Change burn out

[CaseyMiller]

Anybody else see this trend where they work?

Change burn out - Context: Since the inception of connectivity technology (e.g. email, work sites, on-line apps..etc..) workplace productivity/efficiency seems to have increased exponentially over the years. But, I am seeing another growing symptom from the use of all these tools - "Change burn out".

Previous to all this technology, most change had to flow down from department leadership. This provided some filtering preventing over taxing of the workforce or reducing redundancies of processes. Now, in contrast, department management can provide little protection as those launching initiatives or process change often bypass proper flow down and go directly to the workers.

So much change is occurring coming from so many different directions, management throws up their hands and end up burying their head in the sand.

The result of this is an overtaxed workforce following processes that add little value toward achieving the organization's goals. This kills creativity. Instead of coming up with ways to improve efficiency, the management and workers lay low low, with eyes pointed down, out of fear of being assigned yet another useless initiative that creates nothing but work.

[SteveinMN]

I agree that there is such a thing as "change burnout" -- so much changing at once -- but my experience does not square with the experience you relate. Where I worked, it pretty much all flowed downhill. >8) Our company's VP of IT decided to purchase very expensive back-office software (I'll call it "Billion Dollar Baby"). It is the first product we've purchased from that vendor, so no one really has experience with it or anything that works like it. Yet this product will touch Finance, HR, Manufacturing, ... pretty much everything. It will take years to implement throughout the company. Unfortunately, the company is still making widgets on a daily basis, so it's not like it can sit and wait for the coming Big Bang that's Going To Take Care Of Everything. And a good chunk of time still must be spent both working on systems which we now know are going away (in a few years) or explaining to clients why so many people are working on Billion Dollar Baby and there is no one left to help them keep the train running. All of this started just a year or two after a multi-year implementation of another software system that does much of what BDB does. All of the people not working on implementing BDB have been told their jobs will either transform (somehow) or go away. Rinse and repeat.

Are people burned out? You bet they are. But it was upper management that has done this to us, not any grassroots effort to implement better communication systems with instant messaging/chat or new collaboration software. We just got into the hang of how to submit our annual reviews in the old system; that system is changing (and, apparently, whoever designed the system has not used a computer since about 1982). Expense reports? Changing. PC server management? Different for the BDB boxes. *sigh* Frankly, I'm glad I'm gone. Not like I'm afraid to learn new things (I've learned a ton of new computer stuff since I left work). But knowing that all this hard work likely will result in some other VP of IT coming in after this one's contract expires and his/her declaring that some other direction is the future of the company... Feh.

[JaneV2.0]

Oh God yes. It's only a dim memory, but we'd have software that worked perfectly for the task at hand, we'd get trained (or as often not), and then a year later it would be replaced by something else that didn't work as well. Over and over. I don't miss any of it.