Managing Change in Maintenance

Is it important? As important as the impact of morale on the quality of your work

Change Management is rightly seen as one of the major impediments to ensuring a successful transition from a reactive shop to a pro-active, predictive environment. The problem is too few people understand what change management is. The cynic of course says that it does everything except change management - it's the staff that have to change.

Change management is not magic. It consists largely in putting yourself in the shoes of the employee and asking what's happening? will it affect me? does my job change? If the answer to any of these three questions is "Yes" then you need to address the issue. And the bigger the impact, the more carefully you need to address it.

First, what are the types of changes that require you to think about a change management initiative?

• new system implementation
• changes in procedures
• change in reporting relationship
• modified forms and reports
• introduction of new equipment
• increase in predictive maintenance
• change in stores layouts…..

…in fact anything that changes the way people do their jobs.

Who is involved? Anyone who uses the equipment, or the reports, or has to work in a different way, go looking for the stores etc. Some will be more directly and deeply affected, some less so.

Your response needs to be targeted at their concerns:

• Will I lose my job?
• What about my pay check?
• Will I get training?
• What if I can't do it?
• Where do I go for help?

So, your change management program needs to focus on:

• being specific about the changes
• why the change is happening
• the benefits to the organization
• the benefits to the employee
• pay and job security
• training
• more training if need be
• feedback on progress
• feedback on how they are doing and what needs to be done.

How should the program work? A combination of meetings, progress reports, informal and formal chats, progress reviews - in fact any combination can be used to get the message across.

Regular communication before, during and after is a must. Get to your staff with the facts before the rumours poison the atmosphere. Keep everyone who is involved updated on the changes before they happen, as they happen and after they happen.

Plan it ahead - build a road map - it makes it far easier.

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