Also speaking of results I am not interested in results such as awards for well designed intranet sites, number of visitors to portals, the number of people that turned up to a CEO presentation or later said it was good or the worse I have seen, asking staff to recall what the key points were in a presentation.

And the reason why is that none of the above can directly be linked to bringing about results in terms of business outcomes, all they will ever do is measure the quality of your information strategies not your communication strategies and the difference is huge.

A bit provocative – let me explain why.  Let’s suppose you are meeting with the CEO of your organisation, his concern is that the value he is looking for from change communication is that you have been able to connect with the audience, that you have been able to engage them, bring them to that “Aha” moment when they finally understand why things are changing and what they can do differently to contribute to this, the what is the easy stuff, it is information, it engages no one it simply informs them about what is changing.  Even if you write stories, post interview videos online all about the why as well as the what, unless you design strategies that can be measured by business impact not by readership then your change communication strategies will not produce exceptional results.

Here’s a simple example.

The Business Objective:

This hospital wanted to cut costs while at the same time ensuring that its patients were not adversely affected by the changes.  The hospital was also a major provider of healthcare in a small community, so it was essential that its reputation of high-quality care was not reduced.

The Method:

The hospital wanted to ensure that its personal care remained at the highest standard.  So they sought feedback through focus groups, telephone surveys and directly contacting the carers.  Three key attributes in patient care emerged as the main contributors to patient satisfaction.  The hospital staff concentrated on improving these three areas while simultaneously reducing costs. Cross-functional teams were then established with employees who volunteered to take part.  An employee with strong project management skills was selected to lead each team.  They then presented management with a list of options to improve the experience of the patients, with details of the costs and timeframes for implementation.  Agreement was reached on the changes and the senior management team ensured line managers were not barriers to the implementation.

The Outcome:

As a result of the changes implemented, patient satisfaction rose to 98%.  This significantly high score contributed to a great lift in employee morale and increased motivation despite the cost-cutting activities. Employees were directly involved in implementing the improvements, and a staff survey indicated greater levels of job satisfaction.

Now the usual change communication approach would have been a CEO forum where the head of the hospital would have explained to employees why they needed to cut costs, then updates would be provided via email and the intranet on changes, there would have been face to face communication between team leaders and staff on cost cutting – all of this would just have been information.  But by communicating and engaging the audience, both staff employed by the hospital and carers a change communication strategy was implemented that could be measured by achieving the business objectives.

In my manual, The Future of Employee Communication – 50 Case Studies of Excellence you will find more ideas on exceptional strategies you can implement that can be measured by business outcomes.

I look forward to reading your comments on strategies you have implemented and how they contributed to business results.

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.

Today we’ll explore a few case studies that illustrate how this can be implemented regardless of your industry sector.

Healthcare Sector Case Study:

The Objective:

This hospital wanted to cut costs whilst at the same time ensuring that its patients were not adversely affected by the changes.  The hospital was also a major provider of healthcare in a small community, so it was essential that its reputation of high-quality care was not reduced.

The Method:

The hospital wanted to ensure that its personal care remained at the highest standard.  So they sought feedback through focus groups, telephone surveys and directly contacting the carers.  Three key attributes in patient care emerged as the main contributors to patient satisfaction.  The hospital staff concentrated on improving these three areas while simultaneously reducing costs. Cross-functional teams were then established with employees who volunteered to take part.  An employee with strong project management skills was selected to lead each team.  They then presented management with a list of options to improve the experience of the patients, with details of costings and timeframes for implementation.  Agreement was reached on the changes and the senior management team ensured line managers were not barriers to the implementation.

The Outcome:

As a result of the changes implemented, patient satisfaction rose to 98%.  This significantly high score contributed to a great lift to employee morale and increased motivation despite the cost-cutting activities. Employees were directly involved in implementing the improvements, and a staff survey indicated greater levels of job satisfaction.

STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE

STEP 1:

Identify whether your customer research can indicate top three factors that will have the greatest impact on customer satisfaction.

STEP 2:

Involve employees in the implementation of some of these changes.

STEP 3:

Measure customer satisfaction and communicate this to employees.  It will be an endorsement of their efforts and thus improve staff morale.

