Solve Consulting
Empowering Seamless Organizational Transformation

In the current business landscape, adapting to and driving strategic change is essential for coping with changes in the present and the future for organizations to remain competitive. For many organizations, the rate of change will only increase going forward–organizational changes are being driven at a rapid pace due to a variety of factors, such as the accelerated pace of technological innovation, economic pressures, changes in strategic priorities, and the need for organizations to be more nimble.

Helping organizations navigate these situations is where Solve Consulting (Solve) excels. Solve is a boutique management consultancy firm that provides services across more than 15 industries throughout Canada. Founded by consultants with experience working at one of the Big Four, Solve relentlessly focuses on delivering the quality of service expected from a Big Four consultancy at a fraction of the cost.

Solve, with a primary focus on change management, process improvement, and project execution, consistently helps clients deliver strategic initiatives to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and reliability of their business. Through a collaborative approach, Solve partners with client teams throughout all stages of the engagement to develop the skills and capabilities required to sustain changes.

Catherine Naylen, a Partner at Solve Consulting, notes that in today’s business landscape, several elements can create or compound resistance to change management initiatives. This can range from a highly charged political environment, lack of solution support or buy-in as well as other factors.

To help facilitate success for a change initiative, Solve works with leaders to prepare and enable all levels of leadership to lead and manage the employee experience, explicitly fostering a culture of resiliency and helping employees develop a positive mindset toward adopting the organizational changes.

Naylen believes a large part of Solve’s success is attributed to its change management philosophy, which places employees at its core. By placing (client) employees at the center, Solve continually looks to ensure that client team members know and understand the changes that are happening and the clear impact that the change will have on ‘their world’ - they do this to help ensure that new behaviors, processes, and technologies are embedded and that the organization can sustain the changes on an on-going basis. As a result, Solve seeks to ensure the alignment of strategy, culture, and leadership. Solve believes that change management strategies and tactics must be tailored to fit the needs of an organization.

Naylen further states, “Essentially, by focusing on managing the employee experience and identifying the key behaviors and mindset that need to be embedded in the organization, it allows us (Solve) to be better positioned to support client team members through the change and set them in the right direction for their change journey.”

A key aspect of Solve’s philosophy considers the peoplerelated risks associated with the proposed changes and how to manage (or mitigate) these risks. Focusing on the mitigation of risk helps to facilitate a stronger connection to the changes that are occurring.

As a part of the mitigation, Solve collaborates with client team members and leaders to build a mitigation strategy with the highest likelihood of success and sustainability and supports the leaders to lead the change initiative.

When it comes to Solve’s change philosophy, the Solve team does not believe there is a ‘onesize-fits-all’ approach to change management. To support the successful implementation of any initiative: Solve follows a structured change management methodology to develop a change strategy that will be ‘right-sized’ to fit their client’s needs. As a part of ‘right-sizing’ a client’s strategy, Solve believes that it is imperative to understand not only the vision/goals of the organization but also the culture and the size and scale of the changes being embedded.
Solve creates an integrated change management plan that breaks the changes into manageable ‘bite-sized’ pieces to not overwhelm the impacted audiences. Solve’s integrated and holistic approach to change management facilitates the effectiveness of the change and helps to ensure that all elements of the change strategy are tied together to provide the whole picture.

Solve’s change methodology is scalable and customizable to suit clients’ needs. Solve draws from different industry best practices to create a change management strategy that best aligns with client objectives. The Solve team incorporates the successes and lessons learned from prior change programs and constantly strives to deliver ‘best-of-the-breed’ models that enable change throughout client businesses. This may include using the ADKAR model, incorporating ideas from change management thought leaders like William Bridges and John Carter – but above all, the Solve methodology draws on the team’s vast expertise in completing complicated, large-scale projects.

At the heart of Solve’s success in delivering impactful, sustainable change management is its emphasis on clients and their needs. Understanding that clients are experts on what works best within their organizations, Solve strongly emphasizes working together to develop sound recommendations for change management. Solve also believes that sustainable change requires commitment from both leadership as well as commitment from employees to help ensure new ways of working and behaviors are appropriately embedded in the organization. Without a dedicated effort to sustain change, employees will often revert to old working methods and earlier performance levels by creating “workarounds”.

Solve has helped many of its clients with extensive and complex initiatives; recently, Solve assisted one of its clients in implementing the new Workday payroll system. The project support encompassed change management, communication, and training for the implementation that impacted 15,000 employees across North America (375+ locations across Canada and the U.S.) with 41 different unions and 13 separate collective bargaining agreements.

Solve created multiple change networks for this engagement with around 1400 participants, ensuring business needs and processes were examined and approved before implementation. They identified detailed change impacts and ultimately delivered personalized change impact letters to employees. Solve liaised with labor relations to maintain compliance with all union requirements and ensure members could effectively use the system. Simultaneously, Solve ran a sizable education/awareness campaign for employees to understand the changes, along with comprehensive communication and training campaigns.

Concurrently, Solve held numerous change impact sessions for employees and leaders to grasp the size, scale, and scope of the change that resulted from the implementation. Like many change initiatives, some organizational resistance presented challenges, but Solve worked to mitigate risks and resistance with dedicated plans to manage these hurdles while consistently supporting the employee experience.

Post-implementation, Solve received glowing reviews from the C-suite, saying it was the best implementation at the company in the last 25 years. This success perfectly exemplifies Solve’s ability to drive and support changes by engaging people across the organization, helping leaders to lead, and managing the overall employee experience.

Solve remains a top player in the change management landscape, preparing numerous leaders to guide their workforces through a client-centered strategy that ensures they have the right tools to support organizational transformation.