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› Change management
Workplace change management that endures and evolves
We build programmes that help whole organisations embrace technology-inspired changes in behaviour, practices and spaces. We train your leaders, managers and champions to lead the change, and we build the foundations for evolutionary change.
Trusted across technology, insurance, energy, the public sector and not-for-profits
An independent workplace consultancy, advising on the workplace since 1992 across the private and public sectors.
What is workplace change management?
Workplace change management is the work of getting people to adopt a new way of working: a new building, new technology, new practices, or all three at once. We measure success by whether people’s behaviour has changed.
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Plan the change
A case for change, a plan and a change impact assessment, agreed before design decisions are locked.
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Engage the people
Two-way sessions in which the people affected shape how the new way of working will run.
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Equip the leaders
Leaders, managers and change champions trained to lead the change and to handle resistance.
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Manage and maintain
Adoption measured at one and three months. After that, the champions network stays active and the new ways of working become part of induction.
When do you need workplace change management?
Most of our change programmes start with one of these five situations.
A relocation
You’re moving to a new building and want people to leave their old habits behind when they go.
New ways of working
You’re moving a large workforce to activity-based working and need the new habits to last.
A merger or acquisition
Two organisations are becoming one, and you need a shared way of working that neither side feels was forced on it.
A new sourcing contract
You’re moving to a new facilities management contract and the service can’t dip while it changes hands.
Technology adoption
You’re rolling out new technology, AI included, and need people across the organisation to use it.
How does an AWA change programme work?
Six phases and 49 named deliverables. Phases 01 to 05 are the programme; phase 06 continues after it.
Phase 01
Initiation
9 deliverables
To set up the change programme foundation, governance and roles
- Outcomes & success factors
- Working together session with the project team
- Governance, reporting cadence & risk plan
- Stakeholder mapping
- Change impact assessment
- Roles & responsibilities
- Programme plan and key dates
- Project management and meeting cadence
- Visioning session with senior leaders
Phase 02
Change planning
9 deliverables
To define the change strategy, narrative and engagement roadmap
- Case for change
- Change narrative & key messages
- Change & communications plan
- Engagement roadmap
- Change Champion network recruitment
- Training needs analysis
- Ways of working playbook
- Manager toolkits
- Adoption measures
Phase 03
Prepare the people
10 deliverables
To build awareness, desire and capability ahead of the move
- Leadership briefings and coaching
- People manager coaching & resistance handling
- Working Together Agreements
- Change Champion knowledge & confidence
- Town halls & forums
- Behavioural training
- Etiquette & protocols
- Digital tools training
- Pre-move briefings
- Wayfinding & orientation collateral
Phase 04
Day one and settling in
6 deliverables
To support people on arrival and through the early settling-in period
- Day-one welcome programme
- Help desk & FAQs
- Real-time feedback loops
- Proactive issue identification & resolution
- Behavioural nudges
- Manager and Champion check-ins
Phase 05
Review and embed
7 deliverables
To measure adoption, capture lessons and keep improving what works
- Month 1 leader interviews
- Month 1 Change Champion check-in
- Month 3 pulse survey
- Behavioural reinforcement
- Outcomes against critical success factors
- Final report and recommendations
- Lessons learned
Phase 06Continues after the programme
Workplace management
8 deliverables
To put in place the processes, skills and measures that keep the new ways of working going
In this phase the facilities management team comes with you, the champions network stays active, and the golden rules go into induction.
- Workplace Committee
- Champions Network maintenance
- Information flows
- KPIs
- Induction processes
- Experience monitoring
- Utilisation monitoring
- Change management
What does this look like in practice?
Organisations that changed how their people work, and the results.
$100m a year off the run rate
After Willis and Towers Watson merged, WTW wanted to move to hybrid working and consolidate its office portfolio. AWA piloted the change in WTW’s London office, turned it into a playbook and ran 26 local projects over four years, from the UK and Germany to the US, Mexico and Singapore. In Chicago, 600 Towers Watson employees moved into the Willis Tower to create one community. The programme took more than $100m a year off the run rate.
Read the case study
Perceived productivity up 35%
Amnesty International wanted to formalise flexible working after the pandemic. AWA designed and delivered the change programme, and training workshops equipped team leaders to write their own Working Together Agreements, which about three-quarters of teams adopted. In post-implementation surveys perceived productivity rose 35% against pre-pandemic levels, and employees whose teams had an agreement reported higher wellbeing and team performance than those without.
