Key Points
Anchor your change communications plan around the five topics staff must understand about any organizational change: The Need for Change, Change Solution, Change Capacity, Change Commitment, and Change Impact.
By engaging with employees around these five key topics in your change management efforts, you not only support employees’ readiness for change but also pressure test your readiness to implement.
Which of these messages you should prioritize depends on your change and organizational context. Change readiness assessments related to these five areas can help you to identify strengths and gaps to inform your way forward.
Anchor your Change Communication Plan around Five Messages
Preparing your communications as part of your change management approach may seem daunting. A good starting point is to organize your communications plan using five topics:
The Need for Change: Why the change is necessary/important at this time.
Change Solution: What the focus and scope of the change are, and why this solution was chosen.
Change Capability: The ability of the organization to manage the change and provide support to individuals to succeed with the change.
Change Commitment: Demonstrated commitment of leaders at all levels to make the change successful.
Impact: The ways the change will affect individuals’ and teams’ experience at work.
A large body of research suggests these five topics are related to the key sentiments or beliefs that people need to demonstrate in order for the change to be successful.
People need to agree that there is a true need for the organization to change and that the solution that is being implemented will be effective.
Staff needs to believe that the company is capable of managing the change. They also need to believe that they personally have what it takes — or will be supported to learn what it takes — to deliver what’s asked of them as part of the change. Finally, people need to believe that will personally benefit from changing and that leaders at all levels are committed to the change.
As you plan your change communications, thinking about the information you will share and who will share it is necessary but not sufficient. In addition, consider how you will engage staff to share their perspectives and concerns and garner their input as you develop the way forward. Doing so not only bolsters employees’ understanding but is likely to increase their motivation and willingness to support the change.
Suggestions and Examples for Communicating the Five Change Messages
Below we review each of the five change messages, provide suggestions of the type of content to include, and share examples from real-world change communications from top companies.
It’s useful to develop a core set of broad messages in these five areas that is relevant for all audiences, as well as to create tailored content for specific stakeholder groups. Be sure to get informal feedback from middle managers and staff to help you sharpen your messages, and periodically measure the effectiveness of your change communications throughout the change implementation process.
THE NEED: Explain the rationale for the organizational change.
What is the specific problem you are trying to solve? What is your vision for the future (what will the organization achieve by solving the problem?) Research suggests it’s wise to use both data and motivational messaging when explaining the need for change. Senior leaders are best suited to deliver such messages.
Example: "Rapid headcount growth has led to some duplicate roles and job functions, and more layers and complexity than are optimal.....”
Example: "We are collectively living through the most harrowing crisis of our lifetime, and as it began to unfold, global travel came to a standstill. Airbnb’s business has been hit hard, with revenue this year forecasted to be less than half of what we earned in 2019. In response, we raised $2 billion in capital and dramatically cut costs that touched nearly every corner of Airbnb. While these actions were necessary, it became clear that we would have to go further…."
CHANGE SOLUTION: Explain why this solution (change) is the best fit for the problem and the organization.
What is “the change” you are implementing (e.g., policy, org structure, system, practice, etc.)? Why have you chosen it? How was the decision made? What’s fixed and what’s flexible about the change? What’s not changing?
Example: "Today we made the difficult announcement that we are letting go approximately 9% of our full-time employees."
Example: "Out of our 7,500 Airbnb employees, nearly 1,900 teammates will have to leave Airbnb, comprising around 25% of our company. Since we cannot afford to do everything that we used to, these cuts had to be mapped to a more focused business."
Decades of research suggest that people decide whether or not they will adopt a change based on several factors such as ease of use, relative advantage, and whether or not they can try it out. Sharing information related to these factors is a good idea.
CHANGE CAPABILITY: Demonstrate that the organization is capable of taking on this change.
What is the plan for the change? Who is leading the effort? What support (training, coaching) will be provided to individuals, teams, and managers? Consider also the context of past changes. What lessons from the past (successes or failures) have informed your plans?
Example: "I’ve never been more certain that we will win. But it’s going to demand the best of our DNA: hustle, grit, and category-defining innovation. In some places, we’ll have to pull back to sprint ahead. We will absolutely have to do more with less. This will not be easy, but it will be epic."
Example: "To take care of those that are leaving, we have looked across severance, equity, healthcare, and job support and done our best to treat everyone in a compassionate and thoughtful way.”
COMMITMENT: Articulate the organization’s level of commitment to the change.
How high a priority is this change initiative compared to other efforts? How is the change being resourced? How are you ensuring leaders at all levels are aligned around this change? People will look to see if leaders’ actions, in addition to their words, demonstrate their level of commitment.
Example: "We will treat hiring as a privilege and be deliberate about when and where we add headcount. We will be even more hardcore about costs across the board."
