Tag Archives: employees

Six suggestions for communicating change to employees

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Although we’ve all roared into 2010 with optimism that the recession is soon going to be behind us, many companies are faced with difficult choices in order to survive: cutting or outsourcing jobs, consolidating plants or divisions, eliminating product offerings, slashing funds for research and development, divesting a unit, or even restructuring in bankruptcy. All involve lots of change, especially for employees. What can communicators do to keep the wheels on the bus during the upheaval? Here are six recommendations:

1. Set expectations

Explain to employees what’s going to happen when. Layout a timeline of expected milestones and actions. Address critical issues upfront: how are the changes going to affect the things they’re most worried about: pay, benefits, time off, job security? Let them know what will be expected of them: do they need to fill out any paperwork, make choices about benefits or change their work schedules? The more uncertainty you can remove for them, the better.

2. Create a rhythm

Incorporate change communication into regular channels, but also consider special daily or weekly updates to keep employees abreast. Make sure that the frequency matches the amount of information available, however. Don’t schedule daily updates when it’s likely that there will only be new information each week or month. Most employees will be more comfortable knowing they can expect new information at set times versus not knowing when the next update is going to come.

3. Admit when you don’t have information

In many situations (layoffs, divestitures, bankruptcy filings) legal regulations dictate what you can disclose, when, and to whom. Sometimes even communicators themselves aren’t informed of all the details of a situation until it’s well underway, or if they are informed, they’ve signed a nondisclosure agreement and can’t reveal what they know. Other times, information just may not be available. It’s okay to tell employees that. Not every detail of a situation is going to be worked out from the first moment. It may take months before it becomes clear what’s going to happen with a particular product line, department or program. Employees would rather hear that you don’t know something versus hearing a lot of speculation.

4. Enable feedback

Whether it’s weekly roundtable meetings, an anonymous Web form, an e-mail address, or just a good old fashioned suggestion box, ensure that the communication is truly two-way. Give employees the opportunity to submit questions and air out concerns, and then answer them as promptly and thoroughly as possible. Chances are if one employee is asking about a topic, three or four others are thinking about it. Monitoring feedback is also a great way to catch rumors as they surface. Situations that involve a lot of change can be stressful, and communicators can sometimes get so caught up in making sure information gets disseminated that they forget to check the feedback loop and see where the gaps are in what employees are really hearing.

5. Dispel rumors before they get out of hand

Again, sometimes your hands may be tied with what you can confirm or deny about a situation, but to the extent possible, put the kibbosh on outlandish rumors before they get a chance to spread. Easier said than done, of course. If you can dispel something that’s patently false (and even better, replace it with the truth), do so. Fast. And frequently. Even rumors that have been put to bed end up recirculating among different employee groups.

6. Reinforce the positives

It sounds trite, but there’s always silver lining to be found. Maybe your company is still profitable and growing. Maybe your customers love you. Maybe your employees are racking up awards, patents, conference slots or other accolades. Find the bright spots and incorporate them into communication to employees.

Big changes in a company can cause fear and uncertainty among employees, but they can also lead to a stronger organization. Communicators play a major role in helping make the transition smooth and as transparent as possible, but it takes a lot of effort and planning.

Ragan Recap: Communications, Chicago-style

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chicagoI’m so exhausted after three days in Chicago that I can barely stay awake to write this post. I took in slightly more information than I did beer in the Windy City (but not by much) and want to share my impressions of the 2009 Ragan Corporate Communicators Conference and some of what I learned in the sessions.

A few of the sessions I attended were so outstanding that they warrant their own individual posts that will come later this week (stay tuned). The others were quite solid. I predominantly went to workshops on the PR/Marketing Communications track. Here’s a rundown of some of my favorites:

ComEd: Generating positive publicity when the lights are on

ComEd Communications Manager Jeff Burdick led this session and started with a slide that said: “99.95% of the time, you DO have power!” But of course, that’s not what customers want to hear during an outage. The average customer is only without power for a total of four hours in a given year. Obviously storm and outage communication is a major issue for utility companies, but during the rest of the time when everything’s buzzing along, how do they generate interest? ComEd focuses on pitching stories about reliability and infrastructure investments, its employees, environmental projects, and corporate citizenship. ComEd targets local TV news and smaller, community-based newspapers (many of which aren’t suffering and closing at the rate of large metropolitan dailies).
Key takeaway: Look for “Riches in the Niches” and leverage unique, local angles in stories. Don’t always focus on the largest media outlets

Wells Fargo: Flexible communications in the face of merging organizations

Presented by Kathleen Golden, VP of Public Relations for Wells Fargo Wealth Management Group, this session focused on the 2008 acquisition of Wachovia by Wells Fargo and the associated communications challenges. When merging the leadership of two organizations, speculation runs rampant among employees and the media. Who’s getting what job? Who’s leaving, who’s staying? Why are they structuring the new company this way? Communicators in this situation have to have the pulse of what’s being said and address any misinformation as soon as possible. But, it’s okay to tell stakeholders that you don’t have the answers yet.
Key takeaway: Establish a process for both sides of a merger to share, receive and distribute information. Address rumor and specualtion as much as possible with the information you have on hand to diffuse any issues. Involve communications early on in the merger process.

Word of Mouth Marketing – Get customers talking about you

I was a bit disappointed in Andy Sernovitz’s session, mostly because I felt he didn’t share anything beyond what you could get from his book or blog. All of the examples he used were primarily B2C companies (Skittles, Zappos, Duct Tape), which I think generally lend themselves to more viral, word-of-mouth activities and campaigns. It can be much harder to get a bunch of supply chain managers to become rabid fans of plastic fasteners or concrete forms or raw chemicals. While Andy had some good tidbits here and there, I was bummed that I skipped some of the other sessions going on at this time (including Katie Paine’s) to go to this one.
Key takeaway: Make it easy for customers to talk about your brand. Create content that they can participate in and make their own, then share with their friends.

Calculating the ROI of your communications – turning results into dollars

Angela Sinickas offered ways to measure communications efforts and show how communicators can take credit for behavior changes that earn or save money for a company. I’m not sure I fully understood her approach, as she seemed to advocate for continually adjusting either the costs incurred or the value derived to achieve the ROI result you wanted. In the corporate communications roles that I’ve held, the finance team would pretty quickly sniff out any data massaging like that. The other issue I had was that her approach relied on having good data available – which many communicators don’t always have at their disposal. But the basic concepts were intriguing and I think I’ll refer back to her slides and check her Web site out to learn more.
Key takeaway: Only behavior changes can have a dollar-value attached to them, so measure that. Calculate communications ROI on a project basis instead of trying to do it annually for an entire department.

chicagogangOverall

As is usually the case, the best part of the conference was getting to meet so many great people. It was fantastic to have lunch with Katie Paine and see Shonali Burke at the cocktail hour. I got to meet Amber Naslund, Rachel Esterline and Ari Adler at the unconference. I hit the town with Mike Pilarz, Allan Schoenberg and Amber Porter Cox. I had my first Bell’s Beer (and my second, and my third…) and took an extra day with my good friend and travel companion Christine Hartter (who also wrote a great conference recap) to check out The Bean and the Art Institute. Verdict: Chicago is my kinda town!

Image via Flickr user amymengel (thanks to the waiter who snapped the pic above!)