As important as it is to communicate an upcoming change in a timely fashion, it is equally as important to help employees understand how change will affect what and how they do their job. If you’ve missed the first three in this 5-part series, you can access them by simply clicking on the links below:
- Tip #1: Communicating Change throughout the Organization
- Tip #2: Achieving Buy-In at All Levels of the Organization
- Tip #3: Helping Employees Understand How Change will Impact them
Tip #4: Communicate New Ways Employees are Expected to Work
Changes in the workplace can impact technology, functional processes, procedures, policies and even an organization’s corporate culture or values. Whichever the case, you can be certain that it will require some sort of change from employees – even if only limited to a single functional group. The anticipated change(s) in an employee’s role should be communicated as early as possible. Depending on the scope of the change, there are a variety of ways you can communicate this information: email, website, desk drops, FAQs, training classes, and in-person meetings, to name a few.
I prefer to help employees understand the difference in how they work today and what will be expected of them in the future by creating a simple chart that compares current and future work practices. This side-by-side approach is clear, concise, and readily conveys how the employee is expected to work when the change is implemented. Whatever the change is, your employees need to have a sense of what you expect of them in their new role. They will want to know – they will need to know.
In my next and final blog in this series, I will discuss the importance of leveraging employees as change advocates.