to balance this duty of care with the need for a certain amount of pressure to drive optimum performance. If that pressure is balanced with support throughout the organisation, you start to create a culture that can support effective change. Organisations then move away from the idea of reacting to support employees through distinct, single change efforts, towards setting the right mix of challenge and support as a core part of the wider people strategy –from the recruitment and selection stage onwards.

Performance management and development

The previous two sections imply the need for organisations to be authentic in their approach to well-being and resilience, making it a part of their business’ ‘DNA’, rather than a tick-box exercise to support employees through turbulent times. What we are essentially talking about is ‘mainstreaming’ well-being and resilience into key HR and business processes; ensuring these two elements are part of working life at every level of the business.

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We have already covered the need for managers to coach their direct reports, and model the right behaviours for well-being. Taking this further, well-being and resilience can be incorporated into the more formal appraisal and regular performance management processes that are in place in most organisations. In this context, we can reprise the notion of striking the right balance between challenge and support; are managers “keeping pressure positive”? Are individuals taking the initiative to proactively manage and maintain their own high levels of well-being and performance? To do this effectively, organisations must define exactly what well-being and resilience means “around here”, to provide a common language and framework upon which to base these conversations.

In addition to improving individual and team performance, an organisation can safeguard the longevity of a well-being and resilience supported change strategy by incorporating those concepts in its recruitment and selection criteria. Accepting well-being and resilience as key contributing factors to performance and sustainable change suggests that recruiting individuals based on their ability to cope with the pressures associated with their role, rather than solely on traditional behavioural competencies, will prove beneficial in the long-term. Furthermore, talent management and leadership development initiatives can also be adopted to emphasise a similar level of focus on well-being, by selecting and developing future leaders and managers who naturally and positively influence personal and group well-being.

Including well-being and resilience in personal development at all levels is vital. Within this, employees also need to recognise that they have a responsibility to look after their own well-being, within the support structures an organisation provides. Giving employees’ opportunities to take advantage of practical development opportunities, like resilience training, can help avoid creating an overly paternalistic well-being and resilience culture led by managers, and ultimately create one that is more sustainable over the long-term. Creating the right environment for change – one characterised by a culture of well-being and resilience – will almost always be strongly advocated by most employees. They want to feel good about their work.

Strategic View of well-being and resilience

Whilst the previous three sections identify core elements of the task of developing well-being to support change, this section outlines the advantages which can be derived from taking a long-term, strategic view of well-being and resilience. Targeting distinct areas for intervention can lead to some level of improvement in well-being and performance, but this is likely to occur in small pockets across the business and may be short-term or issue-specific. To successfully embed well-being and resilience across the whole organisation, the previous three sections of the model need to be connected and function as part

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of an overall well-being strategy which is integrated with the core business model and values. This encompasses everything from senior level buy-in, through to ownership and responsibility within all business functions, and connecting well-being data to other business metrics (performance, sickness-absence, retention etc.).

This often starts with building the business case, where the objective is to ‘sell’ the idea to a group of key stakeholders and to develop a fuller understanding of, and commitment to, why the organisation is investing in well-being: what are the key business outcomes? What value will it add to the change management strategy? How joined up are these strands already and how do you measure the ROI?

Only by answering questions like these can an organisation establish buy-in and support from senior leaders, which is as crucial around well-being programmes as it is for any strategically important organisational initiative. Thankfully there are tried and tested processes for facilitating these conversations between key stakeholders, which help to clarify your well-being goals and start the task of integrating your activities to deliver them. Individual functions will then be clear about which business outcomes well-being and resilience can influence and how efforts to drive them can be measured. This means aligning leaders, managers and the HR function, so that ROI can be measured systematically and responsibilities are clear. Simply concluding that ‘everyone’s responsible’ for well-being will not provide your organisation with the guidance it needs to get well-being right.

Your strategy for well-being and resilience creates a sense of authenticity, connecting leadership, management and employees’ sense of motivation to bring well-being and resilience to life across the business. Indeed, research has suggested that the most important driver of employee engagement is the belief that business leaders care about employee engagement and well-being10. As such, introducing disconnected well-being initiatives and interventions that don’t fit with your core values and broader approach to change are not only less sustainable, but can damage credibility in the eyes of employees.

Without a strategy, when change occurs, senior leaders would be forced to address each area of the model again, taking a hands-on approach to guiding a resilient response. A well-developed strategy means well-being and resilience are already in place to support your change efforts. People can then adapt their approach without needing a constant steer from senior leaders, developing the agility for change led by effective, local decision making and behaviours.

Conclusion

This new ‘Resilient Change’ model depicts a longer-term, strategic approach to change management, but it’s important to recognise that organisations naturally have different starting points for change – so unfortunately there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach here. At the same time, some businesses will have very well developed, strategic approaches to well-being, while others will be almost starting from scratch. In this sense it is for each organisation to digest and interpret the model and take from it what they need. Even for those organisations where change is imminent or already happening, the message is most certainly ‘do something’. Piloting new initiatives and interventions that can have an

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impact on discrete aspects of this Resilient Change model will significantly increase the chances of short-term change success. Even though this approach is more reactive it can reasonably act as a way into taking a longer-term, more proactive approach – as well as creating ‘stories’ that demonstrate the benefits of a more joined up approach early on.

