As change management professionals, we’re often asked to explain how we help our clients navigate significant organizational change. Many of our clients need help managing the people side of their transformations but they’re not always well-versed in the language and concepts of change management. The CARA PEOPLE framework offers a simple approach for explaining basic change management concepts, along with practical strategies, without the need for complex jargon. This framework is intended to help anyone, regardless of their familiarity with change management, navigate the complexities of change.
The CARA PEOPLE Framework
The PEOPLE tool breaks down change management into six key elements:
- Personnel: Identify who is affected by the change, both directly and indirectly.
- EngagementDecide who needs to know, what to tell them, and the best way to do it.
- Organization: Understand why the organization needs to change and how it will affect people, processes and technology.
- Pulse Checks: Conduct regular check-ins to monitor how people are feeling about the change and assess readiness.
- Leadership: Ensure leaders understand the change and are equipped to support their teams.
- Enablement: Provide training and support to help people adapt and sustain the change.
Putting the Framework into Action
The beauty of the PEOPLE framework is it can be used by anyone in the organization. This framework can be used to help anyone understand the basics of change management or empower leaders and managers to incorporate change management into their daily interactions. Let’s look at a simple example of how it could be used to empower leaders.
Change: Vacation Scheduling Process and Tool
Situation: Maxine, a customer service manager, is tasked with implementing a new process for managing her team’s vacation and time-away schedules. Currently, there isn’t a formal process for requesting and approving time away. She has a small team, so people simply send Maxine an email and approval is at her discretion. Recently, the team has run into some service issues because there weren’t enough people to cover incoming customer calls. Maxine uses the PEOPLE framework to prepare and manage the transition to the new scheduling process.
- Personnel: Identify who is affected by the change, both directly and indirectly.
- Everyone on the team would be impacted by this change. Her team includes 2 Team Leads who each lead a team of 8 Customer Service Reps.
- EngagementDecide who needs to know, what to tell them, and the best way to do it.
- She decided the best way to engage the team was to use the existing weekly team meeting to make people aware of the change. Then use email and special meetings to explain the process and new vacation app in greater detail. She was mindful to create clear key messages on what was changing, why change is needed, and how the change would be implemented.
- Organization: Understand why the organization needs to change and how it will affect people, processes and technology.
- The why behind the change is to ensure there is adequate call coverage to prevent quality issues. The primary impact on Customer Service Reps is they need to follow a more structured process and may be upset if they are not able to get their preferred days off. The Team Leads are impacted because they will be accountable for ensuring adequate call coverage and be the approvers of vacation time. The technology impact is that the team needs to use a new vacation app to submit requests for time off.
- Pulse Checks: Conduct regular check-ins to monitor how people are feeling about the change and assess readiness.
- Maxine decided to set up one-on-one meetings with each person on her team to discuss any concerns they had about the change. She also decided to use a “poll” in MS Teams after training to assess their comfort level with the new vacation app.
- Leadership: Ensure leaders understand the change and are equipped to support their teams.
- Maxine engaged her two Team Leads to ensure they understood the changes and provided them with some talking points to ensure they were equipped to address team concerns. She also ensured they had access to training resources on the vacation app to get up to speed on how the new app works.
- Enablement: Provide training and support to help people adapt and sustain the change.
- Maxine’s Team Leaders conducted demos to walk through how to use the new vacation app. She also ensured her Team Leaders were accessible after the training to provide additional support as needed.
Change is inevitable, but with the right tools, it can be managed effectively. The CARA PEOPLE framework offers a practical, jargon-free approach to navigating change, making it accessible to everyone.
If you want to learn more about this tool, how to educate your organization in practical change management strategies, or how to assess your change priorities, let’s connect!
