The Employment Development Department (EDD) is seeking seeking a firm that will collectively possess extensive expertise and expert-level knowledge in organizational change management (OCM). The firm will provide a service to help establish, improve, and expand requisite OCM processes, and then partner with EDD staff to implement those processes for the enterprise. As part of this engagement, the team will analyze current organizational change management methodologies, recommend and introduce supporting tools, and best practices. Significant objectives of this challenge are to recognize the variety of roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities required to support new capabilities or service delivery models and to establish a program which will guide and support staff through changes in process, structure, and expectations. In addition, there is a need to develop and implement improved internal and external communications strategies for our stakeholders and fellow Californians.

The Employment Development Department (EDD) in California administers one of the nation's largest public benefit systems with over 21 million claimants and 63 million claims being filed for Unemployment Insurance (UI), Disability Insurance (DI), and Paid Family Leave (PFL) over the past decade.  The EDD organization also supports many auxiliary business functions for hundreds of thousands of employers, medical providers, and other stake holders. Through the EDDnext project, the state will engage with communities across California to help design and implement systems and services that are easier to use and adapt to changing circumstances. 

Various EDD programs are in different stages of automation, from manual processes and paper to a more seamless digital experience. Additionally, the programs have differing degrees of standards and controls. Each program has its own distinct set of operations, technologies, databases, and interfaces. More so, each program has its own policies, regulations, and rules that manifest in unique eligibility standards and processes. In spite of these differences, this modernization effort is seeking to establish a seamless and consistent digital experience for our customers across all EDD benefit programs and channels.

In order to achieve improvements and efficiencies across multiple program areas, EDD is initiating a transformative modernization process by incorporating several planning initiatives, standardizations, foundational changes, and input from multiple programs. One of the primary goals of EDDNext is to eliminate barriers to the creation of a cohesive and consistent experience for customers across all programs and channels.

As a results of these transformation changes, we foresee the following challenges:

1. Multiple existing change management methodologies in different levels of maturity
2. Lack of strong collaboration within and between service areas
3. Absence of a centralized organization change management operation resulting in disjointed and inconsistent delivery amongst various program areas
4. Inability to recognize the enterprise-wide impact of changes within individual program areas
5. Competing priorities that undermine the ability to implement and execute comprehensive change management processes

The EDDNext project team is seeking responses from proposers that can meet the following requirements:

1. Ability to develop, implement and perform complex and comprehensive OCM programs.​
2. Knowledgeable about EDD employee’s labor union representation and their bargaining agreements.​
3. Experience in performing organizational readiness assessments.​
4. Experience in executing organizational change adoption initiatives. 

​The project will improve the service by focusing on the following strategic objectives:

1. Establish, improve, and expand requisite OCM processes, and subsequent  implementation of those processes for the enterprise.​
2. Full accounting of the variety of roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities required to support new capabilities or service delivery models and to establish a program which will guide and support staff through changes in process, structure, and expectations.​
3. Ability to align customer experience and OCM disciplines with the ability to integrate changes for EDDNext initiatives.​
4. Develop, implement and perform complex and comprehensive OCM programs across EDD.