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From the Experts: Change Management and Putting People First
In this week’s episode of America Back to Work, S2Verify co-founder and chief strategy officer, Arnette Heintze, sat down with Gill Godfrey, chief people officer at Storable–a provider of self-storage management software used to help storage operators increase efficiency and improve profitability.
Godfrey is an HR leader with deep experience at large corporations where she led teams of up to 30 people—and where she became an expert at leading organizations through times of massive change (such as a pandemic or M&A).
Godfrey is known as a high-energy professional with proven and progressive HR experience, specializing in HR strategy, coaching, organizational development, teamwork, change management, and employee relations, and she is a licensed user of psychometric testing.
In her conversation with Heintze, Godfrey shared her #1 tip for leading organizations through difficult times.
“Always put change management first,” she says. In other words, always put your people first.”
When it comes to mergers and acquisitions, that means figuring out, first and foremost, how to integrate the new team into the business. It’s about determining what needs to change in the organizational structure to ensure appropriate integration because employees are the key to any successful business venture.
In times of change, Godfrey recommends positioning internal influencers, like company founders, as leaders and primary spokespeople. Quality change management strategies like this “enable people to get back to productivity as soon as possible after they’ve absorbed the news,” she says.
Get more expert tips on how to build a successful HR strategy through times of change—like how to switch to a remote-first organization or how to increase headcount in the midst of financial uncertainty. Click here to listen to the episode wherever you get your podcasts.