training and development Archives

April 28, 2024

Building a Strong Change Management Team for Your ERP Project

Building a Strong Change Management Team for Your ERP Project Editor Implementing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems is a significant undertaking for any organisation. It requires meticulous planning, coordination, and, most importantly, effective change management. Building a strong change management team is key to successful ERP implementation. This team plays a crucial role in guiding the organisation through the transition, addressing resistance, and ensuring a smooth adoption of the new system. In this article, we’ll explore the essential steps to assemble a strong change management team for your ERP project. Identify Key Stakeholders: The first step in building a strong change management team or, Change Agent Network, is identifying key stakeholders within your organisation. These individuals will have a vested interest in the success of the ERP project and will be influential in driving change across departments. Stakeholders may include C-level executives, department heads, project managers, IT specialists, and end-users who the new system will directly impact. Once key stakeholders are identified, engaging them early in the process is important. This involves communicating the goals and objectives of the ERP project, as well as the role they will play in the change management process. By involving stakeholders from the outset, you gain their buy-in and leverage their expertise and insights to inform decision-making throughout the project. 1. Form a Cross-Functional Team: Building a strong change management team requires assembling a cross-functional group of individuals with diverse skill sets and perspectives. This team should include representatives from various departments, including IT, operations, finance, HR, and customer service. Each member brings unique expertise to the table, allowing for comprehensive problem-solving and decision-making. Additionally, having a cross-functional team ensures that all areas of the organisation are represented and accounted for during the change management process. 2. Appoint a Change Management Leader: Strong leadership is a critical component of a successful change management team. Therefore, it is essential to appoint a change management leader who possesses strong communication, leadership, and project management skills. This individual will oversee the change management process, coordinate efforts across the team, and drive alignment with the overall project goals. The change management leader should also serve as a liaison between stakeholders and project management, promptly addressing any concerns or issues. 3. Promote a Culture of Collaboration and Open Communication: Effective change management relies on open communication and collaboration among team members. Create a culture where team members feel comfortable sharing ideas, raising concerns, and working together towards common goals. Regular meetings, brainstorming sessions, and feedback mechanisms can facilitate communication and ensure that everyone is on the same page throughout the project. Encourage transparency and honesty and be receptive to feedback from all team members. 4. Provide Ongoing Training and Support: Change management is an ongoing process that requires continuous learning and adaptation. Provide team members with the necessary training and resources to manage organisational change effectively. This may include workshops, seminars, and access to relevant tools and materials. Additionally, offer ongoing support and guidance to team members as they navigate the challenges of implementing the ERP system. By investing in the development of your change management team, you ensure that they have the knowledge and skills needed to drive successful change initiatives. 5. Monitor Progress and Adjust Strategies as Needed: Finally, it’s essential to regularly monitor the progress of the change management process and adjust strategies as needed. Track key metrics, such as user adoption rates, resistance levels, and stakeholder feedback, to gauge the effectiveness of your change management efforts. If obstacles arise or if certain strategies prove ineffective, be willing to adapt and pivot accordingly. Flexibility and agility are key to overcoming challenges and ensuring the success of your ERP project. Conclusion: Building a strong change management team is essential for the success of your ERP project. By identifying key stakeholders, forming a cross-functional team, appointing strong leadership, promoting a culture of collaboration, providing ongoing training and support, and monitoring progress, you can effectively manage change within your organisation and drive successful ERP implementation. Remember, change management is not a one-time event but an ongoing process that requires commitment, dedication, and teamwork. With the right team in place, you can navigate the complexities of ERP implementation and achieve your desired outcomes. If you’re looking for assistance with change management and ERP project implementation, Can!do Consulting can help. Our team of professionals specialises in managing the human aspect of change, providing support and guidance to your teams and departments throughout the project. With our help, you can inject confidence in your workforce and successfully navigate change management challenges. We offer different Change Management solutions across the full spectrum, from fully executing end-to-end change, to building internal capability for clients to execute upon the change strategy themselves, if they prefer and have the capacity to do so. Contact Us

