Managing change organically
How do you relocate 650 staff from diverse teams, scattered around the Auckland region, into a combined new and retrofitted historic building in the Britomart Precinct, in the heart of Auckland’s CBD, and keep everyone happy in the process?
Ask Paula Whiteacre, Project Leader of the Logistics Team for Westpac’s new building project at Takutai Square, Britomart.
Paula has a background in project management and change management, particularly managing teams going through restructuring; she also has a wealth of experience in commercial property. So she has enjoyed the Westpac on Takutai Square project, as it combined commercial property, project management and change management.
“It has been very satisfying, a very positive project. Especially since Westpac put a stake in the ground early to say it was about retaining staff and institutional knowledge.”
Before she started with the change management, she needed to sort out a few issues. “The first was Westpac’s identity in this project. In order to move people (both physically and emotionally), you need to give them a vision of what they’re moving to, and that wasn’t clearly expressed at the outset.”
The second issue was people’s natural resistance to change. “The majority of staff didn’t want to move into the city. They had the comfort of their usual surroundings had worked at Westpac for many years, and lived closer to their existing workplace than to the new CBD location which was perceived as being too expensive, too far away, and just too difficult.”
Paula’s problem was that she had nothing to show the staff, except a big, wet hole in the ground. “For nine months, we had nothing pretty to show them, except the architect’s pictures and perspectives.”
People didn’t even know where Britomart was, says Paula. “Or if they did, they remembered it as a rundown, seedy area of town. In reality, the precinct has been upgraded, with great retail premises in lovely historic buildings, with 24 hour security across the complete Precinct area, and it’s situated right on top of the Britomart Transport Centre. It’s the “New heart of Auckland”, along with the Viaduct and Vector Arena, and the Waterfront. But if you hadn’t travelled into the bottom part of the city for years, you wouldn’t know that. Somehow we had to give them a view of the new Britomart.”
Paula knew she had to lead hundreds of staff through the Change Management life cycle, from denial, through resistance, to curiosity, and finally to commitment.
“It was a journey, with a number of ups and downs, and there were times when it seemed relentlessly negative in the early stages of encouraging that willingness to change, so we had to be relentlessly positive.
Paula started the process by developing an understanding of the concerns of the staff and their reasons for resistance.
We held a number of focus groups to tease out the main areas of concern, and we found that the issues could be categorised into a relatively low number of areas such as transport, carparking, security/safety leaving the building late at night…
“This gave us clarity. We developed a strategy for each one and worked to either mitigate or resolve and then took these back to the staff through a number of communication channels – direct emails, intranet, team meetings, posters, and Leaders Roadshows.”
Looking back, with a job well done, Paula manages to make it sound like a smooth, logical process. However, there was a fine line between giving out too much information too soon, and appearing to be slow off the mark with too little. “Our flexible approach was paramount here – we went back to the drawing board and out of this came a core part of the Change Management lifecycle – the Discovery Suite.
“The Discovery Suite had started out as just the concept of an office area with furniture set up in it so staff had an opportunity to get the look and feel of their new office. However, we decided to ramp it up a bit, and with help from Creative Edge (event management consultants), created a ‘Discovery Experience’ – a virtual tour event led by comedian Mark Wright as ‘Sparky – the Lead Electrician for the project’. This Discovery Suite was located at Westpac premises in Onehunga, and staff were rostered to bus to the site in large groups.
Sparky issued safety vests and hard hats to all the participants, and led them into a ‘black box’, a room set up to look like the inside of a lift, where they experienced the new building on a whirlwind virtual tour projected onto a screen.
Once the virtual tour of building was complete, Sparky ushered staff out of the ‘lift’ and into the Discovery Suite, which had been set up with newly designed work stations, a break out area with espresso machine and wall coverings that simulated the new building, complete with real-life views of downtown Auckland through the windows. Even the carpet on the floor was the same as in the new building.
“The feedback from the staff survey after the Discovery Suite tour was overwhelmingly positive; the whole virtual tour concept was quite a lot of work, but it definitely paid off. We wanted to retain our staff, and a big move like this can be very unsettling, so we really wanted them to see and experience for themselves what the new building was like. The Discovery Suite was the catalyst for a turning point in the Change Control lifecycle from resistance to curiosity and then positive interest,” says Paula.
At the same time, Paula was working on the key issues that had arisen from the focus groups:
1) Transport & Carparks
This was a biggie. Staff weren’t happy about the commute into town. The team researched all the carparks in the CBD – discounts, rates, locations, to help ensure people could make their decisions. Westpac set up Travel Clinics and ran them with help from ARTA (Auckland Regional Transport Authority), with a link to ARTA’s personal travel planner site. The positioning of the building adjacent to the Britomart Transport Centre was a major contributor to resolving this issue.
2) Security
With the existing on-site 24 x 7 Britomart Security patrols, and the Westpac 24 x 7 presence in the building, the staff security concerns were resolved.
3) Childcare
Generally, staff maintained their existing childcare arrangements or adapted on an individual basis to suit their needs
Another core initiative was opening up the building to staff and their families. This was key to closing the gap for many who were still indecisive.
Hundreds of staff and their families visited Westpac on Takutai Square on Saturday 13 December 08. They were greeted by stilt walkers and clowns, had a tour of the building, and then relaxed in the staff café and games room, listening to band music and enjoying the sausage sizzle, while the children had their faces painted and met Santa Claus.
Now it was time to concentrate on the move itself.
“We gave all the staff lots of information about it, another mini set of initiatives, and familiarisation sessions. I and other members of the team visited team meetings at every site. With over 600 staff, that was a lot of team meetings.”
A brochure advising what to do in the last few days before each migration was delivered to every desk. All the information was also on the intranet. For the first couple of weeks after each migration, Paula’s team made regular visits to the floor leaders for any post-migration issues.
Everyone who shifted to Westpac on Takutai Square, received a ‘Day 1’ experience. “They arrived at the new building on their first day, and we were there to meet them – even if it was an early morning shift or a late evening start. As they arrived, they were treated to a VIP welcome, passing through the security barriers to walk on the red carpet and into the lift. There they were met by Sparky, from the Discovery Suite, who hosted a lift-party – live music in the corner, balloons and disco ball, taking employees up to their floor, where they were met with a warm welcome by their managers. The focus was on a personal welcome for each staff member, and a great team experience.
“There was food, fun, laughter, balloons on desks, everything came together really well. Because we’d done all the homework to remove the obstacles, they could really enjoy the day itself. The Day 1 experience wouldn’t have worked if we hadn’t resolved the staff concerns.”
Looking back, Paula is pleased with the success of the shift. She says the process was a good mixture of planned and organic. “It needs to be organic, because if you go in with a preconceived idea of how you’re going to run it, you may not meet the staff’s needs. From a structure point of view you can plan, but need to keep flexibility in the content.
“If you ensure your communications are well conceived and targeted, and you plan well from a good knowledge base, then the process will work.
“The success of Stage 1 was due to a great project team, excellent planning, support and buy-in from management, and flexibility in implementation.”
There has been a marked lift in employee engagement and consistent improvement in measured productivity for most teams who had shifted, all the proof Paula needs that the relocation was a success, and that staff continue to be happy with their new premises.
By Westpac New Zealand Ltd
