Using the ADKAR Model for Change Management

Whether it's a small change to a team’s structure, or the unveiling of a new company-wide policy, new practices will only stick if you can get everyone on board.

Research shows around 70% of change initiatives fail due to things like poor communication,  low engagement and a lack of knowledge-sharing, making it difficult for businesses to grow.

To make change happen, employees need to know why, when and how new processes are being introduced and feel supported through potentially disruptive transformations. That’s where the ADKAR model comes in, offering 5 simple steps to make accepting change easy.

Learn how the ADKAR model works and how to use it in your own change initiatives below.

What Is the ADKAR Model?

The ADKAR model is an incentive-driven change management technique that helps leaders manage change at the individual level.

ADKAR puts employees at the centre of change initiatives, teaching that the most important aspect of change management is properly preparing your people.

The basic idea is that to make change happen, everybody across your entire organisation needs to be in sync and on the same page. No matter the size of the change, ensuring all parties are motivated and engaged in the process will help the change to happen and stick.

The key principles of ADKAR are found in its name:

1. Awareness: Making sure your team understands the need for change.
2. Desire: Giving your team reasons to support the change.
3. Knowledge: Teaching your team how to implement the change.
4. Ability: Ensuring your team has the required skills to perform the change.
5. Reinforcement: Offering continuous support to help your team sustain the change.

Understanding the 5 Stages of the ADKAR Model

While there are other change management models you can follow, the ADKAR model is popular because it’s simple to use and easy to adapt.

Originally created by Posci founder Jeff Hiatt in the early 2000s, the ADKAR model has remained mostly unchanged for over two decades because, simply, it works.

As ADKAR focuses on the one constant element of change, people, the technique can be considered evergreen. No matter the size, type or complexity of a change, if you can make people aware of and excited about it, you’ll have a much better chance of making it happen.

To demonstrate why the ADKAR model is so successful, let's expand on its 5 stages.

1. Awareness

The less people know about a change, the more resistant they’ll be to it. The awareness stage of the ADKAR model relieves anxiety by ensuring people know a change is coming.

Your employees may feel comfortable in their current roles and existing workflows, if out of nowhere you come in and say everything is changing, they might not be too happy about it. 

Spreading awareness of change slowly, gradually and with a guiding hand of support helps people adjust on their own terms. You can use this period to explain why the change is important and what benefits it will bring, setting the stage for motivation and desire to grow.

2. Desire

Once people have accepted a change is coming, they can start thinking about how it might benefit them. The desire stage of the ADKAR model deals with motivation, giving employees personal reasons to get behind change initiatives and become excited about the future.

Desire can come from personal benefits like faster workflows, less paperwork or increased job security, or it can come from involving employees in planning and implementing change.

Collecting employee ideas and factoring them into change initiatives can be a great way to engage people in change and make them feel part of the process. Idea management tools like Sideways 6 help to foster desire by making it easy for people to build on change plans.

3. Knowledge

The knowledge stage builds on a person’s desire for change by giving them the tools they need to make it happen.

The ADKAR models says successful transformations require two types of knowledge:

• Current State: The knowledge to implement the change as it happens.
• Future State: The knowledge to stick to the change in the future.

This stage of the ADKAR change management model is all about training and knowledge sharing. This is your chance to upskill people, to teach them how to perform new processes and to listen to their ideas so you can give them the tools required to make change happen.

4. Ability

The ability stage turns knowledge and training into action.

This is where you can test your plans in a controlled environment to make sure everyone is prepared to make the change happen. You might make adjustments and tweaks based on results and employee feedback, but if everything works, you’ll know you’re ready to change.

5. Reinforcement

Once the initial excitement wears off, people can fall back into old habits.

The final stage of the ADKAR process, reinforcement, helps you develop plans to make sure transformations stick.

This might involve recognising and rewarding people who stick to changed processes when others start to drift away, or electing change leaders to manage the process day-to-day. The goal here is to keep the benefits of the change in everyone’s minds far into the future.

How to Use the ADKAR Change Management Model

Now we know the five building blocks of the ADKAR change management model, it's time to put them into action. Below are some tips and best practices to help you manage your own change initiatives using the ADKAR model.

Create Awareness of the Need to Change

You can’t make a change if no one knows about it, so first you need to raise awareness.

The ADKAR model teaches that just knowing about a change isn’t always enough, you’ve also got to get people thinking about why the change is happening and why it’s a good thing.

