Change Manager I

Change Manager

If you're passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our countryand you're committed to working hard to play your part in building that futureconsider WGU as the next step in your career.

Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.

The salary range for this position takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs. At WGU, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their position, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is : Grade : Professional 307 Pay Range : $66,300.00 - $99,500.00

About the Role :

The Change Manager will play a key role in ensuring projects (change initiatives) meet objectives on time and on budget by increasing employee adoption and usage. This person will focus on the people side of change including changes to business processes, systems and technology, job roles and organization structures. The primary responsibility will be creating and implementing change management strategies and plans that maximize employee adoption and usage and minimize resistance. The Change Manager will work to drive faster adoption, higher ultimate utilization and greater proficiency of the changes that impact WGU employees and WGU students at the college or university level to increase benefit realization, value creation, speed of adaption, and improve the achievement of student outcomes. While the Change Manager does not have supervisory responsibility, this person will have to work through many others in the university to succeed. The Change Manager will act as a coach for senior leaders and executives in helping them fulfill the role of change sponsor. The Change Manager may also provide direct support and coaching to frontline managers and supervisors as they help their direct reports through transitions. The Change Manager will also support project teams in integrating change management activities into their project plans.

Primary Responsibilities Include :

• Apply a structured change management methodology and lead change management activities as defined within the Prosci ADKAR change management framework.
• Assess the change impacts of assigned projects or transformation initiatives.
• Complete change management assessments and present action plans to executive sponsors and senior management stakeholders.
• Create change management strategy and action plans in coordination with the project manager and the executive sponsor aligned with each project or initiative.
• Identify, analyze, prepare, and implement risk mitigation tactics and plans.
• Identify and manage anticipated change resistance within and across organizations.
• Consult and coach project teams using the tools, processes, and outputs of the ADKAR methodology.
• Create actionable deliverables for the five change management levers : (1) communications plan, (2) sponsor roadmap, (3) coaching plan, (4) training plan, (5) resistance management plan
• Directly support communication efforts. Depending on the project, this may include creation of communication content and management of deliverables; as well as, the overall ownership of the communication plan.
• Support and coordinate training efforts as needed.
• Support and engage senior leaders as required to ensure the success of the project(s).
• Support organizational design and definition of new roles and new responsibilities with respect to the future state created by the change initiative.
• Coordinate efforts with other specialists or stakeholders, both internal or external to the university, to ensure successful change outcomes.
• Integrate change management activities into project plans in coordination with project managers.
• Evaluate and ensure user readiness prior to and during change implementation.
• Manage stakeholders and stakeholder expectations in coordination with executive sponsors.
• Proactively track and report issues (risk & risk mitigation) during the project.
• Define and measure success metrics for the project; and, monitor and report change progress.
• Support change management at the organizational level, as defined in the WGU Enterprise Change Management Plan.
• Manage the project portfolio and change management load (change saturation risk) in partnership with management during the annual operations planning and strategic planning cycles.

Knowledge, Skill and Abilities You'll Need to Be Successful :

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