Change management and communications are two sides of the same coin. Communication is essential to help facilitate the successful implementation of a change initiative, providing the information needed for employees to move from the current state to the future state. Change management is designed to provide a 360-degree view of the implementation of a change, while communications are a fundamental component of creating an informed and aware audience. Without both, it is difficult to help the audience adopt, accept and continue to use a new tool. People can't change what they don't know.
It is the job of change management to show the organization that it is more than just communication. It is a holistic process for successfully implementing change in an organization, providing the set of tools that allows managers to accelerate the speed of adoption and overall participation in change. Change communication is the informational component of the change management strategy. It helps employees and other stakeholders understand the importance and scope of new initiatives. According to a Statista survey, an effective communication plan is one of the most effective practices in managing organizational change.
Successful communications executives plan and monitor the degree to which employees need to change their behavior.Change management is a process that requires understanding all the elements of change and moving forward in the change management process. A general communication plan that ignores change management principles and best practices may not address this root cause of resistance. To be successful, you need a communication plan for managing change, since those affected by the change are ultimately responsible for doing and maintaining it. Constant changes, policy updates, and remote work require employers to pay special attention to their internal communication efforts. However, if management doesn't understand why the change is taking place and how it affects the workplace, it will be difficult to explain the process and its impacts on the company to its employees. Of course, even when you've considered how the change will affect different areas of your organization, altering the status quo is always difficult.
By understanding all of this, those who develop communication plans are better able to focus on the key results they are trying to achieve with the change. If you present the change along with a demonstration of tutorials that guide each user through new features, employees won't feel as overwhelmed. The key to this is an effective communication strategy about change that provides the right information and resources to improve employee capacity, ensure consistent messages, and allows senior staff to act as accelerators of change in their teams. Employees will have to hear about the change many times and in many ways in order to fully understand and support it. We could even say that the job of IC professionals is to get acceptance from employees during the change, making their work very similar to that of salespeople and sellers. Project teams are a key source of information and details about change, and will be crucial partners in their efforts to integrate change management and project management activities. Rather than just offering communications, project changes that take advantage of the ADKAR model create awareness and desire, focus people on the results they want to achieve, and increase the overall impact of organizational communications.
When it comes to business reasons for the change, employees want to hear from senior leaders who are authorizing and funding it. In conclusion, effective communication plans are essential for successful organizational changes. Change management strategies should include both communication plans as well as other tools such as ADKAR models in order to ensure that employees understand why changes are taking place and how they can best support them. Senior leaders should also be involved in communicating business reasons for changes in order for employees to have a clear understanding of why they should support them.