Change happens for different reasons – it may be an acute response to market conditions or part of developing the organisation towards delivering a long-term vision. And indeed, as we’ve seen, different businesses have different starting points when it comes to well-being itself. But this should not deter you from taking a fresh look at the how these two key aspects of working life relate to each other in the quest for a more streamlined, effective and positive working environment.

Our aim with the model is to conceptualise the ways in which well-being underpins and drives successful change at a level that is accessible to all. Rather than replace existing approaches to change, the model can be used to build upon them, to help

organisations to take their change management process to the next level; one where the workforce is equipped for change before the need even becomes apparent. When well-being and resilience are prioritised and sustained as a part of everyday working life, organisations will reap the associated rewards and cost benefits. This more holistic, efficient and integrated approach can take organisations from ‘surviving’ a change process or project to ‘thriving’ through a change experience, which becomes about creating a new future for the business and its employees.

Next steps

We encourage you to use this model to facilitate debate around your current approaches to well-being and change respectively. Our intention has been to present a model that poses some important strategic questions to those responsible for both change and well-being in organisations. We do not claim to have all the answers about the interface between these two aspects of organisational life, but hope to draw expert practitioners into the debate and start the process of moving it on. The discussion in this paper provides as many questions as it does answers at this stage – for example:

• How do we link change, well-being and performance measures? What is the actual ROI when you make these linkages? Should this be an explicit aim for your business?

• How can we further devolve responsibility for change and well-being throughout the organisation, right down to an individual level? How should business-level owners of aspects of well-being and change work together?

• What is the new psychological contract between employer and employee that establishes change and an environment characterised by well-being and resilience as the norm?

Ryan Tahmassebi

Business Psychologist, Robertson Cooper

• How do we activate leaders and managers so that they make a different level of contribution to change and well-being efforts?

• Where are the organisations who are acting as role models by taking a truly strategic approach to well-being and then linking that to change efforts? Can we gather case studies that will help to change practice?

• Are recruitment and development processes driving sustainable change behaviours, or are they disconnected?

These are just a few of the questions that have occurred to us while writing and reviewing the paper. We are sure that as well as helping us to answer them, you as practitioners will ask many more – we certainly hope so! We also hope that asking questions such as these can provide the challenge required to establish your organisation’s starting point for a new approach to well-being, resilience and change.

We see this paper as just the beginning and our aim is to develop further resources in the area, while facilitating the debate over the coming months. As a supplement to this document, the team at Robertson Cooper is preparing a separate practitioner guide to support conversations about the implementation of this model within organisations. The guide will provide practical solutions relating to each of the four areas of the model, with contributions from our Business Psychologists complemented by input from our network of practitioners and change leaders who gathered at a recent roundtable discussion on this subject. We also welcome further contribution from the readers of this piece – your experiences of change management can add further value to our practitioner guide or to our growing online ‘Good Day at Work’ network; where senior HR practitioners are free to share thoughts, ideas, and best practice on everything well-being, resilience, and engagement.

Ben Moss

Managing Director, Robertson Cooper

To find out more about embedding well-being and resilience to support change management, or to contribute to the forthcoming practitioner guide, contactRyan Tahmassebi on ryan.tahmassebi@robertsoncooper.com or 0161 232 4915.

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References

1. Hamel, Gary & Liisa Välikangas (2003). Strategic Resilience. UKexcellence June / July 2003

2. Cooper, Cary & Worrall, Les (2012). The Quality of Working Life Report. Chartered Management Institute.

3. Source: Leading change in uncertain times – Are you ready for the challenge? Research report produced by Value Partnership, Sept 2012.

4.”Making Change Work Study” (2008). IBM Corporation,http://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/gbs/bus/pdf/gbe03100-usen-03-making-change-work.pdf

3. Burke, W. W., J. L. Spencer, et al. (1991). Managers get a “C” in managing change. Training and Development Journal 45(5): 87-92.

5. Robertson Cooper’s proprietary data-set (2007-2013)

6. Loh, M (1995) Re-Engineering at Work, Gower Publishing Ltd.

7. A) Denhardt, J., & Denhardt, A. “Building Organisational Resilience and Adaptive Management”. In Handbook of Adult Resilience, Reich, J. W., Zautra, A. J., Stuart Hall, J. (eds) (2010) Guilford Press London, 333-349. B) Jackson, D., Firtko, A., & Edenborough, M. (2007). Personal resilience as a strategy for surviving and thriving in the face of workplace adversity: a literature review. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 60, 1-9.

8. Seidlitz, L., Wyer Jr, R. S., & Diener, E (1997). Cognitive Correlates of Subjective Well-Being: The Processing of Valanced Life Events by Happy and Unhappy Persons. Journal of Research in Personality, 31, 240-256.

9. Avey, JB. Luthans, F. Jensen, S M. (2009). Psychological Capital: A Positive Resource for Combating Employee Stress and Turnover. Human Resource Management. Vol. 48, No. 5

10. Towers Watson Global Workforce Study (2012).