While change management may not be the most fun or exciting part of a construction job, it’s a key factor in keeping fleets running smoothly—but it can often be difficult to manage change in such a minimally disruptive way. Change management entails a broad range of tasks, like rightsizing, asset replacement and procurement, implementing fleet and other business solutions and, generally, process and workflow changes.
The mobile nature of fleet makes change management that much harder—and not just because managers have to pin everyone down at some point to explain what is changing, why and how it will affect employees’ day-to-day responsibilities. Change management challenges can be broken into two main categories: employee buy-in and stakeholder concerns.
Here are a few of the top pain points to consider within these categories and how to overcome them to build a strategic change management plan:
Minimizing Pushback to Change
For the most part, resistance to change is natural—and quite common—especially if the change is disruptive, challenging to adapt to or seems unnecessary. Accounting for the human element in change management can make or break the successful implementation of the change in question, which means managers need to move their team from resistance to acceptance in the change curve as quickly as possible.
Poor Communication
While managers may see a need for change to improve an aspect of—or even the whole—operation based on high-level data insights, drivers and technicians could very well fall into the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mindset. This means it’s important to clearly explain why the change or changes are happening and what the benefits are. Otherwise, managers may run into misunderstandings and pushback. Plus, ineffective communication to the team could cause feelings of being blindsided or being out of the loop, which can lead to disengagement and a lack of buy-in and adoption.
“Change management is a big challenge because there can be some older or less tech-savvy [technicians or operators] who just aren’t interested in learning a new system, or maybe they still have a flip phone, so they’re not used to using a smartphone or even a tablet,” explains Elisa Moore, Customer Success Specialist, Onboarding, at Fleetio. “Or maybe the things that the fleet manager wants to get out of the software, the people on the ground, it doesn’t change anything for them, so they’re not as invested.”
To mitigate this issue, clearly communicate the reason for the change, including:
- How it will affect employees’ daily activities
- What employees can anticipate during the rollout of the change
- What benefits are expected
Be sure to engage in feedback with employees during and after the rollout of the change to identify and address specific concerns.
Resistance to Change
Operators and technicians may be resistant to new processes or technologies due to things like fear of job displacement, increased workloads, lack of familiarity with new systems or software or simply not wanting to break from routine. Introducing change can trigger uneasiness or a perceived loss of control.
Once the fleet determines that a change needs to be made, get the team involved early. Ask questions and seek feedback on how they think the change might affect them or their job to better identify the best way to roll out the change for minimal pushback and workflow disruptions.
Operational Disruptions
Any major change can cause both expected and unexpected disruptions and, if you don’t have a solid plan in place, the transition period can cause increased downtime and/or general productivity loss. This can prove frustrating for employees who just want to get their job done, and frustrated employees can quickly become disengaged and at risk of quitting.
To adapt to this challenge, implement changes gradually and strategically for reduced disruptions. Improving communication in the fleet can help with this, as it allows employees to raise issues, which managers can quickly address to keep the change implementation on track. Having open dialogue with the team during a change rollout also has the added benefit of increasing employee buy-in and helping ensure the change is making a positive impact.
Addressing High-Level Challenges
Dealing with the human element in change management isn’t the only hurdle to overcome. There are some high-level concerns that should be addressed, whether that’s cost, leadership buy-in or preparing the team to work with more advanced technologies.
Cost Concerns
Change can often come with a hefty price tag, especially when talking about implementing new technology, like a fleet maintenance or optimization platform, or electrified assets. Fleets have to balance investments with their budgets, which can lead to a phased or delayed rollout that compounds the complications of change management.
ROI is a key metric to present when it comes to advocating for a costly—but needed—change, so be ready to answer the following questions with cold, hard data to make a strong case:
- How soon can we recoup our investment?
- When can we expect to see returns/savings after implementation?
- What is the projected return/savings on a quarterly or yearly basis once the change is in place?
Leadership Buy-In
Leadership buy-in can be just as hard to gain as employee buy-in. Fleet managers may struggle to get support for necessary technology or process upgrades. Unaligned priorities—between a sustainability-driven C-suite and a cost-focused fleet manager, for instance—can derail change initiatives. Not only do managers need to ensure leadership is fully committed to the transition, they also have to set expectations for things like fleet-wide change adoption and ROI.
Effective communication across leadership groups is often a hurdle, so on top of the numbers, it’s important to present a strong case for why the change is needed and even how it can tie into other initiatives through money saved, time saved or profitability enhancements.
Technology Competency Gaps
Making the move toward using advanced technologies, like electrified vehicles and equipment, digital fleet solutions or other automated business systems requires upskilling staff to some degree. Operators and technicians may need training on EV operation, inspections and/or maintenance—and legacy systems, like outdated scheduling and billing software, for instance, may not play nice with more modern fleet management tools.
Provide ongoing training and support. Take advantage of onboarding packages, continued customer success offerings and advanced technology certifications and/or training for operators and technicians. Set milestones when and where applicable, and follow up with the team to see what additional support they might need.
Assess Results and Adapt
When making an operational change, there’s the aftermath of implementing that change to consider. Measure how the change has affected daily operations to better understand what’s going right, what’s going wrong and how to make improvements going forward. Establish key performance indicators applicable to the change, such as lower fuel costs, uptime improvements or PM compliance improvements. Without doing this, it can be rather hard to know if the change or changes are working.
And, sure, quantifying the benefits of change may take a little time, but in the long run it can justify the change to stakeholders while highlighting operational benefits.
SEE ALSO: FLEET TELEMATICS: THE UNSUNG HERO OF CONSTRUCTION
