The Human Side to managing change

Well, we all talk about change... OD (Organisation Development)is the beautiful nomenclature given to it.
But after my change mangement interventions, I prefer to call it CM- Communication Management .
Communication is the key to any change management intervention.
Case Study

An ITES company was planning an HR Intervention for quite sometime. The management had constant problems of employee issues and attrition.A consultant was hired and asked to design the HR policies etal.
To begin with an employee satisfaction survey was conducted , the issues analysed and shared with the management.Next was the onus of designing competitive pay grading and well defined HR policies. Everything went according to plans and then the showcase of the final HR department happened.
The day, the policies were announced, 3 employees put in their papers and did the disappearing act.
The Management was perplexed and played the blame game well ( the consultant was deprived of its final payment).

However, the consultant wanted to analyse what went wrong and so started the hunt of the lost employees. The cat was finally out of the bag... the problems uncovered and the lost confidence of the Consultant resurfaced.

What had gone wrong
1. Before the consultant was engaged, the management had promised things to the employees to offer them temporary relief- the analgesic effect.
2. This went on for 2 years and the older employees showed patience and faith in the management.
3. The employees had high hopes on the management and knew things would take better shape after the HR Consultant was hired.
4. The Consultant did everything best possible to discover the best practices and designed an A Class HR Intervention.
5.The day the policies were announced, the consultant did the job well, spoke to the employees in the group and counselled individuals.

But things failed... and it was due to one major factor - Lack of Communication.
The management didnot face its employees and left it to the consultant to explain things to the employees. The newly appointed HR Director was present in the sessions but did a quick disappearing act once things started getting heated.The Consultant thought he had convinced the employees beautifully but the employees had come to face the reality. They knew that the management was playing a nasty game on them.
They now knew that the organisation would not deliver on all the promises that had been hoping for. The only thing they could do was leave the organisation without putting up a bad show. And they did...

Would invite your comments on how things could have changed.
Wait for my next post on the Model Of Change