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Between the rampant use of AI, numerous decrees from the federal government, and tariff-fueled geopolitical tension, it feels as if the general pace of change in corporate America is skyrocketing. That means HR leaders are feeling pressure from the board, CEOs, or rank-and-file-workers to make rapid organizational shifts to keep up.
But as longtime CHRO of Citizens Financial Group Susan LaMonica points out, HR leaders need to remind themselves that massive workplace change—whether it’s a culture revamp, an upskilling effort, or incorporating new tech—takes time to pan out. And sometimes, it will be years before companies, especially large ones, reap the benefits of these policies.
“Driving organizational change is all about consistency and repetition. And I think oftentimes what happens with some HR teams is they focus on the flavor of the month, whether that be career development, or incorporating new technology,” says LaMonica, who’s led the human resources practices at the bank for more than a decade. “It takes years to shift leadership behaviors that affect culture in any kind of meaningful way.”
CHROs are often inundated with requests across the management team, she says, leading them to treat new initiatives like new “diet fads.” That means discarding them when they either don’t work as expected, or getting bored and wanting to move onto the next big thing. But she emphasizes that it pays for HR to focus on what’s most important for the long-term growth of the company.
That’s something she experienced first hand, especially after helping the organization transition into becoming a public company in 2014. At the time, the demands on her team were significant, and she says it felt as if there were “100 different agendas coming in all at once.”
Instead of trying to individually address a deluge of demands, she gave her team three enterprise-level agendas to lean into: leadership, career development, and innovation.
Overall, LaMonica says it took three to five years to substantially move the needle at the company towards a more healthy, productive culture, and around eight years for Citizens to make it into the top quartile of companies on McKinsey’s organizational health index, the goal she was after at the time.
“If you try to overhaul an entire culture or talent strategy overnight, you may get flash in the pan results,” she says. “But to get what you really want, true change, it takes consistency, alignment, and also narrowing your focus.”
Brit Morse
brit.morse@fortune.com
