COMMUNICATING MAJOR CHANGE

Executive Summary

1.   Almost by definition, internal communication professionals communicate change. However, they are most likely to be judged according to how well they perform during high-profile change events such as mergers, acquisitions, restructurings and cultural realignments.

2.   Increasing globalization, rapidly changing technology and organizational structures, and an accelerating trend towards mergers and acquisitions (M&As), mean that internal communication professionals are more likely than ever before to take on major change projects.

3.   Ensuring that everyone in an organization understands major issues is very important to most executive teams, although only about half of internal communication professionals feel that their top team has a clear consensus about what the big picture is.

4.   Most companies emphasize informing their employees about major issues over establishing dialogue or changing attitudes and behaviour.

5.   The key challenges facing M&A communication teams are the potential for culture clashes and the possibility of uncertainty among the workforce.

6.   Communicating a major structural reorganization is the major change initiative most frequently tackled by internal communication teams. A restructuring creates internal communication challenges, but can also offer the internal communication team a chance to take on a more strategic role.

7.   Cultural change programmes involve particular challenges for internal communication teams because they involve changes not only to understanding and behaviour, but also to attitudes and beliefs.

8.   British respondents expect to see a substantial increase in cultural change programmes over the next few years. For many organizations, these initiatives are needed to maintain an existing culture in the face of change.

9.   Many internal communication professionals expect to be involved in a major strategy change initiative in the next few years.

10.   In 1999, communicators at ICL were charged with communicating a complete strategic change to the organization's workforce worldwide. The team accomplished this by running a series of workshops that involved virtually all of the company's 22,000 employees.

11.   Globalization and international expansion appear to present significant challenges for internal communication teams. Fewer respondents to the Business Intelligence/item survey, Internal Communication in Transition⁹⁸, graded their results highly on these programmes than on any other major change area.

12.   Respondents to the Internal Communication in Transition survey indicated only moderate levels of success in communicating M&As. This could reflect the difficulties involved in managing M&As in general.

13.   A change communication strategy should start with a communications due diligence to assess existing communication systems. It should also include procedures to gauge employee attitudes to the potential change event and plans to align communications to all stakeholders.

14.   During The Royal Bank of Scotland's takeover of the NatWest Group, the NatWest communications team implemented a communications strategy which involved taking defensive action, while maintaining staff morale and carrying on day-to-day business.

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