As our industry evolves, the way we manage our business needs to change also. No longer can we run our business ad-hoc, with no real plan, hoping to take home a profit. There is much more planning required, including extensive support frameworks for our team to be able to perform at their maximum potential.

No longer can we run our business ad-hoc

With evolution comes change. We are implementing new tools and software programs into our business and promoting more business-focused frameworks to measure and drive performance. All this change can take a toll on our team, so we must be conscious of how an individual in our business is coping with this change and offering support to ensure they adapt as quickly as possible.

Change management is a concept that has been around for many years, whether it be informal or formal. It is, however, reasonably new to the property management space. The change management framework allows us to build a change management plan, which includes identifying who in our team may resist change and how we mitigate any discomfort to them. Pain for our team will mean a loss of productivity for us, so it is in our best interest to ensure our team ready for change.

In preparing our team for a change, we need to document a plan. This plan will include steps leading up to your move, as well as a structured training schedule. We need to be clear ‘Why’ this change is taking place and the benefits for the team. We will need to recruit each individual team member to support the change program we are going to implement.

Pain for our team will mean a loss of productivity for us

Once we have a plan, we will then need to identify which team members are going to lead the change program and which ones are going to resist. We will need advocates of the program to help promote and train other team members that may not be as comfortable with the change. Each team member will undertake their journey is this program, and it is up to us to identify where each of them sits so we can allocate resources to reducing any anxiety along the journey.

Once we start our change management program, we will need a way to assess progress. We have a plan for each team member, and we now need to know if they are progressing along with this plan as we had initially hoped. How are they adapting to this change? If they are advancing better than expected, we have a win. If they are lagging, we may need to allocate more 1-on-1 training to help them through the process. We may also need to hire extra staff to help out as productively will drop significantly, causing these team members to fall behind in their work. This will only compound the anxiety they are already feeling.

Change in our business is inevitable, and we must push the boundaries on this to remain relevant. Using a structured change management process will ensure the successful implementation of your change program.