Unit 4: Talent Management and Facilitating Change
Now that we have addressed the organizational failures related to change management, it is important to review how employees impact change management. In many cases, employee resistance to change can be detrimental. If the employees do not believe in the change or that the change can occur, as a workforce, they can have a dramatic impact on the process. As a leader, it is important to recognize that most employees want to do a good job and that change can be scary. Employees need that reassurance that everything will work out for the best and that they can be a conduit for that change. This unit will cover talent management and facilitating that change through employees.
Completing this unit should take you approximately 5 hours.
Upon successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- analyze how employees in a given organization can effectively contribute to a change process;
- determine what a leader can do to affect change in a given situation;
- analyze the change management process from the employee perspective in a given situation; and
- analyze how to track follow-through with employees in a given situation for better management.
4.1: Talent Management
As a leader, you may greatly affect employees and their ability to make change effectively. Understanding how employees influence change to be successful or unsuccessful is important. This section will cover those issues.
Employees have the power to drive change or stop it from occurring. Change can be something that employees do not want to see, and they may be afraid of any changes. It is very important to have employee buy-in when making business changes today. This short promotional video covers why transformational change often fails. It is important to involve employees in the change process so that they understand that changes may make their job easier.
Having the support of employees during the change process is important and may be the one thing that stands between making an effective change or not. This section covers managing change and employees during that process. After you read, answer the concept check question at the end.
Each week, you should meet with each of your employees one-on-one. These meetings will help you better understand your employees and how they might better fit in with your team. When attempting to effectively make a change, you will need to completely understand the change and then work with your employees to implement that change. One-on-one meetings will help you to do just that. These videos give tips for making one-on-one meetings more effective. How can you use one-on-one meetings to help facilitate change in your department?
4.2: Facilitating Change
As we have discussed, change is important to the survival of a business, and implementing change can be difficult. You can successfully enact change by better understanding the change itself, your team, and what you need to do to move forward.
Good leaders know that there is a balance between understanding employees, their needs, and fears and how to relate to them when making workplace changes. This video gives a few great examples of how leaders can assist in transforming their businesses and employees simultaneously.
This short promotional video covers how leaders can help lead their people into change.
As a leader, you must deal with employees who do not follow instructions easily. You must deal with these types of employees when attempting to facilitate change. This video explains seven steps for better communication with employees who do not follow instructions. Can you give an example for each step in this process? How might you help an employee who is struggling to listen and communicate with your team?
4.3: Leaders and Change Management
By better understanding the change your organization would like to implement, you can create your plan to assist your department in leading the change. This plan will include what needs to be done, a timeline, communication, proper delegation, follow-through, and what will be expected of you as a leader.
Once you receive the change plan from upper management, it will be important for you to plan what changes your department will need to make. These changes will include a timeline or deadline of when the change needs to be implemented, who on your team will complete specific tasks, and you will need the plan to follow through on the change to ensure the tasks have been completed or implemented. This video explains various tips for managers as they delegate to employees.
Your communication skills will be important as you assist your organization during the transformational stage. It is important to understand how to communicate with your employees and those in a position above your own. Understanding the change and then relating that information to your employees will become fundamental to your job. Read these sections about reinforcement, motivation, and behavioral change strategies.
This reading explains how you can better motivate employees and their performance using various reward strategies. These rewards may include monetary rewards or things your employees value that you may discover during your one-on-one meetings. After you read, answer the concept check questions at the end.
Follow-through is important for any function of your job. But as a leader, you must also follow through with each of your employees. During change, this follow-through may occur daily or weekly to determine if the changes are being implemented. You may have employees who are underperforming during the change process, and it is important to deal with this situation as soon as possible to ensure success in your department while facilitating change. This video gives examples of how to deal with underperforming employees and how to follow through with those employees.
Conclusion
This unit covered information about leaders and how they can assist their teams in facilitating change. It is important to understand what you can do to effectively make a change in your department and how to deal with your employees while making that change.
Unit 4 Study Resources
This review video is an excellent way to review what you've learned so far and is presented by one of the professors who created the course.
Watch this as you work through the unit and prepare to take the final exam.
- Unit 4 Review Slides File PDF document
You can also download the presentation slides so you can make notes.
We also recommend that you review this Study Guide before taking the Unit 4 Assessment.
Unit 4 Assessment
- Receive a grade
Take this assessment to see how well you understood this unit.
- This assessment does not count towards your grade. It is just for practice!
- You will see the correct answers when you submit your answers. Use this to help you study for the final exam!
- You can take this assessment as many times as you want, whenever you want.