Change Management – #oneword #CIPD #HR

In 2015 100s of HR professionals were asked a simple question in a survey… in one word describe…CHANGE MANAGEMENT

Participants were invited from the CIPD Members LinkedIn group, the CIPD communities, and the CIPD Facebook group. 613 participated. Of those, over 70% have been in HR for more than 11 years.

Not all questions were mandatory

The demographics for this were:

Processing of one word data.

During data analysis, spellings were corrected, and capitalisation resolved. No words were merged.

Responses to the one word survey

1. Challenge 10%
2. Challenging 4%
3. Evolution 3%
4. Exciting 3%
5. Progress 3%
6. Communication 2%
7. Transformation 2%
8. Future 2%
9. Constant 2%
10. Improvement 1%

The first word for many in HR when considering change or change management seems to be challenge. Almost 14% of respondents took this as the one word they would use. Only 3% thought change is fun or exciting. Change management has been a staple diet in the world of management and HR for over 20 years now, so I am surprised that words like “normal”, “expected” or “part-of-the-job” did not surface.

Summary Conclusions

Many in the world of change management would argue that change is only a challenge when done badly. It is never easy, but then it is a typical function of management in any business. so should it really be seen as a challenge? of is this more a reflection on change from a perspective of being “out of control” or lacking influence?

Change management is never easy, but in the world of HR, one could argue that change is the “bread and butter” of the job. Are HR functions set goals of change without the tools, or just expected to mot up the mess afterwards, when the change has not been effectively deployed by other parts of the business in the first place?

Other words used more than once included:

Agility, ambiguous, bau, catalyst, change, chaos, communications, competitive, complex, continuous, creative, creativity, critical, developing, effective, engagement, evolving, expectations, fear, flexibility, growth, hr, impossible, improving, in
, inevitable, involve, involvement, journey, life, movement, navigation, normality, people, preparation, redundancy, renewal, reorganisation, sensitivity, strategic, strategy, stress, structured, success, uncertainty, upheaval