Managing change

ONE of the difficult challenges of being a people manager is that you are now responsible for a group of people who are dependent on you for direction. This is especially true when there are organizational changes that might derail their professional and personal plans, or when they have to make life decisions because of new work requirements. When things become uncertain because of these changes, your role as a people manager is to assure your team that while things are invariably evolving, you will consistently be with them.

You have heard it multiple times—nothing is permanent except change. You need to accept that change is inevitable, and your role entails for you to move with the changes in the organization. There will be cases when the change might be something you will not agree with, but you will have to implement them nonetheless.

When this happens, management expects that you implement the changes whether you like it or not. The first thing you need to do is to be convinced yourself of the need for change. You can talk to your manager and then ask all of your questions until you are convinced. But before meeting with your manager, list down all your questions, and even the questions that your team might ask, so you will not miss anything.

Just like any change in your team, you need to walk the talk. You cannot expect your team to adopt the changes that you yourself are not doing. Your team will expect this from you so you need to accept the change whole-heartedly. If you do not agree with the change, it will be extremely difficult to implement it because it will show in your body language and choice of words. So before implementing any change, you need to be fully committed to it.

Your attitude and your actions will show your team how willing you are to adopt the change. It does not bode well for your team if you panic, or you become extremely reactive to changes in the organization. These indicate that you have not thought through all the changes that might happen. As their leader, your team looks up to you as their lighthouse in turbulent times. You need to keep your composure and think of ways to navigate the rough waters of change.

You also need to understand that change does not happen overnight. People have learning curves and you need to learn when individual team members are ready for the next stage. Make sure that every team member is ready for that stage so nobody gets left behind. When someone is struggling, you need to stop and encourage the other team members to help the straggler. This will send a clear message that everyone is important to the whole team.

Develop a clear plan for implementing the change so that expectations are managed. Part of this is establishing a clear and open communication plan. Watch out for behavioral changes and what might be hindering your team from implementing the change, and identify scenarios where your team will have difficulty applying the change. This will help you prepare for when these issues come up and you will have ready answers for their concerns. Mitigate adverse effects by developing clear action plans when issues come up. Remember that the primary concern of your team is how the changes will affect the way they do their work. By establishing a clear path to how the team will implement the change, they can focus on their work more and worry less on what could happen. This will help minimize business interruptions and channel your team’s energies on their deliverables. This will give you time to focus on clearing their path of any obstacles that might hinder them from fully accepting the change, and looking for tools and resources that will enable them to adopt the changes to their work processes permanently. You can also hold an open forum where your team can vent out their anxieties so you can address them. If the issues are organization-wide, you can bring it to the attention of human resources or your direct manager so they can provide you clear guidance on how to address them. Take it a step further by allowing your team to approach you individually when they have questions on the changes taking place. Whatever you do in terms of communication, do not stifle their dissent. Their comments provide invaluable insight into what they are thinking and feeling. Their feedback is a rich source of issues you need to address, so you can develop appropriate action plans before the concerns become significant impediments to the change.

Get in touch with other managers and hold regular meetings for exchanging best practices for implementing the change. In big organizations, a change management team is created to address issues and concerns in its adoption.

This team is composed of different people from different departments, and they are tasked to develop information, education and communication campaigns to implement the change. This crossfunctional team is an important element in the change management process to monitor if the implementation is successful, and to provide multiple perspectives on organization-wide issues.

Reinforce the change by rewarding people who have successfully implemented it. This can come in the form of bonuses or incentives which might not necessarily be monetary. If you can, use success stories to reinforce the change and convince stragglers to at least try. This will tell others that success is possible and it will also convince others of the possible benefits they can get from the change.

Your role as a people manager is to give direction to your team when organizational changes threaten to upend your team’s status quo. Most of their concerns will be personal, so it is important to understand how your team will react to sudden organizational changes. For this reason, it is important to know your team so that when they are confronted with something unfamiliar, you can allay their fears and point them in the right direction. n

Job scams are surprisingly smart. Here’s how to not get burned

By Arianne Cohen Bloomberg News

LAST fall, Aaron Perkowitz applied for a job as a technical writer. The hirer asked him to compose a paid test article—and when he finished, requested his banking information to pay him.

Perkowitz asked why so much information was needed—couldn’t they just mail a check? No response.

“The article took me three hours,” he says, “but I’m glad I didn’t fall for their scam.” Perkowitz got off easy. Today’s scam ads are often indiscernible from legitimate listings, and can appear on reputable job sites like LinkedIn and Indeed, as well as in your inbox as phishing attacks. Other scammers extract money from applicants under the guise of background checks, security clearance, uniforms or training. Job hoaxes are getting harder to avoid. Just two years ago, reasonably savvy people could spot most scams with common sense. Most were click-andgo crimes, involving the minimum interaction to procure identity information or install malware. Today’s scams are surprisingly elaborate, with fake company websites and phone or video interviews.

“We’re seeing a willingness of cyber criminals to invest more time in an ongoing relationship with the victim,” says Steve Grobman, chief technology officer at McAfee. We asked experts how to avoid becoming a victim. They say that 10 minutes of due diligence is mandatory: locate the company’s web site, find the street address on Google Maps, and then scan for articles and press releases that mention the company. Can you find actual employees and message them? Or if it’s a well-known company, call its offices and ask to speak to the person set to do your interview. Beyond that, here’s how to navigate savvier scams. n Don’t be fooled by very individualized recruiting. Previously, a personalized, in-depth recruitment letter meant safety. But today, anyone with access to your LinkedIn profile can ask an AI tool like ChatGPT to create a recruitment letter that namechecks your alma mater and employers. “Scammers can now generate tailored attacks at scale,” says Grobman. He suggests extreme caution in text-only conversations, and to look for unexpected deviations from the timeline: typically, a company shouldn’t ask for information beyond your name, phone and address before formally hiring you and sending a job offer letter. n Tech downloads are a no-no. Unfortunately, video interviews no longer correlate with legitimacy.

A common scam is to send an online video link that enables criminals to access valuable information on the computer, or for a hirer to say, “This is a remote position, but we need to do a scan on your equipment to make sure it meets our minimum requirements.” n Do not pay for anything. Really. Even if it seems like a plausible charge, such as an application fee, training program or “job placement” service.

Just say no. “Any request to do something to any of your technology should be a red flag,” says Grobman.

“Legitimate employers will not ask for any money up front,” says Darren Shafae, founder of software provider ResumeBlaze, who frequently sees his customers fall prey to scams. “If a position requires you to buy something, it is likely fraudulent.” Shafae is also a fan of ignoring too-good-to-be-true jobs. “Not to sound cynical, but chances are that you’re not going to get a job that pays well for very little work.” n Ask a lot of questions about daily job tasks. Boston career coach Amy Reeves recently had a client who was hired for a “professional marketing position” with “on-the-job training”—and when he arrived, was handed a sandwich board and asked to stand on the street. “I’ve heard lots of similar stories,” says Reeves. “They show up for their first day in a suit and are asked to sell burner phones from a folding table or pass out new flavors of hummus at an intersection.” Inquire about specifics of the day-today role.