Embedding and evaluating change

Changes can take time to bed into organisations. Once you’ve started implementing changes, focus on how to make them business as usual so that things don’t slip back.

During this phase, remember to:

• stay in close contact with stakeholders to listen, persuade, and show by your own actions that the new way is better
• make sure the change is knitted into ways of working
• be open to new ideas that make the change work even better and build them in.

However difficult things seem at first, eventually the change you’ve implemented will become ‘the new normal’.

Once you’ve started implementing changes, it’s also important to evaluate their impact and measure success. To understand whether your changes have been successful, refer back to the goals and key performance indicators you set when developing your change plans.

To help measure success you could use:

• qualitative data – captured through interviews, focus groups or ad-hoc feedback
• quantitative data – captured through survey, for example
• creative data – captured through storytelling, for example
• secondary data.

Read our guidance on the different types of data and evaluation methods.

Once you’ve gathered and analysed your findings, consider the following questions.

• Have the changes you’ve implemented allowed you to meet your key performance indicators? Are you achieving your goals?
• If not, what could be hindering you? Scrutinise your evaluation findings to help you identify and understand the problem.

If you’re hitting your targets, make sure you thank the people who helped you achieve the change. Look for ways to acknowledge their hard work, thank them for their contribution and celebrate success.