Change Management Communications
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Are the change management communications handled as a corporate function in your company where each of the applicable workstreams is represented but the presentation of the information is managed by the corporate communications area and if not, how is your communications process for change management purposes handled?
My company has a central comms team. Yes, it is a corporate function at the HQ level. The workstreaams are not “represented” per se. They provide their inputs/views but ultimately, communications is fronted be the comms team.
My company has a PR department, who is responsible for official communications withing the company as well as to the outside world. At the same time, we work together on all such issues as changes due sales of some assets or acquistion of new ones and elaboration of communication platforms.
My previous organisation had a Corp Team but one that is quite new / immature. Official comms will focus on whatever corporate strategy requires attention, and each function / department is not given a set amount of PR / space within the corp accounts. In terms of change management in branding, product and strategy, this centralised and so each department would be subject to any changes made by Corporate.
In my company each change management issue is first handled by the section lead. So procurement change management would be handled by the procurement lead and would then be articulated up to the acquisition lead who would then provide updates to the VP and leadership where needed. However, it would be the procurement leads responsibility to provide the change management communication in the weekly pillar calls and keep all of their stakeholders in the loop.
My previous company had a corporate comms team that handled any change at corporate level really well. However, the gap is always understanding the needs of the individual contributors closest to your customer journey, and what those people need to be communicated on. Have yet to witness a company where that is fully executed well.
I’ve worked in large M&A programs where corporate comms set the standards and cadence and agenda; however, each functional work stream had change leaders with matrix style reporting up into the workstream and into corporate comms. I’ve also worked in small project teams where change and comms was considered a luxury (not a necessity) and comms was handled by leaders (which resulted in poor quality output)
Communications are often handled as a corporate function in collaboration with relevant workstreams, where corporate communications manage the presentation of information while ensuring workstream expertise is integrated into the message.
Depending on the size of the program, a specific corporate communication team may get involved as strategic enabler in change management by ensuring clarity, alignment, and engagement across all stakeholder groups. Its responsibilities typically include:
i) translating strategy into clear messaging: focusing on the “why, what and how“of the change
ii) coordinating multi-channel communication: overseeing the planning and execution of communications across platforms such as intranet, newsletters, videos and town halls
They act in close collaboration with a dedicated change management team which is interacting with the different stream leads/sponsor and program manager driving the content.We have an enterprise corporate communications capability that sits within our Marketing org. They own internal executive level and organizational announcements – as well as PR. However, we also have a functional communications team – sometimes standalone, other times as part of change management teams – that manage all operational and change-related communication. There’s typically a strong partnership between both – and both typically fold into an overarching change management/business readiness workstream as part of post merger integration efforts.
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