Archive for the ‘change communication’ Category

When you think about the millions of dollars organizations spend each year on IT programs of work, wouldn’t it be prudent knowing that employees actually understand and most importantly embrace the reason behind the changes?  There is one way of ensuring that employees and their managers have got the message and truly understand the reasons for the new system implementation. And that is the means by which leaders communicate change.

Let’s start with reviewing how most organizations manage technology based change.  If your organization’s approach to this type of change is new skills training and employee communication strategies that include stakeholder management (translated briefings), intranet and email updates then that’s not managing change, rather it is focussed on information. So what is the difference and why do we need to do anything more than provide information?

IT systems are not introduced for the sake of a new system itself, they are introduced because there are benefits to be realised from a business management perspective. This may include more information on customer profiles and identifying other products or services clients may be interested in purchasing, the changes might focus on back office systems such as greater information for human resources management or accounting or they may focus on the supply chain and logistics. Whatever the reason there is a business reason for change and this is what employees need to understand if the full benefits of any system implementation is going to be realised.

Let’s look at an example. This financial services organization was introducing a new back office system. In the past employees worked in separate divisions so customers were transferred from one area to another to process their request. The new system meant that all of the customer details were now available to employees and that they would now work in teams and “own” the customer from the commencement to end of transaction. It was a complete system and work style change so before specific system training was introduced a simulated work area was established and employees were taken through the customer experience. It was important that they understood the benefits to the customer by looking at the changes through the eyes of the customer. This way we created the “Aha” moment, employees got the message better than any intranet, information session or email bulletin could have conveyed it. And when employees went into system training they clearly understood the benefits and business reasons behind the changes.

The five key things to remember when communicating technology changes.

1.    Be very clear about the business reasons for the changes – who will benefit and what will those benefits be?

2.    Establish why those benefits are important?  What will the impact be on the organization?

3.    Decide the key messages for your information strategy – what will you need to communicate, to whom and when?

4.    Concurrently design an engagement strategy at key points in your project plan that will engage employees at all levels in the reason for the technology changes.

5.    Remember to ensure engagement the message is not about the system itself but about the business reasons for the changes.

Finally, as change management professionals can we take the same approach to managing system changes and apply it to every new organization? The answer is clearly no because as every organization’s culture is different, so it follows that every approach to change management and employee communication must be different to maximise the investment and potential of the system changes that are implemented.

For more information and examples of case studies visit www.thefutureofemployeecommunication.com

If there is one issue that is constantly raised by clients and workshop attendees it is what to do about senior managers that continue to block your attempts to engage employees in your organization.

There are many steps you can take to ensure that management understand the value of your employee engagement strategies and why they should be supported.  Very few managers have formal training in communicating with their employees and running team meetings, maybe somewhere along the way they were taught how to communicate one on one, but to a large team, particularly communicating complex messages about change it is unlikely. 

So just handing your management team a power point presentation or a script is not going to work.  And human nature being what it is, they will avoid delivering the message you have so carefully crafted or just mumble some general information about the team and the business without focussing on the real issue.  When implementing a transformation strategy it is vital that all employees have face to face communication with some level of management.  And this may be team members with team leaders, state managers with divisional heads, executive teams with their Company President or Chief Executive Officer.  Regardless, all levels of management have to be part of the face to face change communication strategy for it to be effective.

Here are a few tips to consider when faced with this dilemma.

1.     How can you make it easier for managers to communicate? Provide a sheet of key messages, meeting outline and allow them to talk to the key points using their own natural style.

2.    Provide support – you can always volunteer someone from the communications team to be present at the meeting or have a communication champion to attend.  Their role is to take notes on any questions that are raised that can’t be answered then and there and to “fill in the gaps” should the manager fail to stay on message.

3.   Make sure that what you are asking them to communicate is clear, concise and not too long.  A 15 minute meeting is much easier to get agreement to than a 1 hour meeting.

4.  Provide each presenter with some tips on how to manage communicating and presenting to large groups – 5 key points – again don’t overwhelm them.

5.  Finally you may wish to brief the management team at their regular meeting about what is required.  It is highly unlikely that they will raise questions at the meeting so follow up with an email or phone call afterwards to ensure that they know what is required.

Most importantly, one of the key reasons management don’t communicate is because they don’t think that they are responsible for the change message, they think the communications team is.  Clarifying the difference between everyone’s role and your expectations of your management team and their responsibility in communicating change is essential at the outset so there is clarity about what is involved.  Face to face communication is uncomfortable for many people, just because someone is in a leadership position does not mean that they know what to do, they need coaching, they need simple clear messages, they need support and they need to understand how what they are requested to do fits into part of an overall change strategy.