Media Sector Case Study:

The Objective:

This media organization was concerned that as it grew, the level of customer satisfaction varied considerably across the businesses.  The organisation wanted to dramatically improve its service levels and to become more customer-focused, but they also needed to involve employees in the process.

The Method:

The first aspect of the project was to survey employees in focus groups about what they thought the level of service was.  The survey highlighted interesting results:  most employees felt that red tape hindered customer satisfaction; half the employees commented that excellence in customer service was not recognized; and, a large number of employees felt that managers did not focus on customer satisfaction.   The focus group results highlighted the areas for improvement.  The first was putting together cross-functional teams to identify opportunities for eliminating red tape and improving customer satisfaction.  Then, the employees designed what they felt were appropriate reward and recognition for excellence in customer service.  And finally to address the issue of managers not being focussed on customer satisfaction they were integrated into the cross functional teams and had accountability for making them successful.  The approach was driven by the CEO and the executive management team.  It created a focus around customer satisfaction that permeated every aspect of the customer experience and was the main driver of the organization.

The Outcome:

Over 150 ideas on ways to enhance customer satisfaction were received from the cross-functional teams. Nearly all the suggestions were implemented, which reinforced the support the organization had for the project.  Continued focus on customer satisfaction reinforced it as the key driver in the organization’s culture.

STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE

STEP 1:

Conduct some focus groups and find out what employees think about customer satisfaction levels.

STEP 2:

Implement cross-functional teams for employees to address some of the issues raised in the focus groups.

STEP 3:

When designing a rewards and recognition programme, give employees the opportunity to indicate what would be a motivator for them.

Strategic employee communication is so much more than updating intranet sites, organising CEO forums, company blogs and sending out information via email.  The true value is in finding ways to engage employees by doing something differently and seeing the direct impact of the decisions and actions that they take at work.  For more case studies click here.

Basically groups of 8 – 10 people are selected with the same selection parameters such as job level, type of job, or with customers of the market segment they represent.   When interviewing employees using focus groups you need to compare the outcomes of different groups, i.e., sales managers, sales representatives, call centre sales staff. This will provide a more accurate indication of what all levels of employees who interact with a particular customer segment consider an accurate reflection of customer opinion.

CHECKLIST FOR IMPLEMENTING FOCUS GROUPS

When implementing focus groups for an employee communication strategy you need to do the following:

• Be aware that focus groups are not the same for each organisation, they need to be tailored to suit individual circumstances

• The focus groups should be held in like groups, for instance managers in one team, supervisors another, employee groups by department in others

• You should interview 10% of the employee base where possible to form an accurate sample of employee views, alternatively if you have a large number of employees, then at least a representative sample will provide the data to form the basis of a questionnaire

• When focus groups with employees are held there is a perception that something will happen as a result.  Therefore you need the support of the CEO and reinforce that the reason for the focus groups is supported at the highest level in the organisation.  For instance you maybe about to implement a customer focussed strategy and the focus groups will provide you with the data you need to set the platform for the project.  The worse case scenario is setting expectations amongst employees and then not delivering and with focus groups as the employees have taken time out from their work and participated in discussions they will expect to see an outcome

• Greater objectivity is achieved when the focus groups are conducted by an external firm as participants are more likely to open up and express the way they really feel

THE MAIN STEPS IN FOCUS GROUP RESEARCH

1. A planning meeting to identify the objectives, problem areas and scope of the research
2. Guideline timetable to develop the selection of focus group participants and timetable for interviews
3. Individual management interviews
4. Preparation of the employee communication strategy
5. Presentation of findings to senior management
6. Implementation of recommendations

STAGES OF THIS RESEARCH

Management Interviews

A minimum number of individual half hour interviews with management are held to find out what they think about the issue you are researching and what level of employee involvement they would support.

Employee Focus Groups

Ten percent of employees from all areas of the company are interviewed in focus groups, eight to ten participants in each group.  Each session is of one and one half hours duration and rather than a structured questionnaire being used, a subject outline is introduced and questioning follows on from this point.

Focus Group Research Interpreted

When interpreting the findings from the management interviews you need to identify what they will support in terms of employee involvement programs and why or why not, opinions on the business issue you are researching and the basis for that view.  The focus groups will provide you with trends in answers and also indicate which areas of the organisation are most supportive and enthusiastic and will be a good starting point for your strategy.  Focus groups of employees will provide you not only with information about what they know about a new initiative but also on what basis they have come to that conclusion.

