Change Readiness Assessment and its Importance

Why do some companies take advantage of the slightest of change in the market, while the others struggle with even the smallest market-necessitated modification? The reasons for it will differ from organization to organization. Companies which have been successful in making change work to their benefit are the ones who do not witness change as a discrete event to be managed, but consider change an opportunity to evolve their business. So what do you think, is change readiness assessment a new change management?

Basically, change readiness assessment is the ability to seamlessly initiate and respond to change in ways that creates maximum advantage, minimal risk and sustains performance.

Assessment of Change

The very first assessment of change is change itself.  Under this assessment, the score, overall size and depth of the change is examined. Hence, the assessment of change should consist of the following:

• Scope of the change like change in workgroup, department, enterprise, etc.
• The number of employees impacted with the change
• Consider the type of change whether in the process, technology or strategies of the firm
• The amount of change as compared to the present situation.

In order to plan for a change strategy, assessment of change and a thoughtful review of the nature of change are very much essential.

Assessment of the Organization

The second stage of assessment is an assessment of the organization. Every organization has its own characteristics which further can make management alterations either easy or challenging. Therefore, these organizational attributes are very much significant to understand so that you can make your sponsors and team aware of the potential obstacles. This assessment consists of the following:

Culture and Value System

The culture and value system of an organization play a major role in defining the impact of change on the organization. Considering this fact, you can foresee certain reactions in the group and you can further plan accordingly to deal with those reactions.

What’s the Capacity for Change?

Generally, organizations have a limited capacity for change. For instance, your organization is already anticipating a considerable change, executing yet another plan of change can be more difficult for the organization.

Style of Leadership

The style of leadership plays a significant role in the planning of change management. As management support and sponsorship is a vital factor for the success of change management, it becomes very essential for you to assess the leadership styles and power distribution in an organization.

Employee Readiness

With Employee readiness for change, you can predict how prepared and competent employees are for the change, and whether you expect high or low employee resistance and the reason behind it.

When implemented with the right change management framework, these assessments mentioned above will prove to be very useful in order to plan your change management strategy and can help the project team making informed decisions about their approach to manage the change. Always remember, the time devoted to the assessments should be just enough to inform good planning decisions.