As co-founder and COO of Levvel Inc, an organization focused primarily on IT staffing and organizational change management, Chantal Milloy’s expertise is highly relevant in today’s new COVID-19 reality.
With an already-established remote workforce, Calgary-based Milloy and Levvel are in a position to provide valuable insight through this challenging time, with millions of Canadian enterprises and workers adjusting to the sudden transition.
Milloy has seen what happens when strong leadership isn’t at the helm to manage and measure change.
Joining host Tyler Chisholm on a special episode of Collisions YYC: Current & Critical, Milloy began by pointing out that change management, at its core, is all about helping people.
“You just won’t get the results if you’re not taking care of that side of the human component.”
“Find the people that are going to be impacted by change, figure out what their issues and concerns are going to be, and put strategies together to reduce that pain for them,” she explains.
A new reality
With respect to our current, unprecedented, COVID-19 world, all sectors and industries have had to prepare their workforce for a massive shift very quickly — whether they were ready, technology-wise, or not.
It comes down to trust, leadership and — more than ever — showing up. “I would say to any leader, you’ve got to be visible, and you’ve got to lean in even harder,” she said. “You’ve got to purposefully connect, and have an agenda and get people functioning. And in that first week, we really noticed that people didn’t know how to be or what to do.”
“You’ve got to be visible.”
Once leadership visibility is established, it’s important to encourage an environment where employees can share both concerns and solutions. One important step in this process is making sure people don’t feel reluctant using remote tools. “Make it a safe space for people,” said Milloy.
Alongside visibility, it’s also important to establish a culture outside of the typical office environment, making sure employees are connected and that they feel comfortable with newly-created lines of communication.
“We’re helping people say, ‘What’s your current culture? What was your current culture? What might need to be reinvented, and what pieces of your existing culture can be a strength for you in the way that you’re working from home, or what could be a hindrance,’ she explained.
“If we can honour a bit of culture, and make it work in a new environment, I think that work is really important right now.”
The final key to leadership during the current shift relates to productivity.
There’s no real way around it: Productivity will dip at the outset of big change. “You want to get a group of leaders ready for the fact that productivity always goes down before it goes better, because you’re learning new things. Plan for it,” Milloy said.
“I think we have to reimagine and help leaders reimagine what it means to be productive, and what kind of measures and metrics would we put in place to say that’s now what productivity looks like.”
‘The great equalizer’
As unprecedented as our new reality is, there’s no denying that it’s causing change that’s bound to have some positive effects.
“I like to say this is the great equalizer,” said Milloy. “There’s going to be a new normal, and working from home especially has become so important in all of those other topics of equality that we always talk about, right?… This is the new norm, this is going to be ‘Hey, we did it.’ And people were productive.”
Another positive side effect for organizations that are currently faced with an increase in downtime is the rare opportunity to now improve on your organization’s operational efficiency.
Ask yourself: ‘How can we do this better’?
“All these things are then going to help..whether it’s organizations in general, or leaders, look at that next chapter in growth.”