The most important piece of information for any employee communication professional is to find out why employees have a certain view on a particular topic.  Once you know this you can start to put together the pieces like a jigsaw puzzle and will quickly identify the key pieces that are missing.  It is on this basis you then put together your employee communication strategy for any new initiative, whether implementation of an IT system to major business transformation.

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 scroll to the end of the page and order the complete employee communication kit and save 10% on the purchase price.

With most topics we communicate it logically from the top – the 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 organization’s focus.  And in most instances we have feedback loops to check whether the audience understood 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 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 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 organization the concept on communicating horizontally and not just vertically will make a significant impact on your organizations’ goals and achievements of the company vision.  For more examples of how many other sectors have implemented enterprise wide communication click here.

So the question with strategy is how do you communicate it so that it is a message that employees truly understand and feel engaged with, rather than yet another corporate communiqué with little  connection with anyone other than the leader who requested the message go out.

In my experience, strategy is only communicated successfully when it is integrated with the way we do business at every level.  So what I mean by this is that you should not talk about strategy as if it is something happening over there, but rather integrate it with all your other communication and processes so that it becomes integrated with everything else we do at work.  Whether I am a member of the senior executive team, a supervisor or frontline staff member it is critically important to ensure that strategy is communicated so that each level understands how it relates to the everyday work that they do and therefore how they can contribute to it.

Think in terms of layers, there are many ways of communicating and integrating strategy within your organisation’s everyday processes.  Here are a few ideas that are easy to implement:

1.       Identify how can you integrate the message about your organisation’s strategy and achievements to date in the communication that is distributed by human resources, finance, marketing and operations?  You might consider performance measures linked to strategic outcomes (HR), financial business performance by business unit and state location (financial), marketing campaigns and response rates (marketing) and operational issues.

2.       Consider the key milestones achieved to date with the strategy and at regular team meetings discuss how the next milestones will be achieved based on team performance and contribution to the bigger organisational picture.

3.       Whenever you are communicating the strategy ensure that it is linked to the organisation’s vision and mission – think of it as “connecting the dots” don’t assume employees, even your leaders understand how it all links together. And more importantly always think how to make it relevant to the work people do every day.

If you think of strategy as yet another input into your employee communication then constantly seek information on updates and achievements and how that can be contextualised in a message about the work employees do every day.  I’m interested to share what you do to communicate strategy to employees so welcome your comments.

Senior management provide direction for the strategy, ensure that appropriate resources both people and dollars are available, are focussed and directly involved and aware of all the issues and risks of the project and most importantly provide updates and direction on an ongoing basis.  The role of the change manager is to support this by ensuring that all the other issues that could derail the project are dealt with so that the senior leadership do not back track on the strategy.

Finally to maintain commitment to change all projects needs to be integrated into the longer term strategy and vision of the organisation and for all employees from frontline to senior leadership to understand how the project and their role contributes to the overall vision.  Change is only successful when it is seamlessly integrated into the way the organisation operates, not as an appendage to the organisation.

The first and most important distinction to be made is that as a change manager our role is to enable change to happen, we don’t drive the change.  This is usually a huge paradigm shift in thinking for project managers and business leaders and most think that we make change happen, when what we do is advise on the most appropriate tools and techniques to employ at any given time in the change cycle to engage employees in the process of change.  It is up to the leaders in the organization to drive change using our recommended strategies to achieve the desired outcomes of a particular project.

The second issue is that most project managers and business leaders think of change management as the “soft stuff” doing the communication, training and human resources requirements of the change. What they fail to understand is that the “soft stuff” is really the fundamental driver of change, a change project, whether focussed on technology or business change is of little value if employees are not engaged in the change itself and the reason for it and therefore the benefits of that change.

So here is a way you can influence the thinking of project managers and business leaders when a new project is on the horizon.  Firstly think in terms of how they think, generally they are thinking phases of managing the project lifecycle, so for example the following phases; initiate; plan; build; implement; and close.  So firstly think about change management in each of those phases across the “soft side” of business issues such as communication, stakeholder engagement, training, human resources issues and measurement. Then decide what activities, actions and strategies could you recommend to be included in each of these phases and identify the precise benefit to the project manager and business leader for your specific change management advice to be included in each of these phases for the project success.