by Written by Liezl Schulte

March 22, 2024

News

How to Assess if Your Organisation is Ready for Change

How to Assess if Your Organisation is Ready for Change Editor Change is inevitable. Whether it’s adapting to new technologies, restructuring operations, or implementing new strategies, organisations must constantly evolve to stay competitive. However, the success of these changes hinges on one crucial factor: readiness. How do you know if your organisation is genuinely prepared for change? Let’s explore this question while discussing the importance of building internal change management capabilities. Understanding Organisational Readiness Change can be daunting, both for individuals and entire organisations. Assessing your organisation’s readiness before embarking on any significant change initiative is essential. But how do you gauge this readiness? Here are some key considerations: Reflect on Past Responses to Change: Reflecting on how your organisation has responded to change in the past can provide valuable insights. Have there been challenges in communication, stakeholder alignment, or resistance? Understanding past experiences can help identify areas for improvement and inform future strategies. Evaluate the Current Environment: Consider the current landscape within your organisation. Are there multiple change initiatives underway? How are these changes impacting stakeholders and employees? Understanding the broader change portfolio and its implications can help prioritise initiatives and manage resources effectively. Assess Change Outlook and Competency: Evaluate your organisation’s change management capabilities and maturity. Does it have a dedicated change management office or a centre of excellence? Are change management best practices ingrained in its culture? Assessing your organisation’s readiness involves determining the level of commitment to change management and the active involvement of leadership. Building Internal Change Management Capabilities Effective change management is essential for successfully navigating organisational transitions. Building internal change management capabilities empowers organisations to manage change proactively and efficiently. Change can trigger uncertainty and resistance among employees. Organisations can foster engagement and mitigate resistance by involving employees in the change process and providing necessary support. Internal change management capabilities enable organisations to tailor change initiatives to meet the needs of their workforce, ultimately enhancing engagement and retention. Internal change management capabilities enable organisations to maintain consistency and alignment across change initiatives. A structured approach to change management ensures that change initiatives are managed systematically and cohesively, reducing the risk of confusion and errors. Additionally, having internal expertise allows organisations to adapt quickly to changing circumstances and sustain momentum throughout the change process. Steps to Build Internal Change Management Capabilities Building internal change management capabilities requires a systematic approach. Here are some steps organisations can take: Assess Current Capabilities: Conduct a thorough assessment of your organisation’s current change management capabilities. Identify gaps between existing practices and the requirements for effective change management. Develop a Change Management Framework: Establish a change management framework outlining processes, tools, and techniques tailored to your organisation’s needs. Define clear roles and responsibilities for team members involved in managing change initiatives. Provide Training: Offer comprehensive change management training to employees at all levels. Focus on developing skills such as communication, stakeholder, and project management, which are essential for navigating organisational change. Establish a Change Management Team: Form a dedicated change management team responsible for overseeing change initiatives and ensuring the effective implementation of the change management framework. Ensure the team comprises individuals with diverse skills and expertise relevant to managing change. Closing Thoughts: Assessing organisational readiness and fostering internal change management capabilities are crucial steps in ensuring successful navigation through periods of change. By reflecting on past experiences, evaluating the current organisational landscape, and gauging the readiness and competency for change, companies can pinpoint areas for enhancement and fortify their preparedness for transitions. Investing in internal change management capabilities empowers organisations to effectively engage their employees, leads to cost savings, and ensures consistency and alignment across various change initiatives. However, navigating change can be daunting, and seeking the expertise of a change management specialist can provide invaluable support and guidance throughout the process. With a proactive approach to change management, organisations can adapt to evolving challenges and thrive in today’s dynamic business environment. Reach out to Can!do Consulting and let us assist you in achieving successful change outcomes. Contact Us

by Written by Lyndsey Martin

November 2, 2023

Latest

Why Your Business Needs a Learning Management System: A Strategic Imperative.

