Managing Change: A Success Story 

In 2019, the Department of Personnel Administration (DPA) conducted listening tours with employees across the state. From those sessions, along with cues from engagement survey data, turnover, workforce reports, and the Partnership Agreement, Chelsea and supporting team members learned that employees wanted more clarity on their performance. The project initiated with DPA shifting the rating scale from a 3-point scale to a 5-point scale, where there was increased department strategy involving the Performance Management Process (PMP) philosophy. The team also developed tiered competencies, which helped to build on the PMP philosophy through aligning all employees on expectations and providing tools/resources to supervisors for coaching and feedback, thereby creating a holistic approach to performance. This supported the view that positive performance management is an important aspect for organizational success by highlighting transparency and accountability, ultimately making CDHS a great place to work and empowering CDHS in their mission to help Coloradans thrive. The Performance Management Process is a reputable and strategic retention and engagement tool that incorporates the philosophy and aligns with the espoused values of CDHS, and ensuring a smooth transition to changes in performance management requires an emphasis on utilizing change management as well as its methodologies. 

• Awareness: Awareness was created by trying to speak of the changes as much as possible – invitations to meetings from the executive management team allowed for sharing presentations, asking questions, and communicating feedback and frustrations.

• Desire: Desire came into play as the team knew that the employees wanted the changes and a majority of the supervisors wanted them too, so it was not difficult for the team to take the next step by using referencing in order to build knowledge.

• Knowledge: Like the Prosci methodologies, any type of data analysis helped to spread knowledge around why they wanted to change and what they wanted to change, which was critical to turning the corner. Chelsea and her team created communication, coaching and training plans to give employees and supervisors the opportunity to build their knowledge of the changes.

• Ability: The executive directors were supportive in strengthening the ability aspect by inviting Chelsea and her team to present the plan to different levels of leadership. This provided the space to help supervisors who may be struggling so that the changes did not seem so burdensome. The team wanted to make changes as easy as possible because, regardless, they are utilizing a system and tool that they have to use; Furthermore, it was important for Chelsea and her project team to monitor the use of the system in order to ensure that it was being used correctly and that people were successful with it.

• Reinforcement: Currently, reinforcement is paramount to the whole process, and is centered around building out accountability. Leaders who are passionate about building out accountability are focusing on two objectives: celebrating successes of those who are implementing changes really well, and providing additional support for those who are potentially still struggling. After all, change can be hard – but it is not impossible.

Even though there are barriers that can make change management difficult, there are also benefits which are important to recognize. With a large change that relies heavily on buy-in, there are always opportunities for building relationships/connections, improving communication, and being open for feedback. Implementing her project with change management has allowed Chelsea to experience these opportunities for herself, as she and her team realized that everyone has the same goal and it is important to keep the larger picture in mind. Chelsea has respectfully passed over her project to a Performance Development Specialist who she believes will carry it forward and change it however they see fit based on the needs of the organization. Chelsea will get the privilege of seeing the amazing job that the specialist does as she still has a little bit of “toe-in”, but performance management is not her main job. She gets to return to her first love of building career pathing for CDHS. Chelsea, her project team, and the entire organization all continuously benefit from the successes of the new and improved Performance Management Process, which have been achieved with the help of change management.