This way you can ensure that project managers and business leaders will understand what you mean when you say “change management” in the context of their paradigm which is project management.  And once they experience the benefits of getting change management involved at the beginning of a project versus at the implementation phase, next time the challenge of getting change management on the project management agenda wont be an issue.

Here are some reasons organizations fail to get traction with leaders and employees on business strategy and what to do about it.

1.     A divided leadership team

2.     Launch with huge fan fare then no messages on actual updates or achievement

3.     Change fatigue – organizations that appear to constantly change direction

4.     Organization has a poor track record in successfully sustaining change

5.     Waiting too long to implement employee engagement strategies

So let’s tackle each point and identify some things we can do as employee engagement specialists to minimize the impact of these impediments to successfully implementing change.

A divided leadership team

One of the most overlooked aspects of change management is alignment of the leadership team with the new business strategy. One quick tip is to facilitate a session on how the successful implementation of change is largely dependent on a united leadership team.  They need to understand their role in engaging employees in the change process and what employees will be looking for in terms of signs of support and commitment.  This is the key message, whilst the leadership team may not all be in agreement, and it should be noted that they rarely are, they must be aligned.  That is, they will give 100% commitment to the new strategy and what they need to communicate and do to engage their teams. This is important because the first thing employees look for is a divided leadership team to discredit the new strategy.

Launch with huge fan fare then no messages on actual updates or traction

Another important tip is to make sure that as the “expert” on change management you are able to convince the CEO and their executive team of your strategy.  Often they are so excited that they tell you what they want in terms of employee communication and usually this involves major announcements and forums when they have finally reached alignment on the new business strategy.  However the significant risk is that the time between the launch and the actual first visible achievement of some change is too long and employees begin to believe that change will never happen.  Loss of credibility is an enormous risk for the leadership team when implementing change so you need to provide convincing  reasons for your employee engagement approach.  Drawing a timeline indicating the gaps between the launch and expected first actual achievement of a project milestone should be enough to convince any leadership team of the importance of taking a strategic approach to employee engagement.

Change fatigue – organizations that appear to constantly change direction

Leaders and employees become increasingly disengaged when they do not understand why the organization seems to continue to change direction on business strategy without giving the prior change strategy enough time to work.  Often these are not new strategies but enhancements or the next progression of the original business strategy.  When developing your employe engagement strategy you need to establish the links between each business strategy and be able to demonstrate to leaders and employees what these links are.  The best way to do this is to design activities that engage employees in the process of change as it relates to them.  There are many change strategies that you can implement that are focussed on activities that will ensure leaders and employees will finally say, “Aha, now I get it!”

Organization has a poor track record in successfully sustaining change

Employees have a long memory and if the organization has a poor track record of successfully sustaining change they will be quick to justify why they shouldn’t become engaged with this latest change in business strategy.  Therefore part of the engagement strategy needs to include specific data and facts about what is different this time and how the changes being introduced will be sustained;  reverting back to the “old ways” of doing things will not be possible.  Where ever possible real examples that demonstrate the each step of implementation need to be communicated, not only emphasizing why employees can’t revert back to previous processes but also the benefits of the new changes.

Waiting too long to implement employee engagement strategies

Finally waiting too long to engage leaders and employees will also risk traction on business strategy.  At the outset of any discussion of change in business strategy, the employee engagement expert needs to be involved to understand timeframes, key milestones and impact.  It is only then that you can develop meaningful strategies that focus not just on information and key messages about what is happening and when; but also engagement strategies that focus on the individual and how the changes will impact them and the way they do their work.  By implementing employee engagement strategies early on, rather than what most change strategies focus on which is information, employees will feel some ownership and connection to the new business strategy from the beginning.

Whenever an organization embarks on a new business strategy, whether for a division or the whole of organization, and this includes government departments, leaders and employees react in exactly the same way.  There will be those groups that support the new strategy even without all the facts at hand, those that preach the mantra, “it will never happen” and those that wont support the strategy until they see some commitment and evidence that it will happen.  The challenge for change managers is to focus on the leadership team first and develop a strategy to deal with each of these three groups.

I look forward to hearing more about how you have managed to ensure traction with new business strategy.