DECIDE ON THE
DESIRED OUTCOME CHANGE
MANAGEMENT
In order to measure our success, we set
metrics around adoption of the travel
program: use of the online booking tool,
bookings with preferred travel suppliers,
cost savings and other travel policy
compliance items. The march toward our
shared goals is different with every client.
Some totally understand the need to
change up some routines and immediately
begin to communicate to their employees,
while others see the business need but are
slow to move their workers along the path
to change. We want to quickly demonstrate
the value of our partnership, so I always
recommend setting up objectives and
putting my change management plans
into action right away. The more time an
organization has to implement changes,
the better the outcome. Our Change Management program
encompasses employee engagement
and adoption of organizational changes
in how work will be done. We supply
our clients with a simple introduction to
the new process, and deploy our tried
& true tools and techniques to manage
the people side of change to achieve the
required business outcome. Our Change
Management process helps identify and
remove barriers to adoption, mitigates
resistance and equips people with the
knowledge and abilities to make the
transition successfully.
CREATIVE
COMMUNICATION
When we are training staff on a new
set of workplace skills, we know that the
message needs to be reinforced many
times and in multiple methods. People
have to hear messages an average of
seven times for it to really stick. It helps
to have the same message delivered
from multiple communications vehicles
like email, company intranet, hard paper
copy, etc. We come up with individual
solutions to reach employees in a way that
fits within their culture. It’s never a single
email. We can do any combination of a
Town Hall, a presentation in a Manager’s
meeting, a newsletter, or a one-sheet for
the company intranet.
We have a client in the healthcare
industry that was spending about $6
million annually in business travel. We
rolled out a new travel program to their
major offices in Texas and Arkansas and a
series of brick & mortar locations. We hung
up posters announcing the dates of our
travel program trainings, with our photos
and those of the company stakeholders.
We handed out a printed ‘boarding pass’
to attendees as they entered the training.
It was an introduction to our session with
names and contact information that could
be tacked up in their cube as a cheat
sheet for the future. When we signed our
contract, they were at about 30% usage
for online bookings but they wanted
to get to 60% within 90 days. With our
Change Management effort, we were
at 85% adoption of the online booking
tool within 30 days. We worked with the
company’s sponsors to roll out the new
travel program the right way and were
thrilled that we exceeded their business
outcome in a third of the time.
PUSH ADOPTION
Encourage your employees to support
the new travel plan by offering attractive
incentives. Many clients use a gamification
strategy to hasten program adoption.
One of our clients is a world-renowned
university which offered its employees
the chance to win two airline tickets
every month for the first six months
of our partnership. This underscores
the importance of consolidating the
organization’s purchasing power to get
lower rates and added benefits from their
travel suppliers.
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