Keys to Success: Organizational Transition and Managing Employee Emotions

I was the HR Manager and part of a team that merged two major VA hospitals, and the lessons learned during this process can be applied throughout federal government, especially at this moment of pending political transition.

If you look at the issue of presidential change—moving in a new strategic direction and all the complications that flow from it—a hospital merger is analogous to it, because you’re dealing with the same dynamics. There will be a new direction, new personnel, new goals, new operational needs, and ensuring that everything aligns within a new framework. This is almost exactly what you see at the agency level during a political transition.

Throughout the transitions planning stages, there were several elements that made our merger transition successful.

Diverse Team

The first key success factor was to bring together an occupational diverse group of senior managers (key stakeholders) to really define and flesh out what the new strategic direction of the organization would be. First, we discussed why the merger was happening. Next, we sought to identify high-level goals and what the benchmarks and milestones in achieving those goals would be. We did this over a three-day facilitated offsite discussion with the ultimate goal of gaining a common understanding.

Specific Assignments

The second key success factor was that everyone in that initial meeting was assigned very specific deliverables to work on with their expanded teams. This grew involvement across the agencies involved, but in a very focused way that aligned with the new strategic direction.

Critical Communication

The third key success factor was facilitating communication during the entire process. We accomplished this by using every communication vector possible, including email, posters, town hall meetings, small group discussions, and many more. Additionally, it was important to ensure that this communication was two-way. Employees had to know that any question they had was acceptable to ask, and we spent a lot of time talking directly to employees to quiet fears and squelch rumors.

Employee Emotions

This gets to the heart of one of the main issues in any major change: employee emotions. During a period of transition, employees are always asking themselves one fundamental question, “What about me?”  This is one of the most important things to ask employees during these tumultuous periods—and one that often goes unasked.

Bottom line: leaders need to ask: “What does this feel like to you? How do you feel about this?” If you can answer these questions to employees’ satisfaction, the change period will go much more smoothly.

For a deeper dive into this topic, join me September 7 at the Government Workforce Conference.