[Hiring] Technology Change Manager @Howden

Role Description

Howden is delivering a portfolio of technology-enabled transformation projects across US Retail. These changes are designed to improve how the business operates, how colleagues work day-to-day, and how technology supports future growth.

As the business adopts this portfolio of IT change, it will need focused support to ensure the changes are understood, embedded and adopted, and that the expected benefits are realized.

We are looking for an experienced and people-focused Change Manager to lead change management activity for the US Retail Technology Programme. This role is ideal for someone who can:

• Translate technology delivery into clear business impact.
• Drive stakeholder engagement from the outset.
• Support successful adoption through each phase of the delivery lifecycle.

As a People First company, supporting our people as the organisation makes these transitions is of paramount importance. The successful candidate will work closely with programme, business, operations, HR, training and communications teams to ensure positive outcomes for colleagues and for the business.

You will play a key role in shaping the change journey across US Retail, ensuring impacted teams are prepared, supported and confident through implementation, go-live and post-go-live adoption. A core focus of the role will be:

• Building practical change capability.
• Managing adoption risk.
• Ensuring resistance is treated as useful feedback that informs the delivery approach.

Qualifications

• Experience supporting change management in a large financial services organisation.
• Proven experience delivering change management within complex technology-enabled transformation environments.
• Experience supporting technology implementations across business, operations and IT teams.
• Prosci Change Management Certification is preferred; demonstrable experience applying Prosci methodology is required.
• Demonstrable experience applying the ADKAR model to support adoption, readiness and resistance management.
• Strong leadership skills with experience managing or coordinating change activity across cross-functional teams.
• Excellent communication, coaching and stakeholder engagement abilities.
• Experience conducting stakeholder analysis, impact assessment, readiness assessment and adoption planning.
• Experience designing and executing communication plans, training strategies and adoption measurement approaches.
• Experience working with teams and individuals impacted by organizational, process and technology change.
• Ability to make clear-headed decisions under pressure.
• Excellent relationship management skills and the ability to work with senior managers within a complex, fast-paced organisation.
• Proven ability to work in a highly confidential environment.
• Ability to ruthlessly manage priorities and focus effort where it will have the greatest adoption impact.
• Experience working with US-based stakeholders or distributed business teams would be advantageous.

Requirements

• Conduct stakeholder analysis to identify impacted groups, assess readiness, and map change impacts by role, process and business area.
• Work with the business and the programme to ensure the impact of technology changes on the operating model and people are well understood.
• Facilitate business thinking on operating model changes required by the technology implementation.
• Alongside HR and business leadership, ensure people changes are understood and the right level of support is provided to those impacted by operating model change.
• Provide input into stakeholder analysis updates and feed findings into communication, training and adoption planning.
• Define and maintain the change management strategy, including approach, key messages, audiences, engagement channels and timeline aligned to the delivery plan.
• Create and maintain practical adoption plans, including adoption targets, success measures, readiness criteria and resistance mitigation strategies.
• Identify change risks and adoption blockers early, agree mitigation actions, and track these through to closure.
• Develop and execute an audience-focused communications plan to communicate change in a clear, honest and upfront way.
• Craft targeted messages for stakeholders at different levels.
• Build and maintain a network of business adoption champions.
• Work with internal communications teams to ensure relevant and appropriate communications are developed and delivered in a timely manner.
• Disseminate go-live communications and coordinate with business and operations adoption champions to support day-one readiness.
• Identify and capture success stories to support adoption.
• Work with the programme training team and business teams to ensure training needs are well understood and delivered in a timely manner.
• Design the training strategy and coordinate delivery.
• Facilitate workshops, training sessions and engagement activity.
• Lead deployment readiness activities from a change perspective.
• Work with programme, business and operations teams to ensure colleagues understand what is changing.
• Support cutover and go-live planning by ensuring business readiness, communications readiness and user readiness are visible and actively managed.
• Work with benefit owners to ensure benefit outcomes are clear, measurable and reflective of phased delivery.
• Define and track adoption metrics.
• Champion user adoption post go-live by gathering user feedback.
• Manage change resistance by identifying root causes and tracking adoption actions through to closure.
• Build strong relationships with programme teams, business leaders, operations teams, HR, communications, training teams and impacted colleagues.
• Engage stakeholders from the start of the change journey.
• Communicate the change vision, benefits, impacts, readiness expectations and progress clearly and consistently.

Benefits

• A career that you define.
• Volunteering in the community as part of the day job.
• Encouragement to play a part towards sustainability goals.