So, you have an awesome idea to reduce waste in your business, that’s great, but now what?
There are so many benefits in introducing measures to reduce waste in your business. Doing your bit for the environment and saving money for your business at the same time, just makes sense, right?
But, “Captain Obvious here”, running a business is hard work. It’s rare that you don’t have something to do and some days, and weeks, just surviving is a win. So, when and how do you make the time to introduce the change, how do you embed it into your day to day and where do you start?
Having a Change Champion in your business can make all the difference. But what is a change champion and why do we need one?
Change Champions are an essential element of a successful change program. Their role is to coach and support everyone in the business, remove barriers and be the main advocate for the change you want to implement.
Making a change, such as rubbish recycling at work, is often about changing habits. And changing your own let alone other peoples can be, well a little challenging. Even if everyone is on board working out how to make it real and, the hard part, embedding the change in your everyday, can be difficult.
So you’ve decided to appoint a Change Champion in your business. You’ve clearly identified the change you want, the outcome and the timeframe. Is that enough? Making sure they are fully supported from the get-go might seem like a no brainer but it is crucial to getting the right outcome. Continuingly re-enforcing your support throughout the change program is absolutely necessary because there will be barriers and there will be resistance. The amount and type of support will vary depending on the business, staff member and task but as a minimum, regular catchups to get progress updates, uncover issues etc is important to the success of the change. And rewarding the change champion for the successful implementation, regardless of how small the change, will not only increase your staffs satisfaction but it’ll make it easier in the future when you want to recruit more change champions for your business.
And yep I haven’t forgotten about all the awesome sole traders out there. Allocating yourself roles and times within your work week is part of you running a successful business anyway so allocating appropriate a time for you being your own Change Champion is the key. Treat the change you want like any other crucial part of your business and it will get done.
Go get em Champ!!
