Change management and effective communication will propel the success of your enterprise-level process automation initiative.

The allure of automation is undeniable. But if you automate before you consider people and culture, you may risk the entire investment. We explain why change management as part of your enterprise automation execution plan is critical — not only to avoid failed adoption but to recover the investment costs and enable the intended business outcomes.

Many leaders love the idea of enterprise-wide automation, envisioning their organization free from manual tasks and poised for nonstop innovation. With many impressive advancements at their disposal, from robotic process automation (RPA) to artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), many organizations seek out technology as their shiny solution to process automation.

However, to pursue enterprise automation strategically, consider taking technology off the table — at least at first. Achieving enterprise automation is a far more delicate process than it appears. It requires evaluating your company’s processes long before implementing new technology. Equally important is prioritizing people and including them every step of the way.

Evaluating Your Processes: Process Automation Through a Business Process Management Lens

Instead of jumping straight into the latest and greatest tech tools, first, evaluate your existing processes to proactively improve the very processes new technology means to enhance. Business process management (BPM) identifies, implements and improves processes to align with your organization’s goals. BPM will help you choose the right technology for the right reasons, justifying your time and resource spend.

Leaders who take a BPM approach to process automation review an existing process to determine its purposes and pitfalls. Then, they redesign that process to eliminate bottlenecks and improve overall efficiency. After assessing the updated process’s performance, they determine which automation tools (like RPA, AI, or ML) could improve the process further.

Proactively engaging in process automation ensures better data quality and streamlined resources, or you may uncover a better process altogether. Once you’re ready to implement process automation, you have to consider the effect on your people.

Lack of communication or involvement with your impacted employees will, at best, create confusion and, at worst, some form of resistance to process automation. Many times, resistance surfaces not because of the technology itself — but rather because of a lack of awareness and inclusion early and often in the transition and project implementation.

Implementing process automation without considering its impact on people would be like buying an electric power scrubber to clean your kitchen floor and putting it to work but failing to tell your family your plan. When they walk into the kitchen later that day wearing muddy tennis shoes, your work is undone.

Prioritizing Your People: Process Automation Driven by Organizational Change Management

Organizational change management (OCM) prepares an organization for a specific change and supports its people through that transition. An OCM approach can guide a business through many changes, from organizational restructuring to process automation, improving the overall adoption of that change.

Like BPM, OCM is holistic, viewing an organization as an ongoing relationship of people, processes, technology, and performance metrics. While BPM optimizes processes to position an organization for success, OCM considers how changed processes or new technology will affect employees, customers and vendors. Put simply, BPM creates a new reality. OCM helps people adapt to it.

Let’s look at a few crucial elements of OCM during your process automation initiative.

Four Key Elements for Implementing Change

Evaluate

You’ve already determined automation technology will optimize your processes. Now, consider how it will affect your employees. Will this change be a minor adjustment or a radical transformation? How widespread are the affected groups, and which are the most heavily impacted? How complex is the training need, and what resources are available to plan, develop and deliver learning platforms? Will key stakeholders need to postpone larger projects to accommodate this change?

Build Awareness

Communication -- informing and building awareness with people -- about the change is a key element of OCM. After collaboratively planning with the few project sponsors and executive leadership to create a case for change, you should be able to clearly articulate why the new process automation technology benefits your employees and when and how the company plans to implement the change.

Communications about the change before you launch it includes employees in the process, allowing them to ask questions and raise concerns. Understanding their day-to-day process and their ideas helps avoid implementation risks or gaps otherwise left unchecked.

Build Readiness and Ability

Develop a plan to train employees directly involved with this new technology. For larger or complex organizations, consider assembling a process or technology center of excellence (CoE) comprised of leadership around the process or automation, subject matter experts, project managers, and change influencers.

With each group drawing on their expertise from various audiences, a CoE can ensure consistent and clear messaging; develop protocol, policy or training materials tailored to diverse audiences; and host ongoing interactive sessions for employees for the longer-term sustainment of healthy practices and outcomes.

Ultimately, a CoE will foster a communicative and productive transition towards a new process launch and longer-term adoption.

Reinforcement and Sustained Health

After implementing the new process automation technology, regularly communicate with the affected groups. This can happen through your CoE or leadership messaging. Listen to any concerns your people may have, especially after initial training and implementation. Their feedback will ensure process automation does what you intend: optimize operations.

By demonstrating your commitment to your employees in the face of change, you will foster a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement that propels the success of your next process automation initiative.

Signs the Change Isn’t Sticking – And What You Can Do About It

As you begin to execute new process automation tools, look for these five warning signs that employees aren’t adopting the change.

1. Productivity declines after you announce the change.

While productivity dips are normal at launch time, a loss of productivity after an initial announcement of change can still be problematic, but certainly not a reason for panic. As change leaders, we must expect people to have concerns after hearing the news.

Some causes for productivity loss may include experiencing anxiety, more time spent talking with peers or managers to learn more, or even displaying passive or overt resistance — all affect current performance levels.

When planning communications, prepare all impacted team managers to take questions or assist with small group debriefs or detailed Q&As, so employees get any available information in a timely and approachable manner.

2. Both active and passive resistance emerges.

Resistance management is part of a good change strategy. Identify the likely cause of resistance  early, with a sponsor or leader network tied to the initiative. These moments often are make-or-break opportunities for more radical changes with work processes and roles.

Strong leaders will know where to expect resistance and have ideas of how to manage it. Change practitioners can provide proven approaches such as engagement tactics with the project team, tailored change education sessions, reward and recognition approaches, and more.

3. Rumors are spreading — and low morale along with it.

Without a controlled message, people and teams will formulate their own truths. Yet, with an aligned and prepared leadership team delivering messages (as we noted above) and having multiple ways for people to get answers or provide ideas, the likelihood of rumors diminishes quickly.

More sensitive topics such as potential role changes or elimination require even more rigor and repetition of the message. Leaders must be in sync and prepared to repeat the current change status in staff meetings, one-to-one sessions, or informal scenarios.

4. People develop workarounds to avoid the new technology.

If people use workarounds, try asking employees in a safe and objective setting why the new technology is not advantageous for them. You may find they were inadequately trained or that they have less cumbersome steps in the process, which may be valid to keep in the new ways of working.

Most importantly, follow up on their feedback and look for win-win scenarios. You may also use the CoE to initiate another round of process trials, testing, brief training, or Q&A sessions based on the specific area of work.

5. You are considering not fully implementing the new technology or abandoning process automation altogether.

Sometimes, stepping back and considering the larger enterprise automation strategy is helpful. Engage in discussions with stakeholders to remember the initial motivations behind this specific process automation and provide insights for refinement. There is always a second chance. If you decide to pause or try again, be transparent about the shortcomings you plan to address, take the right amount of time to regroup, and ensure appropriate resources are ready for the relaunch.

After you evaluate the process and determine it is ready to automate, you can restart strong by effectively communicating as you launch the initiative. Make sure to have check points built in along the way so teams don’t repeat mistakes.

Conclusion

The road to enterprise automation is paved with small-scale process automation successes. Lack of support for your people along the way creates barricades on that road. Apply an OCM approach to process automation to ensure you have your employees’ support from this initiative to the next.

Engage employees early and often in your process automation initiative to greatly increase the likelihood of achieving your business goals – it’s why you implemented the automation and technology. Put people first from the beginning of your process automation journey to create an adaptive, transparent environment that lets smart change decisions stick.

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