Changes in business: our expert opinion

Just like France Telecom, a large number of companies which find themselves in highly competitive and globalised markets have been persuaded to improve the skills and qualifications of their personnel, in order to adapt or even radically transform their business. According to HR specialists, there is a staged process for ensuring that staff within an organisation adapt to the constraints and opportunities of the new business lines in which they are asked to work.

First of all, it is important to make all personnel aware of the profound meaning of the changes being undertaken, providing them with new points of reference, in a completely transparent way.

Next, employees must be brought on board by being clearly shown the opportunities that are offered by the change to each of them. In order to prevent frustration from arising, either in the short or longer term, the company needs to make a clear distinction between the things that the change can provide, and those that it cannot.

If the whole process is to proceed in an optimal manner, managers need to be imbued with the necessary vision. If this is done, they can truly contribute to their colleagues’ skills improvement.

Finally, the HR department needs to concentrate its skills improvement investments in sectors that are judged to be priorities.

These measures will only lead to positive results if each employee is given a clear insight into the prospects for jobs, the capabilities of the group’s business activities and the location of those businesses. They also need to know whether the services in question will offer them the chance to build their own careers successfully in a way that is consistent with the global strategy.

In terms of communication, the HR department must not cease to remind personnel throughout the transition process that internal mobility is an integral part of employee career development. Although employees may have struggled to come to terms with this a few years ago, internal mobility has become more synonymous these days with the idea of promotion.

From the company’s perspective, a policy of allowing employees to change business lines, role or location within the same group can be seen to fall within a wider policy of increasing employee loyalty. This is an important consideration at a time when battle lines have already been drawn to capture the best talents, against the backdrop of the “grandpa boom” and the near fullemployment of managers.

New learning technologies occupy an increasingly important role in the success of this type of transition:

• They make it possible to teach individuals and groups new skills at a lower cost than traditional solutions, provided that the training programmes have been carefully “engineered” by professionals;
• They offer highly customizable courses and a service that closely matches the needs of mobile professionals;
• They provide local management with simple tools which they can implement within their teams, helping them to assume the role of coach, supervisor and skills enhancer;
• Finally, their systems for evaluating skills mean that indicators can be kept constantly up-to-date, detailing progress towards target skills and accurately mapping critical needs and risk areas.