One of my favorite episodes of Friends is titled “The One with the Cop” but it’s probably best known as the “Pivot” episode where Ross buys a new couch and sketches a complex plan to get the couch up multiple flights to his apartment. As Rachel, Chandler, and Ross struggle with carrying the couch up the stairs, Ross continuously insists it will fit, yelling, “Pivot!” “Pivot!”. No surprise the couch never makes it to Ross’s apartment.

Pivoting has become a critical skill set for organizations over the last two years, as they’ve quickly changed business models, work environments, workflows, and roles to fit the ever-changing landscape of the global pandemic. In my Friends episode, Ross felt like he had done everything right; setting the goal to change his couch, sketching out a plan, getting help, and loudly communicating his expectations –– but like many businesses today, his plan to pivot didn’t work out quite as he expected.

Successful pivots do more than set a direction for change. Over the last 25 years, our research in the annual HR Systems Survey has studied the ability of organizations to achieve change and, ultimately, the desired outcomes from their HR Systems Investments.

What did we learn about change management in the past two years?

HR has the unique opportunity to help create adaptable organizations by developing change capabilities and leading with courage. Whether change is driven internally by strategic initiatives or in reaction to external forces as we’ve experienced these last few years — all change impacts people, culture, process, technology, and available data.

If you are assessing even greater pivots in 2022, this year’s annual report includes detailed practices from HR leaders proactively driving HR System change initiatives with minimal burnout, strong communication, and the ever-important increased adoption rates. Below is a short excerpt from this year’s annual report on practices and change.

How We Should Think About “Practices”

When dealing with categories as important and unique as change management, it’s helpful to throw out archaic terms like “best practices.” Traditionally, best practices often assume that if a larger more mature organization puts forward a practice then, it’ll work in every environment. The sheer volume of organizations using such a practice may also position it as a best practice.

Bottom line: The term “best practice” has been ill-defined in business-based research and case studies. We recommend, therefore, that organizations carefully assess its use, unless the data can be shown to work in multiple environments, as well as across various data sets and timelines.

Another way to look at contextualizing HR practices and determining a pathway forward for your organization to think about research and shared practices is in the following categories.

• Common practices. Those being done by most organizations with no repeatable data as of yet on positive or negative outcomes – and, while it’s good to understand common practices, it’s not always necessary to follow them.

• Promising practices. Newer practices being tested by a smaller set of organizations – often in contradiction to common practices – but with no data as of yet on impacts. While these could be innovative movements forward, they should be assessed for their value, risk, and/or adverse impacts that have yet to be identified.

• Proven practices. Those practices that have been shown to have a consistent relationship to repeatable outcomes across various organizations at various times. These findings become even more relevant if they can be corroborated by other research efforts – and while they are more likely to garner long-term outcomes in multiple business environments, they should still be assessed for their value based on each organization’s own unique culture, capacity, and capabilities.

An example of this approach can be found in our own change management research. This year, we asked organizations for the top 5 change management practices that had an impact on their HR project/program success (see Figure1). Since this is our first year asking these questions, this data should be viewed primarily as common practices until validated.

Figure 1: Common Change Management Practices

Source: Sapient Insights, 2021-2022 Annual HR Systems White Paper

When compared with whether an organization exceeded or just met their implementation goals, the top 3 practices that aligned with exceeding implementation outcomes are:

• Dedicated change resources
• Open and frequent communications
• Active engagement of middle management

All 3 of the practices above fall into the top 5 common practices but, at this time, we still only consider them as promising practices without further research. Over the next several years, we – and hopefully other research entities – will assess if this data-driven relationship continues to be found across multiple organization types. We also need to monitor the ongoing impact and context as environments and external factors can change outcomes over time.

Understanding & Using Data

Replication lets you see patterns and trends in research results – making those results stronger and better able to support the findings, while helping maintain the integrity of data. This approach to evaluating research is simply a good data analysis practice. In a world of continuous change in which organizations are leveraging more data every day to make decisions that impact employees, business outcomes, and future organizational stability, HR professionals who develop these savvy data analysis skills will be in high demand.

Another way to better understand the data being presented – as simple numbers or quantitative data – is to also gather further comments on a topic in terms of qualitative data. In Figure 2, we wanted to confirm the definition of “structured change management” practices by asking organizations to describe their approaches to change – with some of the more common and unique practices included.

Figure 2: Approaches to Change Management by Survey Organizations

Source: Sapient Insights, 2021-2022 Annual HR Systems White Paper

HR functions that focus on the specific outcomes their organizations are trying to achieve – versus a plethora of HR best practices – are generally perceived as adding more value and as being a more strategic partner.

As you look ahead in 2022, remember that honing your skills in evaluating research and assessing shared practices for their value to the organization’s unique needs is worthwhile. 

If you are interested in discussing how to focus on specific outcomes for your organization for the upcoming year, we’d love to have a conversation! Schedule a consultation today, and we can help you wherever you find yourself on the journey to developing your HR Systems Environment or other transformative initiatives.