Take for example a sales division, this most likely will have a different culture from the IT department just based on the skill set, the type of work and environment in which employees work therefore the best approach is to define specifically what will work within an organization not the organization as a whole.

Here are 5 tips to get you started.

1.       The first is to understand the business context.  This goes almost without saying that you need to understand what the business reason is for the change, what are the business impacts both within the organization and externally and what is the goal and vision for the organization as a result of the changes implemented.

2.       What is the scope of the change, is it a new way of doing business, new technology, new markets, or a new organizational structure?  These are just some of the questions you need to ask as the impact will be on employees and other stakeholders and by analysing the impact you will understand begin to understand the scope of your change strategy.

3.       Once you have done this analysis you are ready to identify the best approach to implement the changes.  This includes the communication strategy which is nearly always about information, the engagement strategy which is about designing activities aimed at getting the buy-in and support of all levels of employees including the leadership team and then identifying the business measures.

4.       Implement the change strategy for all levels including the leadership team and assess continuously and monitor the success or otherwise of change interventions and alter as the need arises and continue to measure.

5.       Change should be seamless and become part of business as usual activities.  Where change processes fail is when they are labelled and treated as something happening over there and separate to the business.  Seamless integration into the new way we do business is the most difficult but necessary aspect of managing change so ensure that the engagement activities designed in step 3 are designed to become a new process so that behaviour changes.

Change management is difficult, stories abound of change strategies that fail, either due to lack of support by the leadership team, the inability to explain in very simple terms that mean something to individuals why the change is occurring and the miscalculation in timing of the change interventions whether they be key messages or engagement strategies.  To find out more about how to implement change and engage employees click here.

1. Implement team briefing.

Ensure that regular meetings take place with consistent messaging that incorporate change with business as usual activities. You can easily dovetail messages about the system changes and the reason why they are happening by connecting to the everyday business transformation that is going on.  By ensuring consistency in messages team briefing allows you to ensure the focus remains on change and most importantly the reason why.

2. Link to customer service feedback and measures.

There are some powerful ways of linking the customer experience to innovation and change at the workplace. Access to market research on the customer experience can be a great starting point for wider business as usual transformation.  The changes implemented are then measured for improvement in the customer research taken again six months later.

3. Connect with the wider business strategy.

What else is happening in the organisation, what is the bigger picture of what is changing and why and how will the system change enable some improvements in achievement of the organisation’s vision.   By always connecting to the why the rest of the story will fall into place and the momentum for change will continue because there is always something happening.

4. Identify what employees know about the changes.

Measure feedback via focus groups to find out what employees are actually saying about the changes, what they know, identify what they don’t and what they want to know.  You will only ever find this out by conducting the focus groups – questionnaires will not give you the answers you are seeking. Once you have this information it is easy to continue to plan your strategy to keep the momentum for change going.

5. Celebrate milestones.

It is important to keep reminding leaders as well as employees of the milestones in any change process and why they are significant.  By integrating the general changes in business as usual activities and the specific system changes, this constant recognition of progress will keep the focus on movement towards the desired business goals.

If you keep the focus on business as usual and integrate messages about change and the project’s achievements then all you need to do is a subtle shift in balance when you get into implementation phase after the quiet of the build phase of your Information Technology system change.  To have all the detailed information at your fingers tips on how to do this visit  http://www.marciaxenitelis.com/products.html and order all 3 products and save 10% on the purchase price.

With most topics we communicate it logically from the top – CEO down and we think that we’ve done a great job because everyone at the front line is understands how their roles connects with the organisation’s focus. And in most instances we have feedback loops to check whether the audience understands what we have communicated.

However I suggest that the real value in employee communication is the horizontal conversations that we often neglect. For more examples of what I mean by horizontal communication that demonstrates the enterprise wide story click here. This is what gives an enterprise life because the focus in how the sum of each contributes to the whole.

Instead of focussing on silos by division everyone starts to focus on the enterprise as a whole. Here’s an example of what I mean in this case study from the motor industry.

The objective

This organization decided to use videoconferencing to reach five of its major corporate offices. The objective behind the selection of this media was threefold.

Firstly, the company was introducing a new vehicle line, and wanted to spread the news on how excited the employees were about it to their dealer network. Although they could have chosen a newsletter or DVD to get this message across, it would not have been as credible as this choice. One of the main target audiences was a 400-strong dealer network, and the organization wanted them to see first-hand how enthusiastic the 400 employees at the business headquarters were about this new line.

