Organizational change takes a lot of time and resources to be implemented successfully. The best way to implement change effectively is to follow the best practices and principles of change management. Working with change managers who have the knowledge and expertise in change management methods can increase the chances of successful adoption and implementation of change significantly. In this article, let us explore the change manager responsibilities.
Who is a Change Manager?
A change manager is a qualified professional in the field of change management. His primary role is to create an environment within a company that is conducive to change. He then creates various strategies and processes that can be executed across the organization to drive change effectively.
They are experienced professionals with high value in the market. Working with qualified and experienced change management can help companies reduce excessive spending on additional resources and save them from possible financial losses that come with a failed adoption. This is why companies opt for qualified change managers. A Change Management Course guarantees that the potential employee or consultant of change management has the knowledge and skill set needed to implement organizational and structural change successfully.
The average salary of a change manager in the United States was recorded to be upwards of $125,000 annually. Change managers are growing in demand, and so is change management as an industry. This is because companies do not have the luxury of time and resources to slowly introduce change and implement it across the company at their own pace. This can negatively affect the company’s growth due to its long implementation process, which is necessary to avoid today’s fast-paced environment.
Roles of a Change Manager
A change manager is responsible for organizing and implementing structural and enterprise-wide change in processes, applications, frameworks, or methodologies. This means including various departments and their leaders, project managers, and executive leaders to work together to achieve successful implementation of the change.
A change manager plays multiple roles for a company. Change managers act as the following to the organizations they work with:
- Leaders
- Visionaries
- Strategists
- Communications managers
- Coaches
- Analysts
Change Manager as a Leader
A change manager acts as a leader who guides teams to implement the change management processes and practices successfully. He provides teams with the necessary guidance they need and enables them to take ownership of their tasks and responsibilities to drive change.
Change Manager as a Visionary
A change manager acts as a visionary for the organization. He makes foresight based on his knowledge and comes up with strategies to help companies adopt change. He visualizes the implementation of change, works on solving problems that could arise with the adoption processes, and works alongside teams and leaders to manage successful integration.
Change Manager as a Strategist
A change manager is also an excellent strategist. He has to be equipped with multiple soft skills and technical skills to plan strategies around employees and departments for the successful implementation of change. Without proper planning and formulation of the strategy, the entire change management plan could fail.
Change Manager as a Communications Manager
A change manager also needs to have strong communication skills. This helps with both conflict resolution among and between teams and communicating his needs and requirements to various teams. Without effective communication of goals and strategies, teams will not understand the changes that need to be made, resulting in faulty implementation.
Change Manager as a Coach
There is a lot of knowledge transfer required when making organizational changes to a company. A change manager is required to make this knowledge transfer as easy and seamless as possible. He has to work with project managers and executive leaders to get his vision of change across and develop ways in which employees can be trained into turning the company’s vision of change into a reality.
Change Manager as an Analyst
There is no way to track the progress or effects of the company’s changes without thorough analysis reports. A change manager needs to be an analyst to generate insightful information based on feedback and other statistical data. This will help companies and teams see what parts are working and which ones are not and develop possible ways to combat any issues that may arise.
Responsibilities of a Change Manager
A change manager has many responsibilities as a part of his job role. Being a leader, a visionary, a communications manager, an analyst, and more come with their own sets of responsibilities that a change manager is required to fulfill. Some of the responsibilities that come with being a change manager are listed below:
- Creating strategies to implement change effectively
- Coming up with personalized and customized processes that will meet the specialized requirements of organizations and their teams
- Conflict resolution between teams and among team members
- Execution of planned strategies at an enterprise-wide scale
- Training and coaching project managers and other business leaders in the organization to manage change in the company
- Evaluation of team members and other employees to see if they are ready to accept change
- Creating an environment that is conducive to change
- Creating a mindset that will lead to easy adoption of the change
- Creating various performance metrics and analyses to see the progress of changes made
- Providing support to teams whenever necessary
- Coordinating with different stakeholders and teams to implement changes
- Working alongside the IT teams to make sure all risk management policies and strategies are in place for the change
- Making sure the company maintains the compliance standards necessary for change
- Conducting regular assessments to track the implementation of change
- Continuously improving upon existing strategies and processes to gain the maximum benefit from the implementation of change
- Being knowledgeable in the best practices and principles of effective change management
- Having the required technical skill set to implement change management practices across the company
- Having accurate analytical and problem-solving skills to find the root causes of problems and their solutions
Final Thoughts
Change management is not a simple process. It requires dedicated time, effort, and resources to be done successfully. Organizations need to realize the importance of following the proper guidelines and best practices with change management principles. Else, it can lead to a loss in revenue and even reputation.
So, working with certified change managers is highly recommended. They have the education and skills to plan, implement, execute, and maintain the company’s new changes while following best practices and fulfilling all the requirements. Some of the popular Change Management and Project Management courses that individuals and professionals can take up are:
