How MSUFCU Integrates Teams For Seamless Change Management

Change remains one of life’s enduring certainties, permeating both personal and professional spheres. Yet, even beneficial transformations can evoke apprehension. This sentiment is particularly pronounced among front-line staff when changes appear sudden and lack adequate communication. That’s why progressive organizations are proactively strategizing to better incorporate employees into the change process.

Departments across Michigan State University Federal Credit Union ($7.7B, East Lansing, MI) have a strong history of working closely together to usher in new products, processes, policies, and more, but the cooperative has realized it needs to focus more on the people side of change management.

“We need to gain buy-in and support from all staff at the beginning and get feedback from those impacted much sooner to support the rapid pace of change,” says Silvia Dimma, chief human resources officer at MSUFCU.

The cooperative’s organizational development team is now working diligently to ensure all team members understand what changes are on the horizon and encourage them to offer their perspectives on what’s needed for success.

“We felt it was important to ensure everyone understood the need for the change, how it would benefit them, what skills they may need to enhance, and how it would benefit our members,” Dimma says.

A People Process

MSUFCU’s five-person organizational development team is composed of one manager and four specialists who collaborate closely with teams across the cooperative, including strategy realization (aka, project management), learning and development, internal communications, and marketing as well as the departments responsible for implementing specific changes. Together, these are the individuals responsible for ensuring employees across the credit union have the right information at the right time. They also design the training and learning aids required for a smooth transition.

“We want to bring all the departments together and make the people connection,” Dimma says.

For example, organizational development designs the communication plan that brings individuals through the change journey, internal communication works on developing documents and processes to make that plan effective, and learning and development works with organizational development and subject matter experts to ensure the right training is available to upskill employees and prepare them for success. For changes that directly impact members, the marketing department develops messaging for external channels such as MSUFCU’s website, mobile app, mailers, and more.

Employee Sentiment

The organizational development team surveys employees throughout the process to solicit feedback and gauge employee sentiment. The surveys help MSUFCU better understand how people are feeling about a change, identify concerns, and highlight areas that need better communication or process improvement.

MSUFCU is still in the early stages of evolving the people side of its change management process, but it has already noted positive improvements. For example, employees are more aware of and involved in the change process, which has led to stronger buy-in and smoother implementation and adoption.

“It’s helped our employees be ready for change and feel well-educated about the process,” Dimma says. “It’s also given them an opportunity to contribute to projects as they are developed.”

When the credit union restructured its training team in 2023 to create a unified learning process —   moving from departments that each had their own trainers to centralized trainers under the learning and development team — MSUFCU used its new people-centric change management process to improve awareness for trainers, departments, and the organization as a whole. The experience helped the organizational development team enhance its communication techniques and determine which questions to ask to ensure it was hearing employees and addressing concerns.

More recently, when MSUFCU centralized its lending processes, its people focus paved the way for transparent conversations in which it clearly explained to employees what parts of the job would evolve and helped it ensure it provided necessary training and skill enhancement.

“We saw great buy-in and a lot of success,” Dimma says. “The earlier we start communicating and establishing key stakeholders, the better. It’s important to communicate key messages regarding why upcoming changes are needed and how they’ll benefit our members early and often.”

However, it’s also important projects stay on track. Looking forward, MSUFCU will work to better focus any additional steps and deeper communications to ensure people are coming on board in a succinct and timely fashion. And in terms of advice, Dimma encourages change management leaders to prioritize early buy-in from staff to minimize the gap between implementation and adoption.

“As we reviewed past projects, we noticed employee adoption sometimes took longer because of additional training needs, questions, or just not fully understanding the change,” Dimma says. “Moving forward, we’re striving for full buy-in from everyone at the initial project launch to ensure success.”