Why Your Business Needs a Learning Management System: A Strategic Imperative. Editor Introduction: In today’s fast-paced business environment, staying ahead of the curve requires a relentless focus on learning and development. Learning Management Systems (LMS) have emerged as crucial tools for delivering, managing, and tracking educational resources within an organisation. From centralising training materials to providing analytics, an LMS offers multiple advantages that are hard to ignore. In this article, we’ll delve into the compelling reasons why your business should seriously consider implementing an LMS. Centralisation of Learning Resources: One of the most salient benefits of using an LMS is the centralisation of learning materials. Training resources are no longer confined to scattered folders, multiple platforms, or even different geographical locations. With an LMS, all learning content is housed in a single, easily accessible location. This central repository ensures that employees can conveniently access the learning resources they need, thereby improving both efficiency and engagement. Standardisation and Consistency: Standardising the training process is a key advantage that an LMS can offer. Without a centralised system, training content can vary in quality and depth, leading to inconsistencies. An LMS ensures that every employee receives the same level of training and assessment, thereby ensuring uniformity in the learning experience across the entire organisation. This is pivotal for maintaining consistent quality and performance benchmarks. Personalisation and Scalability: In an increasingly digital world, accessibility is paramount. Employees must be able to access training materials seamlessly, regardless of their location or language proficiency. Leveraging cutting-edge technology ensures that training materials are accessible in multiple languages and formats. A user-friendly platform that facilitates easy navigation empowers employees to engage with training content effortlessly. Empowering Stakeholders: While an LMS ensures standardisation, it also provides room for customisation. Modern LMS platforms allow for highly personalised learning experiences, catering to individual learning styles, needs, and paces. As your organisation grows, your LMS can scale along with it. This makes it simpler to add new courses, onboard new employees, and adapt the training to the changing needs of your business. Analytics and Reporting: An LMS doesn’t just deliver training; it also measures its effectiveness. Modern systems offer extensive analytics and reporting features, ranging from learner engagement and course completion rates to performance on assessments. This data is invaluable for identifying areas for improvement, and it allows organisations to make data-driven decisions to enhance their training initiatives. Cost-effectiveness: Traditional training methods can be expensive, requiring physical venues, printed materials, and possibly even travel. An LMS reduces or eliminates many of these costs. The convenience of having training modules accessible anytime, anywhere adds another layer of cost-effectiveness, making the ROI of an LMS implementation quite attractive over time. Regulatory Compliance and Updating: Many industries require compliance with various regulations and standards. An LMS helps you stay on top of this by centralising the delivery of compliance training and automatically logging who has completed the required modules. This simplifies both internal audits and external regulatory checks. Updating content becomes seamless, ensuring immediate alignment with any new or updated regulations. Collaboration and Social Learning: Learning isn’t just an individual endeavour; collaboration is often key to a more enriching learning experience. Advanced LMS platforms come equipped with features like discussion forums, group assignments, and peer-review capabilities, fostering a collaborative learning environment that enhances not just individual but collective knowledge. Evaluating the Right LMS for Your Organisation: When it comes to choosing an LMS, one size doesn’t fit all. The right platform for your organisation will depend on various factors such as the size of your workforce, the types of training you’ll be conducting, and the specific features you require. Therefore, it’s crucial to conduct a comprehensive evaluation. Consider factors like usability, scalability, and integration capabilities with existing systems. Moreover, look at customer reviews and possibly seek out case studies where the LMS has been effectively implemented in similar industries. Conclusion: The compelling case for implementing an LMS in your organisation is supported by a multitude of benefits, from centralised and standardised training to cost-effectiveness and improved compliance management. Furthermore, the flexibility to personalise learning experiences and the capability to scale as your organisation grows make it a strategic tool for long-term success. The analytics and reporting functionalities add another layer of value, enabling continuous improvement through data-driven insights. Investing in an LMS is not merely an operational enhancement but a strategic decision that significantly impacts your organisation’s performance, engagement, and long-term growth. Given these substantial benefits, if your organisation has not yet considered the deployment of an LMS, now is the opportune moment to do so. ___ Can!do works with large enterprises in South Africa to maximise the value of their employees, technology and business processes. To do this, we offer three fundamental services; change management, capability development and performance optimisation. We have 30 years of experience in these fields and have worked with leading companies in South Africa. We are a certified Level 2 B-BBEE company and a leading provider of new business systems and processes that drive user adoption. For industry insights and news, please follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Contact Us

