You’ve probably heard the proverb, “Change is the only constant.” CFOs who once focused on budgeting, planning, and risk mitigation are now handling cyber, digital, AI, ESG, and more. With all these shifts in purviews and programs, change management is mission critical. Change management programs – introducing AI, ESG tracking, automation, etc. – reduce the loss of employee productivity during the transition from current to future states (see graph below). Change management can also help employees quickly adopt new ways of working.
Graph showing how change management programs, depicted by the red line, reduce the loss of productivity over time.
In 2024, CFOs cite change management as both a top priority and the least developed skill in finance. This discrepancy presents considerable risk when employees saw a 400% increase in the number of organizational changes between 2016 and 2022. (And if you predict a further increase in the coming years, you won’t be wrong.)
Here’s the Good News
Projects with “excellent” change management are eight times more likely to meet or exceed objectives than those with poor change management. We hear that ROI is a CFO’s favorite acronym, so make sure all your new initiatives are ushered in with a robust plan for change.
“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.”
– Winston Churchill
Want more Making Cents?
Join our distribution list!