Organizational Change Management
An international university engaged ETI to design and implement an Organizational Change Management (OCM) strategy for its President-sponsored 2025 technology-based initiative. The strategy needed to be implemented for over 7,000 staff and faculty in domestic and international locations.
What got in the way — and how we got through it.
Geographic Diversity
Our client’s employees were geographically dispersed, so the OCM strategy needed to include 24/7 access to training content.
We partnered with the university SMEs to develop a comprehensive OCM strategy that delivered content to users globally via the intranet and included quick start guides, detailed user manuals, recorded local training sessions, webinars, and feature-based videos.
Department Head Buy-In
Department head buy-in and support of the new technology was crucial to the deployment’s success, but not all were on board.
ETI requested that the CIO introduce us and the initiative to the 55 department heads. After that email, we scheduled engagement sessions with each department head and their key staff to explain the initiative’s value and give them the opportunity to express their concerns and department-specific needs. This feedback was incorporated into the OCM strategy.
Resistance to Change and Differing Levels of Technical Literacy
Many employees were reluctant to accept the transition to the new technology because it would drastically change how they worked. Some employees had done their jobs using old-school tools and needed to level up their skills.
We appointed an adoption champion in each department to work with us. We also conducted special training sessions for senior-level employees who were less familiar with technology before the deployment. Moreover, we provided them one-on-one support after the deployment to help them with their concerns.
VIP Users
Special attention was required for VIP faculty and staff to ensure they knew how to use the technology once deployed so that the transition would not be disruptive for them.
One-on-one training sessions were provided for 150 VIP users and their support staff. A hotline was put in place for them to contact the ETI team post-deployment.
Help Desk Ability to Support the New Technology
The help desk team was unfamiliar with the new technology and needed the training and tools to support 7,000+ users.
ETI asked that a Business Analyst be assigned to the project to work with functional SMEs and the help desk point of contact to define detailed workflows of every possible scenario that could necessitate a call to the help desk. Training documents were created for each workflow for publication in the help desk knowledge base. A dedicated team of eight help desk employees was assigned to support the new technology platform. The ETI team served as tier-1 support for the first 48 hours after deployment and used this to train the dedicated team before turning all support over to them.
COVID
Halfway through the implementation, the university was shut down, requiring an end-to-end retooling of all logistics and implementation plans.
The result.
- Trained before go-live
Thanks to the OCM strategy, 7,000+ faculty and staff were trained at all locations before the technology was deployed.
- Leaders on board
The engagement sessions with department heads solidified their support and equipped them with the information they needed to advocate for the new technology within their organizations.
- Champions in every department
The designated department champions served as cheerleaders for the change and ensured department-specific needs were adequately addressed. The unique training provided to the non-technical users made them comfortable with the technology before rollout.
- VIPs at ease
VIP faculty and staff valued having access to OCM staff via a dedicated phone number and email, which removed their trepidation.
- Support ready early
A new, tiered support structure was operationalized one month before deployment and ready to handle all tickets and inquiries.