by Editor

February 21, 2023

News

What is ‘learning in the flow of work’ and why is it beneficial?

What is ‘learning in the flow of work’ and why is it beneficial? Editor As we enter the Exponential Age, where everything is accelerating at a rapid pace, workers need to upskill to keep up with changes in the global business environment. Dusting off their notebooks and sharpening their pencils, for many employees it has been several years since they sat down to actively learn something new. Global pressures to stay professionally relevant means that nearly a billion people are taking part in the reskilling revolution. Supporting employees while they step out of their comfort zones to refresh and refine their skills, businesses are setting up training programs based on the concept of ‘learning in the flow of work’. What is ‘learning in the flow of work’? Josh Bersin originally introduced the concept in 2018 and, since then, it has gained massive traction among learning designers and corporate training professionals. The idea is that learning should be embedded into the workflow and be accessible to employees when they need it. This can be done through providing learning resources within the context of the workflow, such as micro-learning tools, video tutorials and searchable databases. Technology has become an enabler, with digital tools making it easier to integrate on-the-job learning aids. Employees are able to quickly access the right information or learning material while they are working. Learning in the flow of work is all about providing employees with the right resources, in the right place, at the right time. This enables them to be more productive and effective in their roles. What are the business benefits of ‘learning in the flow of work’? Having access to the right tools and knowledge (at the right time) makes the learning journey immediately relevant and useful. Employees stay engaged and up-to-date on the latest developments in their field. This approach to professional development can help reduce the time it takes to learn something new, allowing employees to get up to speed and become productive more quickly. This serves to improve efficiency, which translates to improved business performance. Learning in the flow of work allows employees to quickly solve problems and improve how they perform their jobs. By having the right information readily available, they are able to quickly apply new knowledge and skills to their work without having to take time out of their day to search for it. Traditional training programs can be very time intensive, requiring employees to leave their desks to attend workshops or seminars. With learning in the flow of work, upskilling happens on the job during a normal workday. Apart from saving time, on-the-job training is generally less expensive to roll out than other forms of formal training. In-person training workshops, for example, require businesses to spend money on a venue and a trainer, while also paying staff to attend. By outsourcing to instructional designers and change management specialists, businesses can draw on the expertise of others to implement tailored training based on the concept of learning in the flow of work. What are the benefits for employees? Learning in the flow of work generally leads to greater job satisfaction and improved morale among employees. Businesses empower employees to take charge of their learning by being able to quickly access learning aids when they are needed. Self-directed learning is highly motivating as learners can choose what to learn, when to learn it, and how much time to spend doing so. Employees become accountable for their own professional development. Learning in the flow of work offers increased employee engagement and improved motivation. This which help to support employee retention and development. As the learning material is immediately relevant, employees can put it into practice as they learn, which improves knowledge and skill retention. Is your company ready for the future of jobs? The global workforce is preparing for tomorrow’s economy. Companies need to ensure their staff have the skills needed to adapt to new ways of working. In the World Economic Forum’s 2022 session on the Future of Jobs, discussions included the need for new skills and competencies, the potential for automation and how to ensure a fair transition for workers who may be displaced by digital and technological changes. To promote digital adoption flow in the workplace, it is important to provide employees with the right tools, resources and training. This ensures they can make the most of what is available to them. Learning in the flow of work does just this. This approach creates learning paths for each employee, provides incentives for learning. It ensures that learning is integrated into the daily process of work. By creating a culture of learning and experimentation, employees are more likely to successfully adopt new technologies and skills. Can!do offers capability development and bespoke training programmes for South African enterprises. Using principles such as learning in the flow of work, we create effective learning experiences for employees aimed at performance optimisation. Through our change management training, South Africa can stay abreast of the latest trends in talent development. For more information about our services, please contact us today. ___ Can!do works with large enterprises in South Africa to maximise the value of their employees, technology and business processes. To do this, we offer three fundamental services; change management, capability development and performance optimisation. We have 30 years of experience in these fields and have worked with leading companies in South Africa. We are a certified Level 2 B-BBEE company and a leading provider of new business systems and processes that drive user adoption. For industry insights and news, please follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Contact Us

