Rachel Blackburn from US2U consulting who helped transform Norwich taxi firm ABC

Effective management of change is a challenge that will be faced by all businesses in 2012.

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Most employees are adverse to change as many are fearful of how it will impact their job prospects, their motivation and ability to perform. Nevertheless the concerns of staff should be addressed at the top level.

Here are my top tips for managing change:

• Allow senior management sufficient time to plan a clear ‘business vision’. This should be in plain English so that all employees can relate to it and should outline the core products and services that the company will be providing, to which types of customer and emphasise what will make these products and services better than the competition.

Often it can be helpful to have this process facilitated to change existing thinking and tradition and produce innovative strategies. Using tried and tested methods such as strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis works well at this stage.

• Once the vision is clear, consult with the right people to put a roadmap in place so it’s clear how you plan to move from where you are today to achieve the vision. Good project management techniques are required at this stage including risk assessment and scenario planning with strategies for high risk and high impact possibilities.

• Ensuring that all employees are clear about the vision is key. Staff need to know what the business is aiming to achieve, even if some of the impacts are likely to be negative or result in job losses. As bad as things might get, honesty will make it easier for staff to rationalise the need for change and the consequences of it. To ensure effective briefing , always try and get feedback to check their understanding of the main points.

It is useful at this stage to enable staff to understand a typical Managing Change Curve - that is how they are likely to experience denial and resistance emotions before moving on to exploring how the how the changes may work to improve the business. Often this supportive side of managing change is done too late in the process.

• Strong, inspirational leadership will be required to drive through change effectively with minimum disruption to customer service. This applies from the chief executive through to supervisors. The whole management team needs to “speak with one voice” and be competent at motivating and coaching people through the change process. Often there can be too little involvement of key supervisors at an early stage. Managing expectations is important too when involving and consulting; not all suggestions and ideas will be viable.

• It is likely that any change process will require staff to learn new skills. As we saw in the Unlocking Business Growth Conference in December, 25pc of delegates recognises that skill development and acquisition is a priority to achieving business growth. The training and development plan should be a core part of the ‘change’ roadmap and this will require both time and a budget. Typically priorities for skill development will include updating customer service skills, leadership and engagement, time and priority management, managing conflict, influencing and IT skills.

• And finally never forget to communicate, communicate, communicate. It is very rare for staff to feel that communication is good during a change process. To try and improve this for your business, consider a regular briefing note or meeting to engage with staff. Be prepared to share ideas and draft proposals even when not all of the detail is known.

Rachel Blackburn is managing director of US2U Consulting