Example: "I remain steadfast in my commitment to you, to our customers, and our mission and I will not rest until everyone in the world has access to simple, low-cost financial services."
IMPACT: Help people understand how the workplace change will impact them.
How will this alter what people do, how they do it, or the pay or benefits they receive? What specifically are you asking people to do? Acknowledge — don’t ignore — any negative impacts that some might experience. Being realistic and honest is important for maintaining trust. Finally, follow up with specific groups to provide details most relevant to their experience — middle managers are particularly well-positioned to share tailored information on impact.
Example: "I want to provide clarity to all of you as soon as possible. We have employees in 24 countries, and the time it will take to provide clarity will vary based on local laws and practices. Some countries require notifications about employment to be received in a very specific way. While our process may differ by country, we have tried to be thoughtful in planning for every employee."
How can we tell which change messages are most relevant for any given change?
All five of these topics relate to beliefs that people need to have about organizational change in order for it to be successful. However, in any given organization, at any given time, some may be a higher priority than others.
For instance, it’s not uncommon for organizations to undertake a suite of changes, not fulling understanding their cumulative impact. Under such conditions, the commitment to change and relative priority of different changes may be high on people’s list of things to understand.
An assessment can help you to gauge employees’ views in relation to these five areas and inform where you need to improve your change communications or overall change management approach.
Several researchers have developed survey tools directly related to these five change sentiments, which can be useful for these purposes. Some examples from one questionnaire, developed by Armenakis and colleagues, are provided below. (Note: Technical terms for each topic used in the assessment are provided in parentheses.)
Need for Change (Discrepancy)
We need to improve the way we operate in this organization.
Change Solution (Appropriateness)
This organizational change will prove to be best for our situation.
Change Capability (Efficacy)
I can implement this change in my job.
[As an organization], we have the capability to successfully implement this change.
Change Commitment (Principal Support)
Influential Peer: The majority of my respected peers are dedicated to making this change work.
Supervisor: My immediate manager is in favor of this change.
Top Leader: The top leaders in this organization are “walking the talk.”
Impact (Valence)
This change will benefit me.
Words are not enough
Clearly, engaging with staff about these topics is only one dimension of a successful change management effort. These topics also represent critical areas of work for the change team involved in developing, planning, and enabling change in the company. That said, the very act of creating communication messages for these topics is a way to pressure test your readiness to implement. If you find you don’t have adequate information or there is a lack of clarity about the organization’s plans and positions in these areas, then you know you have work to do.
Change management can be overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. By focusing on the five key messages we know staff are interested in during any organizational change, we can better support employees through the transition. If you feel like you could use some help getting your change management efforts off the ground, Wendy Hirsch Consulting is here to help. Check out our change management coaching for more information on how we can help you successfully navigate your next big change.
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References
Armenakis, A. A., Bernerth, J. B., Pitts, J. P., & Walker, H. J. (2007). Organizational change recipients' beliefs scale: Development of an assessment instrument. The Journal of applied behavioral science, 43(4), 481-505.
Armenakis, A. A., Harris, S. G., Cole, M. S., Lawrence Fillmer, J., & Self, D. R. (2007). A top management team's reactions to organizational transformation: The diagnostic benefits of five key change sentiments. Journal of Change Management, 7(3-4), 273-290.
Moore, G. C., & Benbasat, I. (1991). Development of an instrument to measure the perceptions of adopting an information technology innovation. Information systems research, 2(3), 192-222.
Oreg, S., Vakola, M., & Armenakis, A. (2011). Change recipients’ reactions to organizational change: A 60-year review of quantitative studies. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 47(4), 461-524.
Rafferty, A. E., Jimmieson, N. L., & Armenakis, A. A. (2013). Change readiness: A multilevel review. Journal of Management, 39(1), 110-135.
Example Sources
A message from co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky. Airbnb Newsroom. (2020, May 6). Retrieved July 6, 2022, from https://news.airbnb.com/a-message-from-co-founder-and-ceo-brian-chesky/
Dosani, S., & Westbrook, A. (2020, May 05). The leader we wish we all had. Retrieved July 6, 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000007111965/coronavirus-ohio-amy-acton.html?action=click>ype=vhs&version=vhs-heading&module=vhs®ion=title-area&cview=true&t=11
Our commitment to human transformation through coach quality. (2022, April 27). Retrieved July 6, 2022, from https://www.betterup.com/blog/human-transformation-coach-quality
Team, R. (2022, April 26). A message from our CEO and co-founder Vlad Tenev. Under the Hood. Retrieved July 6, 2022, from https://blog.robinhood.com/news/2022/4/26/a-message-from-our-ceo-and-co-founder-vlad-tenev
Recent research provides important insights on how to adjust change communications to support change commitment when its results in job changes or job loss. Implications for AI adoption are discussed.