The Background

In December 2018, Prosci Singapore was approached by a government umbrella agency overseeing the social service sector. The sector serves more than 450 social service agencies (SSAs) and hires more than 15,000 professionals (as of September 2021). All of these SSAs are not-for-profit charities; many of them are revenue-stretched and paper-bound. Furthermore, the bulk of their human capital centres around specialist disciplines such as social work, psychology and special education delivering core services, managed by a lean group of corporate managers. 

The sector understood it needed to transform quickly. The government agency launched an organisational development (OD) initiative to fund and help a pilot group of SSAs to strengthen their capabilities so that they become more effective, efficient and better positioned to achieve their goals.

The governing body determined Change Management to be a vital component within their strategy to ensure proposed solutions were more widely and completely adopted. Prosci Asia was invited and chosen as the main provider of training to build Change Management capability for the pilot group of social service agencies, on the basis that Prosci is one of the world’s most widely used change management methodology.

In order to scale and optimise the effectiveness of our services for the sector, our capability-building approach involved three client groups of people tapping into our expertise and knowledge – Practitioners, Sponsors and the Board. After rigorous discussions and analysis on the current change management maturity level of the sector, our change management experts designed a roadmap and proposed Prosci change management training programmes to train individuals
at every level of the organisation in the succession of their unique roles during times of change.

The flexible programmes were designed to help in the application of change management methodologies to our client’s current projects so they could realise immediate benefits. 

How Were the Objectives Achieved?

Step 1: Training Public Service Officers at the Helm of the Project 

We firstly trained officers from the governing body so that they were able to apply the Prosci® methodology and associated tools. This pioneer batch of CM practitioners provided important input as the subject domain experts on the organisational development initiative to the SSAs, as well as acting as the arbiters of good practice standards.

Step 2: Certification of the First Change Practitioners in Charge of Respective OD Projects

Social Service professionals who were appointed internally as project managers for the OD projects from the selected SSAs went through the rigorous 3-day Change Management Practitioner certification facilitated by Prosci Europe. As a result, more than 160 received their certification as practitioners, with some SSAs sending more than 5 people to the course. The real value of Change Management was highlighted as the key reason for the oversubscription, having the possibility of 6 times higher in terms of project success rate should Change Management be effectively applied.

In order to scale and optimise the effectiveness of our services for the sector, our capability-building approach involved three client groups of people tapping into our expertise and knowledge.

Step 3: Awareness Workshops for Senior Management and Board Members of SSAs 

Next, we engaged with individuals in senior management positions from the SSAs who had the best cultural knowledge of their organisations. To ensure there was a good support system for change for the newly certified Change Management practitioners, we also conducted awareness workshops for two levels of seniority: the senior executives; and board members, to help them
understand the vital importance of their roles in actively sponsoring change initiatives and in being effective preferred senders of change communications.

The Roadmap

After rigorous training and certification conducted for analysing the situation and understanding the current level of their organisational change management maturity, our change management experts then designed a roadmap and proposed Prosci change management training programmes to train individuals at every level of the organisation in the succession of their unique roles during times of change. The flexible programmes were designed to help in the application of change management methodologies to our client’s current projects so they could realise immediate benefits. 

Which programmes were run?

Having identified the unique needs of the relevant organisation, Prosci Europe delivered the following Prosci programmes both in-person, and later on, virtually when Covid-19 struck:

Sponsor Briefing: for the senior executives and organizational leaders who were sponsoring change and were responsible for organisational performance.

Practitioner Certification Programme: for those who were expected to manage and drive change, by the end of which, attendees had grasped the foundation of a Change Management Plan. 

And the Work is Still Ongoing

We continue to support the organisations by partnering the governing agency to build a Community of Change Practitioners. For the Practitioner Alumni, amongst them, we run bi-monthly meetups where we discuss some of the topics in change management which align with the different phases of their OD initiative and offer them an opportunity to connect with like-minded change practitioners in the sector. We follow up with our Practitioner Alumni and check in with them consistently. Some of the SSAs separately engage with Prosci Singapore to bring their core management teams through various customised workshops, addressing change and facilitating difficult conversations. 

Our Change Management experts, together with the CM practitioners from the governing body continue to act as external consultants and provide guidance and recommendation to their project work if needed. 

  The Results

The governing body has started tracking the performance of the 29 non-profits in their change journey and are seeing improvements in project health after change management plans were intentionally implemented to address and overcome barrier points. As a result, they have decided to incorporate Change Management into their Corporate Key Capabilities for the new financial year for all 320 staff in the organisation. One of the CM practitioners was approved to attain Train-the-Trainer programme to start building Change Management awareness within the organisation. To date, more than 160 staff, including 28 members of the Senior Management Team attained basic awareness of what change management is.