Initiate common change practices

8 minutes

After using Microsoft 365 technology to help drive change, organizations are often interested in leveraging recommended best practices. Let's look at:

General change practices and considerations for your change initiative
Scenario specific common practices and tactics leveraged in common workplace scenarios

General change practices

Consider the following best practices with your change initiatives:

Actively involve sponsors and stakeholders. Sponsors play a key role in driving change. You can equip your sponsors with key talking points and ways to role-model behaviors. Sponsors can also assist in helping build a coalition of support across the organization. Example: When leaders ask people to adopt Microsoft Teams, do they send this communication through Teams or in email?
Communicate "What's in it for me". Communicate the value that the change will yield not only to the organization but to the individual employee. Example: A reduction in time spent in unproductive meetings could free up time for employees to work on the projects that matter to them the most.
Empower and create psychological safety. Employees can be reluctant to try something new due to a fear of repercussions. Example: The leader of a department sends to all employees a message that shares her excitement and approval of a change effort.
Provide clear actions and guidance. What is it that people need to do differently and what guidance can you provide to help them adopt the new behaviors? Example: Manager tips-and-tricks emails are sent out to all managers and include tips such as how to establish valuable 1:1 coaching sessions.
Share successes. Reinforce behaviors by sharing moments of success more broadly. Example: During a town hall, the department with the greatest adherence to reserved focus time is recognized.
Provide access to more info. Communicate to whom or where employees can go for more information. Example: A central site with FAQs and learning material is created along with an email address where individuals can direct their questions.

Scenario-specific common practices

The following are some common scenarios and tactics for taking action:

Reduce meeting overload
Develop effective managers
Reduce organizational silos

Reduce meeting overload

Meeting overload is a frequent burden on employees and can be measured through Viva Insights metrics. The following list of common tactics can help address meeting overload.

Schedule shorter meetings. Work expands to the time allotted for it. Change meeting length defaults from 60 to 45 minutes and from 30 to 25 minutes.
Create a norm of scheduling "focus-time". People often feel overloaded because collaboration tasks take more time than we expect. Focus time is a block of time without meetings that employees can use for the tasks that matter most.
Invite fewer people. When preparing the agenda, include the purpose of each participant's attendance. The exercise reveals unnecessary invitees, including people who are optional or only require meeting notes.
Cancel recurring meetings. Every quarter reassess the need for recurring meetings that consume the most time. Try canceling some and then add them back if missed.
Say no to meetings. Managers who decline meetings they are not needed in, with a brief explanation for why they declined, empower employees and role-model healthy habits.
Use Viva Insights to shorten meetings. When composing a meeting invitation with a duration of one hour, the organizer sees a reminder to optionally shorten the meeting by 15 minutes.
Use Microsoft Teams to avoid meetings. Teams channels provide team members with a new way to get questions answered and provide updates without the need for a meeting.

Develop effective managers

The relationship between an employee and their manager can increase effectiveness through adequate coaching or cause redundancy if employees are not empowered. The following list of common tactics can help drive manager effectiveness.

Enable Insights for People Managers. Viva Insights offers dashboards to help managers identify ways to improve team behavior.
Schedule recurring 1:1 meetings. Require managers to meet with direct reports for 30 minutes at least twice a month and hold them accountable for achieving that goal.
Prepare discussion points for 1:1s, but remain flexible. 1:1s are best with structure but not too much to allow for co-creation. Agree on discussion points at the start and allocate adequate time to the most important topics.
Establish clear decision rights. Create clear guidelines for when managers are needed for a decision and identify who within a team closest to the action is accountable for decisions.
Use Teams and OneNote to share meeting notes. Employees can share meeting notes with decisions and action items with managers as an alternative way to keep them informed.

Reduce organizational silos