The YES! Your Human Resources Solution team would like to welcome you to the month of September!  Summer is over, school is back in session, and everyone is looking ahead to the changes that autumn brings.  In honor of these changes happening now and those yet to come, we’d like to introduce our month-long series on Organization Change—why it’s important, the best ways to implement changes, and how to encourage a positive response.  Follow along with the YES! blog these next few weeks to see how it all turns out.

So let’s start at the beginning: why is it important for an organization to implement change?

The business world moves fast and can change by leaps and bounds in only a few months.  Take technology, for instance.  How successful would your business be if your communications relied on typewriters, rotary phones, and snail mail?  Even pagers or fax machines?  These days, potential customers will be looking for your website and social media feeds.  So if you’re still waiting for customers to find your phone number in the local telephone directory, you’re not meeting the evolving needs of your customer base.  And when you don’t meet the needs of your customer base, your business loses its competitive edge.

Speaking of your customer base, customers are always looking for better, easier, newer, more, and it’s important for businesses to adapt to these changing needs.  Think about the movie-rental giants of the last 30 years: companies like Blockbuster Video and Hollywood Video.  As on-demand digital technology became king through Netflix, Hulu, and the like, customers abandoned brick-and-mortar rental storefronts in favor of streaming movies from home.  This is why it’s key to monitor and anticipate customers’ changing needs and wants, and to adapt accordingly.  It’s very difficult to win back customers who have already left your business for something better, easier, or newer, especially if you fail to change your business model.

Another powerful catalyst for change is the economy.  A strong economy can provide your business with a wonderful opportunity for growth and development.  Perhaps that means working on product R&D, offering more training opportunities for staff, or even expanding the business.  This may be the exact time for your business to seize the day and surge ahead in its competitive edge (or to stay in the game while other businesses are also growing and developing).

While a strong economy can offer a solid opportunity for change, a weak economy may offer no other option but to change or risk failure.  Businesses may need to make some tough decisions in poor economic times, such as downsizing, introducing furlough days or salary reductions, or streamlining product offerings.  It’s critical to develop a strategy to know what changes to implement and in what phases.

In any opportunity for change, it’s important to recognize when technology, customer needs, the economy, or another factor necessitates change in your business.  It’s equally important to realize that any type of change will come with a new set of challenges, and to best prepare your business to tackle those challenges successfully.

If your business is considering Human Resources changes involving staffing, compensation, or even mergers and acquisitions, let us lend a hand.  At YES! Your Human Resources Solution, Orange County’s premier HR consulting firm, we’ll put our more than 20 years of experience to work customizing an HR experience that’s right for your business.  Find out what we can do for you!  Visit our website or contact us for a free consultation.