Kate Whitley-Gray
CLIENT SERVICES DIRECTOR
Change in business is constant: from tiny tweaks to the structure of a holiday application form, to mergers and acquisitions, businesses are continually evolving and developing – and all of these changes need communicating.
But communicating to your employees and stakeholders in the right way, at the right time and via the right channels is not without risk. Employee disengagement, disenfranchisement and even dissent can be the effects of change being communicated poorly, or indeed, not communicated at all.
Internal comms is not about sending an email chain ‘to all’, it’s about applying scientific, proven methodologies to generate wholehearted employee participation in your change programmes, no matter how big or small.
There are five basic areas of organisational change. Each of which require tailored and targeted internal communication strategies in order for the change to be communicated effectively:
A company culture is lived out through the shared experiences of its employees. It is the DNA of your business, your purpose and what your stand for. Ultimately, the culture of a business evolves as its people, the society or cultural landscape it sits within, also evolve. Indeed, in this respect, a company culture is never ‘complete’, it is an iterative and continuous process and although it shifts slowly, it is constantly moving.
Managing expectations about how quickly cultural change can be, a) felt and b) communicated is important. Cultural change happens slowly, often taking many months between the need for change being identified, worked into the business’s internal processes, communicated effectively, and then fully adopted by employees.
Our recommendations to ensure cultural change is communicated well include:
Although the pace of cultural change may be slow, the dynamic of it shouldn’t be. Your communications objective here is to inspire, excite and reassure employees that they belong (Pfizer Case Study).
Cultural change is also the precursor to the next type of business change, behavioural change.
Often impacted, but not reliant on cultural change, behavioural change happens when businesses choose to address company-wide issues or behaviours that are having a detrimental impact on performance and ultimately the bottom line.
These include areas such as improving efficiency, adopting Agile working methods, or applying revised company values.
Like cultural change, behavioural change will happen slowly, with full employee engagement and buy-in often taking months.
Effective communication methods for supporting behavioural change, include:
Your communications objective is of course to inspire and excite. But at this stage, you are also motivating employees with specifics, not just ensuring they understand what to expect, but also empowering them to accountability.
Transformational and strategic changes are all about the business’s renewed ‘purpose’. It’s dynamic, exciting, time-bound and full of actions for all involved. Therefore, effective communication around transformational and strategic change need to follow suit in terms of energy.
There are three main elements to ensure communicating transformational or strategic change happens effectively:
Operational change is generally concerned with the ‘how’. How things are done within a business and how they are going to change. These changes are more granular than our first three, pertaining to functional changes, a sales process, implementation of new departments, etc.
They are often communicated by line management, rather than executive level. Often, line managers are experts in their field, rather than born managers and as such may need support to ensure clear message delivery and communication.
Therefore, when approaching an operational change communication strategy, the channels and tools by which these changes are being communicated are often as important to get right as the messages.
The final type of business change we are exploring here, technological change, is somewhat different from the others.
Technological change rarely happens in a vacuum, it is a symptom or a tool via which cultural, behavioural, transformational, strategic or operational changes are implemented.
Simply put, technological change should happen to support the other changes.
Because of this, the overriding message to deliver to employees is that this technological implementation is going to make things better, easier, faster or more efficient – effectively, it will drive performance.
The biggest barrier to implementing technological change is employee resistance. You will be asking employees to learn how to operate a brand new system or platform and at best, that takes time and effort on their behalf. You don’t want your bigger picture cultural and behavioural changes to fall flat because of employees’ unwillingness to engage.
Using the operational change internal comms guidelines will also support technological change. In addition, consider the following:
In summary – any form of change is hugely affecting for employees across a business. By tailoring your approach, with consideration for the emotional and practical impact on your employees, you’ll set yourself up for success in driving change that sticks.
Looking for support with your change communication strategy? That’s what we’re here for.
Get in touch and let's have a conversation.
Kate Whitley-Gray
CLIENT SERVICES DIRECTOR