The ongoing digitization effort throughout the U.S. government poses many challenges for government agencies and the organizations that work with them.
These organizations must acquire the right tools, find enough budget to meet an unfunded mandate, update their records management policies and schedules appropriately, and more. But the single biggest challenge is the living, breathing one: people.
The Department of Labor (DOL), in its 2020 Senior Agency Official for Records Management report, puts it perfectly. In response to a question about the difficulties of “meeting the goal of fully-electronic record keeping,” DOL cites “staff opposition to changing processes, roles and responsibilities” as a key challenge.
How can organizations handle staff resistance to records management changes?
Consultancy group Deloitte agrees with DOL. In their report “Records Management: The cost of warehousing bad habits,” they identify internal resistance as a key roadblock to overcome in any digitization effort. From there, they suggest that the human factor has two major dimensions to consider: do staff members know how to make the change, and do they understand the importance and/or the benefits of making the change?
To address these questions, they recommend that organizations:
- Deploy adequate training, so users know how to adopt the new approach. There’s just no substitute for adequate education, skills development, and technical support.
- Use good, user-friendly tools. A better platform will produce better adoption. See our guide to evaluating Electronic Records Management (ERM) systems for more information.
- Above all else, make sure people understand the benefits (especially for them in their own roles). This is a matter of communications. The good news is digitization really does benefit almost everyone.
Remember, however, that change has social as well as technical dimensions.
The above recommendations address technical barriers to change. A classic and seminal article in The Harvard Business Review additionally argues that social barriers to change are just as important to tackle: “Actually, what employees resist is usually not technical change but social change—the change in their human relationships that generally accompanies technical change.”
In other words, if the change threatens relationships between team members, everyone will resist it. The key is in how leaders and managers handle the change: “Executives and staff experts need not expertness in using the devices of participation but a real understanding, in depth and detail, of the specific social arrangements that will be sustained or threatened by the change or by the way in which it is introduced.”
In other words, when the person doesn’t understand why a change is being made, that gap in understanding can arouse fears around their role, up to and including worries about job loss or loss of rank. Also, don’t underestimate the impact of simple hurt feelings on resistance to change. People like feeling valued for their skills and contributions to the organization. When a change is handled brusquely, people can feel disrespected, resent the change, and act out their resentment via resistance.
Here, the solution is to ensure there’s a coherent, well-designed change management process in place. Any time the organization makes a major change, the transformation itself is a project that must be managed. In the end, any new process, policy, tool, or other work requirement always comes down to the people responsible for following or practicing the new way. Make sure your plan of action for meeting NARA’s 2022 deadline for submitting all records in electronic format contends with the people who are critical to meeting that deadline.
About PSL
PSL is a global outsource provider whose mission is to provide solutions that facilitate the movement of business-critical information between and among government agencies, business enterprises, and their partners. For more information, please visit or email info@penielsolutions.com.