The Method:

So an interactive link was established between these two groups. The opportunity was there for conversation and direct answers to any questions the dealers might want to put forward. Another key factor to the success of this approach was the installation of television monitors at the organizations’ other four regional offices, which enabled 400 more employees to be included in the dealer meeting for the first time. Although they were not able to communicate with the other two groups, they were able to experience the essence of the company and how it sells its product.

This was the first time the employees had the opportunity to be a part of the organization’s “big picture.” Another reason for having the employees present was for them to hear the senior management’s speeches from their location. Therefore, the benefits of this operation were threefold: the dealers were able to feel and hear the employees’ enthusiasm for the new vehicle; the employees were able to see how the company communicated with its dealership to obtain maximum sales; and, the employees and dealers were able to hear the speeches of senior management.

The Outcome:

This approach is as example of a communication approach for companies that want to communicate the enterprise wide story and connect the dots for their audience. By demonstrating to employees the “other side” of the business, specifically marketing and distribution, all the elements that make this organization successful are clearly outlined.

No matter what size organisation the concept on communicating horizontally and not just vertically will make a significant impact on your organisations’ goals and achievements of the company vision. More examples of how many other sectors have implemented enterprise wide communication click here.

So here are a few examples of what I mean.  Let’s say as part of the change process you decide to undertake a stakeholder analysis.  There are two ways of managing this, the first is to get a template and circulate it via email and ask managers to complete it.  If they have filled out the form they will let you know who the stakeholders are, what their issues are likely to be, how they recommend they are communicated with and how frequently.  Another way of doing a stakeholder analysis is to use the same template but this time with the leadership group in the room facilitate a session where they have to discuss and reach agreement on all of the issues.  This is definitely going to create a more robust conversation and sense of ownership.  After the session as part of the signoff process you distribute the outcomes of the session via email and ask the leadership team to confirm via email that they are happy with the content of the stakeholder analysis. Both of these actions create a sense of ownership and responsibility that you would not have had if you used the first approach and just circulated the stakeholder analysis template via email or completed it by having brief one on one discussions.

Another part of the change process for any project is around risks and issues.  It would be easy for any change manager to sit down and complete on their own or with the HR manager the people risks and issues during any change process.  However you want the leadership team to own the people risks and issues, and even before this step to understand that there are risks and issues regarding employees and they should identify what they might be and what mitigation strategies they suggest.  And then after all of this they assign various members of their leadership team to have accountability to deal with the risk should it escalate as an issue.  So again if you facilitate a session with the leadership team to complete the risks and issues template you are creating another paradigm shift in thinking about their accountability for the change process to be successful.

And this is the difference, it is subtle but the results are significant. You will never achieve engagement with the leadership team for owning the people issues around change if you do all the work for them.  You need to get them thinking, talking, discussing, arguing and finally owning the people issues regarding change if you are going to have any level of real success.

As always I am interested in your comments and feedback about the approaches you have found worked in engaging leaders to own the change process in your organisation.

Information is important and provides the support that employees need to find out what is happening.  Think of it this way. Smokers buy a packet of cigarettes, the health warnings are featured on the packet and yet we see intelligent, literate people continue to smoke, packet after packet. The only time they truly become engaged in changing their attitude toward smoking and therefore behaviour is when they are in the doctors office and are personally facing a health risk. And then Aha! they finally get it.

So how do we use this analogy when we are tying to communicate change? Let’s look at this example.

An organization wants to communicate the financial results to employees and the usual approach is to post the employee annual report on the intranet. But this time they need to do something different, they want employees to understand why the company needs to improve and what shareholders base their decisions on. So they decided to run free lunchtime information sessions for their employees on how to invest in the share market and held them for one hour each week for four weeks. The topics progressed from understanding the share market, categories of companies listed etc till the final week they examined annual reports. So in this final session they were reviewing annual reports and came to the last one for the session and after reading through the data the question was asked of employees, so who would invest in this company, few put their hands up. And you guessed it, the company was their company and with a collective Aha! the employees finally got the message.

As in this instance, a large transformation program including HR, training and operational initiatives was developed to build on this.

So here is the important message for any change program.  Information is important, employees need to know what is happening, when, why, who, what and by whom.  However, equally as important when it comes to organizational change, employees need to be involved in the process to be truly engaged.  This is where change professionals need to focus on the “Aha moments” and engage employees in the process of change.