Here are a few ways you can do just that:

• In-Person Meetings: Face-to-face meetings give you a chance to explain why a change is needed, answer questions and show people how new processes work.
• Enterprise Social Networks: It’s easy to grab people’s attention on the tools they use everyday, and with idea management integrations, staff can also share feedback.
• On-Site Advertising: Posters, flyers and print-outs hung around busy areas of your workplace can spark natural conversations about the change between employees.

What Does This Look Like?

When Virgin Media and O2 merged in 2021, leaders developed a new communications programme. To get employees from both companies to switch over, Virgin Media O2 worked alongside Sideways 6 to get the message out across their new merged onboarding system.

Foster Desire for Change

Just knowing about a change doesn’t make it happen, people need to be actively involved.

Encouraging desire for change means giving people reasons to make a switch, usually by laying out clear personal benefits. It’s also important to engage people in change and give them a sense of ownership over the project, so give them ways to share ideas and feedback.

To foster desire for change, try:

• Highlighting Personal Benefits: If some people are reluctant to change, show them how new processes can save them time, make work easier or teach them new skills.
• Running ideas programmes: Sideways 6 helps employees engage with change initiatives by giving them a way to share ideas and put their mark on new processes.
• Mentioning the Risks of Inaction: While positive reinforcement is best, it can help to discuss the negatives of rejecting change like losing out on revenue or customers.

What Does This Look Like?

When McDonald’s introduced self-service kiosks in the 2010s, some staff were concerned about losing their jobs. Leaders helped foster desire for change by showing employees how these new tools would save them time and provide job security by increasing productivity.

Provide Knowledge on How to Change

Now that people feel the desire to change, they just need the knowledge to make it happen.

Communication and collaboration are key at this point. You need to provide employees with the training, support and educational resources required to learn new processes and engage others in the change, with one-on-one and peer-to-peer support encouraged at every level.

Effective knowledge sharing can look like:

• Hands-On Training: Regular, open training sessions where employees can get to grips with new tools and workflows will help build confidence and alleviate concerns.
• Peer Learning Programs: Some people might pick up new skills faster than others, encourage them to help their colleagues and share pointers to promote togetherness.
• Clear Expectations: People might know how to do something, but not how long it should take. Set clear goals and milestones to help ease people into new workflows.

What Does This Look Like?

When Microsoft launched a new business intelligence platform in 2020, employees needed to learn a whole new set of rules and best practices. During trials, open text resources and guides were shared internally to help refine workflows and encourage ongoing improvement.

Give Employees the Ability to Make a Change

At this stage in the ADKAR process, knowledge turns into practical ability.

Your team should have everything they need now to make the change happen, they just need some time to put things into practice. The ability stage gives people a chance to test their skills in a controlled setting to ensure they’re happy and comfortable with the change.

Great forms of support to offer here include:

• Hands-On Practice: Pilot schemes and small-scale tests give people a chance to practise new skills in realistic settings and iron out any small issues or inefficiencies.
• Peer Mentorship: Some people might have the desire and knowledge to change but lack a little confidence, try pairing them up with peers who can give them a hand.
• Actionable Checklists: Breaking down complicated changes into actionable steps can make things feel less overwhelming and make mastering new skills much easier.

What Does This Look Like?

Google is a big supporter of pilot schemes and internal mentorship programs, with leaders finding something as simple as a 15-minute conversation with an experienced peer can help employees pick up new skills 25% faster.

Reinforce the Change

Now you’ve moved over to a new way of working, you need to make sure it sticks.

After the initial excitement of a change wears off, it can be easy for people to fall back into old habits. The ADKAR change management model takes this into account by teaching leaders to reinforce change through continuous reward, recognition and support programs.

Try reinforcing change through:

• Reward and Recognition: Highlight people who stick to the change and encourage others to do so too by rewarding them for their efforts and making them feel valued.
• Continuous improvement: Be open to ideas about improving new processes, give people avenues to share feedback and opinions using idea management solutions.
• One-on-One Support: Show employees that you’re still invested in making change stick by being available to answer questions and offer support to those who need it.

What Does This Look Like?

When restructuring a key manufacturing site in 2010, GE Healthcare found that highlighting and recognising employee success in monthly face-to-face meetings helped to keep people engaged in change and motivated to stick with it.

Enhance the ADKAR Model with Smart Idea Management

The ADKAR change management model can be highly-effective at guiding organisational change as it can be easily-adapted to suit unique needs. By addressing the one constant element of change, people, you’ll find securing buy-in and reinforcing change much easier.

To get the most out of ADKAR, or any other change management model, it’s important to speak to the needs of employees and ensure they feel involved in your change initiatives.

Give your teams the tools they need to engage in change with an intuitive idea management solution built into the software you already use. Try out our product with a free demo today.