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Change Communication and Stakeholder Analysis

Monday, January 7th, 2013

When developing a change communication strategy there is nothing more important that analysing stakeholders.  You need to understand all of them, segment them into key groups or individuals understanding the level of interest or impact that a change will potentially have on them.

This is because rarely does a “one size fits all” approach work when it comes to change communication.  Who communicates with each stakeholder segment, how we communicate, what we communicate, the frequency and level of detail are all important.

However it is even more important to consider exactly what behaviours the business need to see changed in order to achieve the desired outcomes and to say our change communication strategy has been successful. The main measure of any change communication strategy has to be contribution to business outcomes.

So here are 10 key things to consider when undertaking a stakeholder analysis:

  1. For each stakeholder whether group or individual what is going to change for them?
  2. What is their level of support for the proposed changes?
  3. Have you identified who you need to work closely with and what change communication activities you can implement to ensure engagement?
  4. What will they need to do differently as a result of the changes?
  5. Therefore what will they need to know that they don’t know now?
  6. What is the best way to support them so that they in turn support the business changes?
  7. How can you design change communication activities that will involve them in the process of change rather than simply inform them about the changes?
  8. What communication tools work now that you can leverage?
  9. What communication tools need to be tweaked slightly so that they can be leveraged rather than replaced?
  10. How can you design change communication tools to support the change communication activities between stakeholders?

The worst examples I have seen of stakeholder analysis and engagement plans is a list of stakeholders and the various information tools for each.  By this I mean how regularly you will send emails, have one on one meetings, update the intranet etc.  This is information, and whilst important changes very little in terms of behaviours and engagement.

So if you focus on the above ten points this is a great basis for developing your change communication strategies.  It provides a clear analysis of all segments of your audience, you understand their needs, concerns, and can then work out what involvement activities will assist in facilitating their support.  You then can provide advice to key sponsors of the change program about your strategy to mitigate any possible people issues that could derail a program of change.

And above all, importantly people feel good about the change, you have designed a change communication program that supports them, involves them and rewards them for their commitment.

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Why bother with Employee Engagement Surveys?

Sunday, March 29th, 2009

 

One of the things that continues to surprise me is when times are bad organizations still spend money on employee engagement surveys.  One would think that a general look around the organization and tea room discussions would make it obvious to all that wanted to see it that employees are not so much engaged as they are worried about their jobs.  This leads us to two major issues to consider during tough times, the first is how we inspire confidence and innovation in an organization that appears to be in freeze mode.  The second is what you should measure as an indicator of employee engagement.

Let’s deal with inspiring confidence and innovation in your organization.  Well this boils down to a communication strategy that focuses on getting employees actively involved at all levels in understanding the business and how their ideas can have a positive impact.  Here’s an example of what you could do.  Take real business data and share it with groups of employees at all levels that deal with customers in specific sectors.  Ask them for ideas on improving or innovating just one aspect of your service offering or product line and test in a specific market segment on a small scale, say a sales territory or state.  Then after testing those ideas for a six week period ask employees to examine the business results.  Take those ideas that have shown a substantial improvement in sales and implement either state wide or nationally depending on your organization.  Design a reward and recognition program around the impact of these ideas on the business outcomes and start to energise your workforce.  It really is that simple, treat employees with respect, stop telling them what to do instead listen to what they have to say, put some rigor around the framework for ideas and reward outstanding results.  This is how innovation happens and how you can energise an organization to respond quickly to changing market conditions. 

So what about employee engagement surveys?  I say save your organization the tens of thousands of dollars they cost and invest your time in a well thought out employee communication strategy like that outlined above.  This will ensure a climate where communication is open, ideas are valued and actions are implemented.  All these steps are indicative of a workforce that is focussed, has purpose and feels a greater level of confidence about the future of their organization and therefore their role because they are actively involved in designing the future, not being told what do and when to do it.  If you just change the paradigm from budget cuts, budget cuts and budget cuts to opportunities, growth and involvement your organization’s business results will be your barometer of employee engagement, no survey required.

Posted in Employee Engagement, Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
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