You might have heard the expression, “who moved my cheese,” but have you ever heard, “my cheese will collect in that chair”?
Every workplace design project includes an element of change. Whether it’s a major overhaul or minor adjustment, these transitions can be difficult to navigate. Office leadership often depends on internal or external change management resources to help engage staff, ease resistance, and guide them through the change unscathed.
By design, change management programs focus on the aspects of a transition that typically encounter the most resistance: a move across town, a shift from a mostly-closed to mostly-open work environment, a departure from assigned seating. Each project is different, but employees undergoing change often share similar apprehensions. While these topics tend to drive the conversation during staff engagements, every project has at least one person with an unusual issue or particularly vehement objection that no one saw coming. While these issues can pose a substantial challenge during the project process (particularly those with no conceivable solution), they tend to make great stories after the fact.
The CallisonRTKL strategic services team provides change management services for public and private sector clients – large, small and everything in between. We’ve heard our fair share of unexpected, confusing, or conflicting concerns.