Managing your recruitment agency through change is difficult but it’s not impossible. When a business of any type goes through a change, the transition period can be tricky, especially if your employees aren’t entirely on-board with the transformation. In some cases, it can decrease organisational morale, but in worst-case scenarios, ineffective change management processes could lead to a decline in performance, revenue, and employee satisfaction.
Strategies for Managing Your Recruitment Agency Through Change
Here are some of the most successful ways to manage your organisation during a change process.
1. Identify Priorities
The first step in successfully managing your recruitment agency is establishing priorities.
A good management structure will typically create a list of key tasks that can only be accomplished through working on the key priority tasks.
Priorities can change from time to time, and to keep all duties aligned, you should always give due attention to the task in question and then work back to other priorities when necessary.
2. Take a Leadership Role
You can’t manage the change in any organisation without giving up some control. If you’re the leader, it’s up to you to set the tone, inspire trust, and create a sense of excitement in your employees.
Many leaders use the ‘hot potato’ technique, which involves keeping the organisation rotating, so employees are always learning new things and meeting new challenges while also developing the other positions.
This process goes something like this:
A simple approach like this will help employees understand exactly how the new project will be built and managed and what is expected of them to make it happen.
3. Use Specific Teams
In the world of recruitment, having all employees work together on every task is unrealistic. As a result, many businesses use teams where each person is responsible for one specific duty, rather than the traditional ‘one brain’ approach.
The objective of the new structure is that the team will have a better focus, higher performance, and higher overall satisfaction than individual employees.
4. Break the Model
Take the new model you have implemented and break it into smaller pieces. This will help to identify any areas where the model isn’t working and get you into the habit of working with the existing structure.
5. Receive Feedback
Another big benefit of asking your employees to report to you is that you will receive more feedback from them on a personal level.
This feedback can provide invaluable insight that will help you improve areas where the structure is failing. You can then begin taking steps to address the areas that need work.
6. Employ Good Governance
Management structure mustn’t become an issue of abuse or lack of accountability.
As a result, establishing good governance is critical to ensuring a positive and constructive working environment. In a professional environment, there is a set of core values that guide any business.
In addition, if you are working in a team environment, you will want to establish a code of conduct that employees should adhere to; This can help define the fundamental values and goals of your recruitment agency.
7. Make Hard Decisions
If you have decided that you want to go through a change in management structure, you need to be prepared to make hard decisions. There’s no point asking employees if they have any objections. You’ll either find that they do or won’t – they can’t afford to have their emotions cloud their judgement.
Change Doesn’t Have To Be Difficult
When the changes you’re making benefit your organisation, the best thing to do is promote the positives and educate your team(s) on how it impacts them. For example, when licensing new technology, driving tech adoption can be incredibly difficult for some agencies but that can be avoided with a simple tech adoption strategy.
The key-takeaway? Change can be scary and exhausting but knowledge is empowering.
TL;DR Key Takeaways
- Establishing priorities is the first step in managing your recruitment agency during a change process.
- Take a leadership role to set the tone, inspire trust, and create a sense of excitement in your employees.
- Use specific teams for better focus, higher performance, and higher overall satisfaction.
- Break the new model into smaller pieces to identify areas where it isn’t working.
- Receiving feedback from employees can provide invaluable insight to improve areas where the structure is failing.
- Employ good governance and establish a code of conduct that employees should adhere to for a positive and constructive working environment.
- Be prepared to make hard decisions when going through a change in management structure.