Read the case study
An award-winning flexible working strategy
The British Heart Foundation has been changing how it works since 2016, adopting a Smarter Working model with AWA across its culture, skills and workplaces. During the pandemic it built on that with #FlexiblyConnected, which won Best Flexible Working Strategy at the HR Excellence Awards. In 2020 its landlord proposed a move within the building to a single floor of 26,000 square feet, and the charity now holds 28% less space than before.
Read the case study
“Leading a major change management project in [a] complex international organisation is [a] challenging undertaking. I knew it would involve multiple stakeholders, take wide-ranging collaboration and that we would need some expert, confident experience to help steer and deliver it. AWA has provided that.”
“With their help, we have been able to create a progressive and transformational space which supports our hybrid working approach and transforms our culture and ways of working to become more agile and innovative.”
More of our change work
- Amnesty International – upskilling a global leadership community
- The University of Manchester – using inclusive pilots to support behavioural transformation
- The University of Manchester case study (PDF)
- Bupa – redefining the workplace and implementing hybrid work
- HCRG Care Group – revising perceptions of ‘in office’ roles
What does neuroscience tell us about change?
Change consumes a huge amount of cognitive energy.
Cognitive energy
Daily repetition
The existing routine
The new way of working
Energy not budgeted
‘reject’
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Repetition builds habits
When people and organisations think, work and operate in the same way for many years, daily repetition leads to deeply formed community habits and mental models of the world, almost like addictions.
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The habit is cheap to run
The existing routine is cheap and it works.
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The new way has to be learned
The new one has to be learned, and nobody has budgeted the energy for it.
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The first reaction is to reject it
Confronted by change, human brains naturally ‘reject’, because change consumes a huge amount of cognitive energy.
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Five things in question at once
Change puts status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness and fairness in question at the same time.
SCARF: the five domains
Status
Our relative importance to others. Change can often impact perceived status in an organisation, which can result in feelings of threat or reward.
Certainty
Our ability to predict the future. During periods of change, uncertainty tends to increase, leading to discomfort or resistance. The clearer the vision and steps, the more likely people will embrace change.
Autonomy
Our sense of control over events. When people feel they are losing autonomy (decision-making power, or control over their role), they are more likely to resist change. Giving people more input reduces resistance.
Relatedness
Our sense of connection and belonging with others. Changes in culture or physical workspace, such as a real estate move, can affect how people relate to each other.
Fairness
Our perception of fair exchanges between individuals and the organisation. People are highly sensitive to fairness, and if a change is perceived as unfair it can result in significant resistance.
SCARF is David Rock’s model. Rock (2008), NeuroLeadership Journal, Issue One. Definitions from the AWA change management programme.
Isn’t this just communications?
Communications
- Direction
- Sends information out
- Purpose
- Informs and updates
- What it looks like
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- Town halls
- Intranet
- Newsletters
- Manager briefings
- FAQs
- The brochure about the new office
Change management
- Direction
- Works in both directions
- Purpose
- Builds shared understanding, agrees the new behaviour, establishes ownership, learns by doing
- What it looks like
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- Visioning sessions
- Consultation on look and feel
- Focus groups on ways of working
- Test fits and design workshops
- Manager and champion workshops
You need both, and every programme we run includes communications. Communications on its own does not change habitual behaviour.
Webb and Sheeran reviewed 47 experiments that successfully changed what people intended to do. Where the behaviour was a habit, changing what people intended did much less to change what they did.
So our programmes are built around what people practise: workshops they take part in, agreements they write themselves, and managers trained to have the conversation face to face.
Occasional acts
Intention changed
Behaviour changed
Habits
Intention changed
Behaviour stayed where it was
Webb, T. L. & Sheeran, P. (2006). Does changing behavioral intentions engender behavior change? A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence. Psychological Bulletin, 132(2), 249–268.
How do people weigh up a change?
Everyone weighs what a change takes from them against what it gives them.
What they lose
Concrete and immediate
- The desk with their things on it
- Knowing exactly where the team will be
- The short walk to the printer
- An office that showed their seniority
What they gain
Abstract and somewhere in the future
- A choice of settings that suit the work
- Seeing people they never used to run into
- A building that costs less to run
Left to themselves, people give the losses more weight than the gains. Naming the losses out loud is the only thing that puts anything on the other side of the scales.
Resistance is a natural and expected reaction to change.
How do people come round to change?
First, every employee needs to understand what is being proposed: what it is, why it is being done, what is in it for them, how it will work, how the change will be made and when it will happen. We call that rational understanding.
Emotional engagement decides whether the change lasts. Trained leaders and change champions help each person weigh up what they lose and what they gain, until they are willing to give it a go.
