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| Odd
one out |
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| The
average organisation undergoes a major programme of change
every three years. While periods of change can be very stressful
for employees, can appointing an interim change manager help
ease the process for charities? Hannah Fearn finds out |
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“By
nature man hates change; seldom will he quit his old home
till it has actually fallen around his ears,” so said
the Scottish writer and historian Thomas Carlyle. In today’s
world, however, organisational change is a fact of working
life. With so many charities competing in similar marketplaces,
they must change to remain relevant and functional, and to
prevent the very picture that Carlyle paints of a structure
falling apart around the ears of those within it.
But Carlyle is right when he says man hates change. Periods
of change can be the most stressful time for an employee,
unclear about the impact it will have on their role, and equally
as difficult for the employer. Not only must the manager lead
the transformation, but also battle against potential employee
dissatisfaction in the process. The Chartered Institute of
Personnel and Development warns that gaining the support of
staff is essential, especially as research indicates most
organisations now undergo major change once every three years.
To leap these hurdles, the appointment of an interim change
manager is becoming an increasingly popular option. Hays recruitment
consultancy helps charities find the right candidates to ensure
that organisational change is delivered as smoothly as possible,
and this often means candidates from outside the charitable
sector.
“High calibre candidates with a strong charity background
are increasingly hard to find, as they are in short supply
and demand a premium due to the specialised expertise they
possess,” says Suzi Crathorne, business manager in the
specialist charity and not-for-profit division at Hays.
Charities are trying to become more efficient by restructuring,
merging with other charities working towards a common goal,
setting up shared services and implementing new systems. “To
achieve this, charities are finding that candidates with the
required skill set don’t exist in great numbers in the
sector, and therefore are more likely to come from the private
sector,” Crathorne admits.
At Hays, candidates with both commercial and not-for-profit
backgrounds are pooled because the consultancy believes their
clients are looking for a person with experience of similar
projects rather than expertise in third sector management.
“For our clients, it’s the skill set and commercial
awareness that’s more desirable than having the sector
specific background,” Crathorne says.
David Smith was recruited through Hays as an interim change
manager for the British Council, where he is currently working.
He began his contract in June this year and is expected to
stay until the end of January, with the possibility of an
extension if necessary. His background is exclusively in the
private sector, and he has been drafted in to help the British
Council move from working in 110 separate countries to a series
of 13 different ‘overseas regions’.
He will also lead the implementation of the SAP accounting
and management IT system, often used in private sector companies
and with which he has worked in the past. Smith says that
charities like the British Council are forward thinking, adapting
some of the best practice in the commercial sector to work
for them and using interim managers to support the change
process.
“There is a role for people from the commercial sector
to play in terms of driving change and implementing change
in the public and charitable sectors,” he says. “I
got a phone call about this opportunity and while it was in
the [third] sector there were a lot of aspects to the role
which were consistent with what I know is happening within
the commercial sector.”
Smith agrees that one of the reasons charities need to bring
in external candidates to manage change is because there isn’t
the expertise within the third sector. Moreover, the introduction
of a new way of thinking can be very profitable. “It
brings a commercial perspective to the organisation at a crucial
point,” he says. “The sort of work that I’m
doing here, I’ve done in at least a couple of organisations
previously and a lot of the issues are very familiar. Yes,
there are some different issues in terms of structure and
culture but in some respects that’s what makes the job
interesting.”
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The appointment of external interim change managers is also
an indicator of the changing face of the third sector, Smith
says. “With the ever increasing requirements to be able
to demonstrate objectives and outcomes that have been achieved
in a value for money, cost-effective way, in some respects
the shift towards a more commercial sector approach to operations
is inevitable.”
This is good news for charities, which are now able to make
use of a new resource open to them and implement successful
organisational changes in the process. But employing a manager
on an interim contract can also have drawbacks. What happens
to the organisation once the change manager leaves?
Chris Ludrum, companion of the Chartered Management Institute
and vice chair of Barclay’s Bank identified handover
as the most critical aspect of a change management project
in an advice note for institute members. “Once the rapids
have been navigated and the project is nearing completion,
the endeavour moves into – in my experience –
one of the most testing times, when an effective handover
from the project to the line executive responsible for implementation
and securing the benefit is achieved,” Ledlum warns.
“To ensure that the business realises the full benefit
of the change, you must sustain the behavioural and process
change in business operations.”
This is a danger recognised both by charities and by interim
managers. Smith says that there is a possibility of “declaring
victory too soon” and handing the reins back before
the project has reached maturity. He says the transfer of
knowledge is the answer; interims must make sure that operational
managers know exactly how to proceed before they leave a charity.
They will continue to sell the project to employees who may
seek to promote dissent in the absence of the change manager.
“Part of the role of an effective change manager is
to involve and engage stakeholders throughout the whole change
process in order to get their commitment and to give them
the experience to understand the reasons behind the change,”
Smith says. “If you can engage some ‘champions’
who are going to do the PR for the change programme, that’s
great.”
While the third sector can still learn from the skills of
those working in the private sector, not all consultants agree
that an external change manager is helpful. Benita Sutton-Cegarra,
consultant with BJC Europe and working with BP, says rollout
and implementation of change is best delivered by a change
agent, but it is even better to appoint internally. “The
advantage of this approach, rather than appointing one of
the BJC Europe consultants as an interim change manager, is
that the organisation perceives the change as coming from
within and not being ‘done to them’,” she
says.
The change manager will have more hurdles to overcome if working
within a not-for-profit organisation, and will have to work
hard to establish goals at the beginning of the process for
it to work. This is why, Sutton-Cegarra believes, it is even
more important for a charity change manager to be chosen from
within the organisation’s existing staff team.
“Our experience in the charitable sector is that the
management challenges of running the operation are compounded
by the structure of the charity and the involvement of the
‘great and the good’ in any decision-making process,”
she adds. “In charitable organisations, the importance
of establishing common goals and sound foundations are, therefore,
even more important than in the private sector and change,
which can be facilitated by external professionals, still
has to come from within.”
While interim change managers can be a useful tool, it is
clearly recognised that organisations need to own and lead
change themselves, as most people only accept and approve
change if they have been involved with it. And as change is
an inevitable consequence of growth and advancement of an
organisation, whatever technique is used, staff need to be
kept on board – despite what Thomas Carlyle has to say
about it.
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