by Editor

February 2, 2023

News

Can!do will facilitate your capability development strategy

Can!do will facilitate your capability development strategy Editor Can!do is a leading consulting company in South Africa, with over 25 years of expertise in training, support, change management and business performance. Our core focus is to improve employee skills, facilitate digital transformation and increase the capabilities of South African companies. As such, we offer three fundamental services; change management, capability development and performance optimisation. These allow our clients to meet their full potential by improving the skills, knowledge and abilities of their employees. Our business idea is quite simple; if people understand their roles in the company and have the necessary tools and skills to perform well, then they will contribute exponentially to the success of the company. They can achieve this through capability development. For companies that want to grow and improve, a capability development strategy is necessary to guide employees and managers through a structured process. Can!do can help businesses with the formation and execution of these strategies. What is capability development? Essentially, capability development is the process of creating new competencies for employees or enhancing their existing skills. It enables employees to perform better and ensures that they are all aligned with business processes, systems and goals. A company is only as good as its employees, so they need to work seamlessly with one another and understand all the fundamental aspects of their roles. Change is inevitable. Businesses evolve, technology improves and new systems are developed on a regular basis. This is why it’s vital that businesses are prepared for change and that their teams can adapt to new methods of work. Skills development, technology integration and ongoing training are core components of a good capability development strategy. This process will help employees to learn new competencies and build upon their existing skills to ensure personal growth and development. In turn, teams become more effective, efficient and accomplished. How Can!do supports businesses If you equip your employees with the right skills, abilities and tools, then they can run business processes and systems more effectively. This makes companies more competitive overall. Can!do develops tailored performance support processes to suit each company and their requirements. This is a practical approach to capability development that ensures employees always have the right information to improve their work abilities. Using a range of blended learning materials, facilitated interventions and support toolkits, we empower employees to carry out their tasks more effectively. Why does a capability development strategy matter? Technology is evolving rapidly and businesses need to stay abreast of new ways of working if they are to remain competitive. The success of any business relies on the collective capability of its employees. This includes daily tasks, problem-solving abilities and using technology to its full potential. While it’s simple to say that skills development is a necessity for businesses, the actual process is more complicated to set up. Employees still need to perform their routine tasks and meet daily deadlines, so it can be challenging to slot training workshops and courses into the normal workday. This is where the strategy comes into play. A well-defined process with clear goals and timelines will allow companies to function normally and include learning sessions in the process. It will allow employees to be agile and ensure that they can attend training sessions when required. The strategy will also minimise downtime while employees are taking part in sessions, but also reduce attrition and money spent on recruiting new staff members. Can!do will develop and implement these strategies to suit each client’s needs. It must fit the requirements of the business and be impactful for the employees. A successful programme will foster a culture of continued learning and development. When executed well, capability development results in a more effective, competent and happy workforce. For more information about our services, please contact us today. ___ Can!do works with large enterprises in South Africa to maximise the value of their employees, technology and business processes. To do this, we offer three fundamental services; change management, capability development and performance optimisation. We have 30 years of experience in these fields and have worked with leading companies in South Africa. We are a certified Level 2 B-BBEE company and a leading provider of new business systems and processes that drive user adoption. For industry insights and news, please follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Contact Us