Realising Bold Ambitions Through a People-First Approach Change

Challenge

Founded in 1985, AXA is a French company that operates in over 51 countries, serves over 94 million clients, and employs more than 147,000 people. For this specific engagement, Prosci worked with the AXA office in Spain.

The company had an overarching objective: “To be leaders in competitiveness and service by winning the preference of customers, intermediaries, suppliers and employees.” In practice, meeting this objective was based on a comprehensive and ambitious strategic plan that was first rolled out in Q1 of 2020.

The team at AXA quickly realised they would need to take a strategic and deliberate approach to meet their goals. This included implementing a robust change management framework and training, and empowering employees through the various changes required to meet their organisational objectives.

Solution

Apply robust, best-in-class change management methodology
Establish a dedicated Change Management Office
Evolve and expand organisational capability and change management capacity
Develop comprehensive long-term, strategic change management plan

Establish Change Management Office (CMO)

A dedicated CMO allowed for greater structure and a more intentional process around enterprise-level change initiatives. It also provided better tools and support to integrate the people side of change.

Change Management Training

Prosci built a long-term plan focusing on five key dimensions: organizational structure, processes, project management, executive sponsorship and competency development. Role-based training focused on each of the five core dimensions, and began with employees from the Organisation and Culture department and the Clients and Transformations department. Two change management practitioners and a team of project managers were also identified as priority individuals to receive training.

Coaching and Support

Throughout the engagement, Prosci providing extensive coaching, supporting AXA teams throughout various project initiatives and phases. Together, AXA and Prosci worked to deploy Prosci Methodology and integrate it with AXA’s project management structure. Through a rigorous and repeatable approach, AXA team members learned how to manage change effectively.

Results

Change Management Integration

Change management practices continue to be deployed on all relevant projects within the organisation. Additionally, any project that is part of AXA’s Transformation or its Strategic Plans have a change management component built into the implementation plan from kickoff to wrap-up.

Proactive Requests

Project managers and business leaders have started to proactively request change management on projects. This is especially true for individuals who have firsthand experience with participating in a project where change management has been successfully deployed.

Sponsor Satisfaction

Executive leadership and project sponsors came to the table with a high level of commitment for change management. Now, based on the success of the initiatives, project sponsors continue to express their satisfaction and encourage teams to leverage the methodology moving forward.