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By Adrian Cropley
June 24th, 2008
Change communication – one of the secrets for top performers
The latest ROI study from Watson Wyatt's report: "Secrets of Top Performers – How companies with highly effective internal communication differentiate themselves" points out trends of the last 6 years, and looks at effective internal communication as a leading indicator on financial performance.
It was great to see that one of the top secrets to effective employee communication was managing change effectively.
The study showed that companies are being more diligent and successful in engaging the communication function in not only managing, but also planning for change. The real secret, as the report states, is the fact that high effectiveness companies have comprehensive change-mangement programs that engage managers. Companies who work with managers to help them facilitate change and address employee concerns are the ones who are leading the pack.
"High-effectiveness companies measure the impact of communication programs aimed at facilitating reorganization." Some of the measures included:
- How well employees understand the rationale for change.
- How well employees understand how the change will impact them personally.
- How well employees understand what they need to do differently.
- Evidence of desired changes in employee behavior.
The report also showed that involving the communication function in change varied by geography. It appears Asia-Pacific companies are involving communication functions more than the rest of the world, followed by Europe, Canada and the USA. Although the stats were quite high, over 69% of companies involved the communication function in significant organizational change at the beginning or early stages, which is great news for change communicators.
Keep on adding value?
So my take-away from reviewing the report is that we're certainly seeing management of change within organizations as being one of the critcal performance factors.
We need to focus on some key areas as change communicators including:
- Supporting our managers to communicate change effectively.
- Giving managers the appropriate tools and knowledge.
- Providing employees with a clear rationale for change, understanding of what this means personally and what it is they need to do differently.
Of course, let's not forget that measurement of our change efforts is crucial. While employees need an engaging rationale for change, our companies often need ROI on our communication efforts. I believe that might be a topic for a future issue of this newsletter.
Until then, happy communicating.
Adrian Cropley Cropley Communications
adrian@cropleycomms.com
"Normal" employee attitudes shown by employee survey benchmarks
The Internal Comms Hub, June 23, 2008.
Trying to define a "normal" workplace is as difficult and unpredictable as describing a "normal" family...
Tips for taking risks during a recession
The Internal Comms Hub, June 20, 2008
People’s appetite for risk-taking in the workplace is likely to increase if the economy enters a recession.
Top 5 ways to communicate with non-wired teams
Katrina Andrews, The Melcrum Blog, June 16, 2008
Melcrum's Katrina Andrews offers top tips from the recent report How to communicate with hard-to-reach employees, as a taster of what will be on offer at the Melcrum stand at the IABC conference in New York this week.
Encouraging dialogue among employees
Melcrum's Communicators' Network, June 20,
2008
This Communicators' Network member wants to set up a discussion forum within a manufacturing business, where only a minority of employees are online, many of whom are not confident with new media. Can you offer any advice?
Global intranets, right at my desk
Alex Manchester, The Melcrum Blog, June 20, 2008
Alex Manchester reviews the Intranet Benchmarking Forum's IBF24: 24 hours of webcast presentations, discussion panels, thought-pieces and case studies.
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