Operational Change: Getting New Processes to Work

A new process gets approved in a meeting, and by lunchtime, everyone has an email explaining what needs to change. The files are updated, the instructions are ready, and leadership moves on to the next task. On the floor, though, employees still have customers to serve, orders to pack, and shelves to stock. They have to work out how the new process fits into a shift that is already busy. That is where things can start to go wrong.

What happens in the office?

The work starts at a point which leadership does not even know exists. It starts on the floor where employees are stocking shelves, packing boxes, and serving customers. A study by Axonify found that nearly half of location managers say new changes often come without any support needed for them to carry them out.

What does this gap look like in practice?

• The signs are often visible in the day-to-day work long before anyone declares the change a failure.
• The new instructions are not clear, and employees continue to use the old process.
• There are different shifts and different steps, as no one has explained what has changed.
• Managers waste time responding to the same questions instead of getting the team comfortable with the new process.
• When workload becomes heavy, staff skip certain steps as the new process is longer.
• Errors, customer complaints, and rework go up despite team training.
• Staff cut off questions because they believe they should know that.

These issues can appear to be carelessness or resistance, but can actually indicate another issue: the process wasn't introduced thoroughly enough to allow people to consistently use it.

Why does nobody spot this?

The difference here stays hidden because nobody is lying; leadership truly believes that the update has reached everyone, while workers try to follow the new process with whatever training they have received. According to Forbes, more than a quarter of the frontline workers believe that the leadership understands their day-to-day work. Both sides think they are on the same page, but reality is much different from what they can imagine.

Is it really a buy-in problem?

Before your business decides that its next challenge failed because they did not buy in, why not ask a simple question: whether the team actually had time, training, and support to make things work, or did the yes in the meeting quietly become their problem to solve alone?

This question never gets asked during the official meeting when the plan is fresh, and everyone in the room agrees with each other. It shows up months later, when results quietly fall short, and nobody can point to exactly where the change actually broke down. 

Is your team keeping up with operational changes? Find out where the gap between new processes and day-to-day work begins, and how better training, coaching, and frontline support can help your team put change into practice.