The rational/emotional change journey
High rational understandingUnderstand the change: what, why, how, when, who
Negative emotional engagement with the changeDislike the change
Positive emotional engagement with the changeLike the change
Mis-understandDon’t understand
No knowledge of the change
Leaders1 Project team2 Champions3 Everyone else4- At the start, nobody knows what is changing.
- Leaders move first, then the project team, the champions and everyone else.
- Everyone has to end up in the top right: they understand the change and they are willing to give it a go.
- Without support, people drift back, and their willingness fades before their understanding does.
- Our programmes carry on past move-in and keep people in the top right.
- Leaders They move first.
- Project team They start further back than people assume, and they are often appointed into the project rather than volunteering.
- Champions They sit slightly lower than the project team by design, and need enough understanding and a lot of conviction.
- Everyone else They move last, and start with no knowledge of the change.
The rational/emotional change journey, after Bateson (2008), as taught in the AWA workplace change management programme.
An independent workplace consultancy that applies the best neuroscience research to make change sustained and effective
We have advised organisations on the workplace since 1992. Our change work is built on the science of how people adopt new ways of working.
For the business
- A case for change your leadership team can stand behind, agreed before the design decisions are locked.
- A change impact assessment and stakeholder map, so the programme reaches every group the change affects.
- Adoption measured one month and three months after go-live, against the success factors agreed before anything was designed.
For your people
- Managers and champions trained to talk about what people are being asked to give up, as well as what they gain.
- Ways of working shaped in two-way sessions with the people who have to live with them.
- Resistance expected, and talked through openly.
Credentials
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Independent and global, advising on the workplace since 1992.
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Science and research led: every programme is measured against success factors agreed at the start.
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Our change method draws on AWA’s research with the Centre for Evidence Based Management into team performance.
Tell us what is changing
If you are planning a change like the ones on this page, talk to us early. The first conversation is about what is changing, who it affects, and what the programme would need to do.
Frequently asked questions about workplace change management
What is workplace change management?
Workplace change management is the work of getting people to adopt a new way of working, whether that is a new building, new technology, new practices or all three at once. It covers planning the change, engaging the people it affects, equipping leaders and managers to lead it, and measuring whether behaviour has changed. It is distinct from communications, which sends information out. Change management works in both directions, and its success is measured by what people do afterwards.
How is change management different from internal communications?
Communications informs and updates: town halls, newsletters, manager briefings, FAQs. Change management builds shared understanding, agrees new behaviours and establishes ownership through two-way work such as visioning sessions, focus groups on ways of working, design workshops, and manager and champion training. You need both. The evidence is that communications alone do little to shift habitual behaviour. Across 47 experiments reviewed by Webb and Sheeran (2006), changing people’s intentions did much less to change what they did when the behaviour was a habit.
When should we bring in a change management consultant?
Before the major decisions are locked. The best time is at the start of a restructure, a technology rollout, a merger or a move to new ways of working, so the people side is planned in from the beginning. Involving us early also means what we learn about your people reaches the design team in time to inform the design. It is rarely too late, though: if a change is underway and you are seeing resistance, confusion or falling productivity, a programme can be brought in to recover it.
What does a change programme deliver?
A case for change, a change and communications plan, an engagement roadmap, a trained change champion network, manager toolkits, a ways of working playbook, behavioural and digital tools training, day-one support, and post-occupancy measurement against the success factors agreed at the start.
How do you measure whether it worked?
Against success measures agreed in phase 01, before anything is designed. We then measure adoption at one month and three months after the change, using leader interviews, a champion check-in and a pulse survey, reported against those original success factors. Where behaviour has not moved, we say so and intervene.
Why is resistance so common, and what do you do about it?
Because change consumes a huge amount of cognitive energy. An established routine is efficient and reinforced by the people around it, and replacing it takes effort people rarely have to spare. Resistance is the normal response to that cost. The way through it is to name what people are being asked to give up, alongside what they gain, and to let them work through that trade-off with a manager or champion who has been trained for the conversation.
Do you only work on office moves?
No. A move is the most visible trigger, but the same method applies to hybrid working, technology and AI adoption, new business processes, mergers and post-merger integration, and changes to workplace practices in buildings nobody is leaving.
How long does a change programme take?
It depends on the size of the population and the scale of what is changing, but the shape is consistent: initiation and planning before design decisions are locked, the bulk of engagement in the months ahead of the change, intensive support around day one, and measurement at one and three months afterwards. Phase 06 is ongoing by design, because engagement decays if nothing maintains it.