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People Plans: The Secret Sauce of Business Transformation

Why Successful Transformations Depend on Engaging People, Not Just Designing the Perfect Plan

Imagine preparing for a significant business transformation, such as establishing a new business unit or center of excellence for your organization. You’ve secured leaders to sponsor the effort, designed the perfect operating model and have an extensive technical rollout plan. You’ve thought everything through, so you can be confident it will be a success, right?

Wrong. There’s a critical X factor missing from what’s been considered thus far: You haven’t considered how to engage and prepare stakeholders to drive adoption.

That doesn’t just mean telling people what’s happening and expecting them to get on board. Imagine coming home to find that your kitchen has been completely remodeled — new appliances, a different layout and all your dishes moved to unfamiliar places. Your partner greets you with a smile and says, “Surprise! I thought this would make things better for us!” While the intention may be good, your first reaction is likely frustration, confusion or even resistance. Why? Because even well-intended change feels disruptive when you’re not involved in the process.

The same applies in the workplace. Telling a team that they’ll be transitioning roles, or even locations, as part of a business transformation and expecting them to immediately adapt is jarring. Without involvement, context or support, employees are more likely to feel unsettled than engaged.

The missing piece to your preparation is the people plan. Regardless of what the transformation might mean for the company, your stakeholders will all have their own interests at the forefront of their minds. Your people plan will tap into those interests and enable employees to move through the necessary changes toward adoption. To enable this progress, the people plan considers the following, among other questions:

How aligned is leadership on the change vision, and how committed are they to driving it beyond initial approval?
What is the organization’s capacity for change, and how have past transformations shaped employees’ perceptions?
What dedicated resources — financial, human and technological — are in place to support the transition?
What resistance can be anticipated based on what you know about corporate culture, employee motivations and the likely concerns various levels or teams will have?
How can employees be engaged early to create buy-in and ensure they feel included in the transformation rather than subject to it?
What key behaviors and mindset shifts are required for employees to thrive in the new model?
How will adoption and progress be measured and tracked beyond implementation milestones?
What mechanisms will be in place to sustain engagement and reinforce new ways of working over time?

Consider the recent story of a $1 billion North American financial services company that stood up a new operating model and business unit in Europe to progress three strategic objectives. People planning began at the effort’s conception when exploring what critical shifts would be required to move from its current state to the desired future state (during a workshopping phase called the Feasibility Assessment). At this stage, considerations included team structures, Responsible, Accountable, Supportive, Consulted and Informed (“RASCI”) for the existing and new business units, and technical implications. Decisions around these elements would each be met with a distinct reaction from employees. In some cases, we could expect a whole team to respond a certain way, but in others, the anticipated reaction was at the individual level.

Because of this variation, the client’s two key concerns were resourcing to support the transformation and the degree of communication around it. Put simply: In an organization that’s already endured heavy change, how could we minimize the waves this would make across the organization while still supporting those who would be most affected? Our change impact assessment helped target where resourcing and people planning should be concentrated to minimize distraction across the broader organization and tailor support based on team, and in some cases, individual needs, where retention was most critical.

As designs became more detailed, so too did the understanding of employees’ anticipated concerns and needs throughout the transformation. Recognizing the emotional responses that employees would experience and how significantly those emotions could influence their engagement was critical to developing a plan that maximized adoption rates while ensuring ongoing business continuity.

At worst, employees would resist the change, part ways with the organization and inhibit the knowledge transfer required for the transformation’s success. At best, they’d understand the organizational and personal benefits of the effort, have a clear understanding and ability to function under the new operating model, and accelerate the organization’s ability to achieve its objectives.

As the technical planning for rollout was underway, so too was a more detailed “people plan,” which aligned the identified tactics to address our target stakeholders’ needs with critical milestones and KPIs for the transformation.

One year post-implementation, the transformation can be deemed a success. Key milestones — including employee transitions, critical hiring deadlines, office launch and the final operating model cutover — were successfully achieved on time and within budget, ensuring minimal operational disruption and strong early adoption.

By focusing the people plan on the most impacted and influential stakeholders, the organization was able to prioritize support resources toward the change management activities that would be most effective in supporting the transformation’s goals.