{"id":2722,"date":"2011-08-31T10:03:00","date_gmt":"2011-08-31T10:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bcjobs.ca\/hr-advice\/tips-for-communicating-change\/"},"modified":"2019-10-19T00:38:47","modified_gmt":"2019-10-19T07:38:47","slug":"tips-for-communicating-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bcjobs.ca\/blog\/tips-for-communicating-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Tips for communicating change!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-4320\" style=\"vertical-align: baseline;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bcjobs.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/communicate-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"communicate\" width=\"239\" height=\"179\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bcjobs.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/communicate-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.bcjobs.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/communicate.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 239px) 100vw, 239px\" \/>Every organization at some point in time will have to announce some type of change in the workplace. It\u2019s right up there with death and taxes \u2013 we can count on it!<br \/>\nThe changes may be new or updated technology; changes in leadership (a new supervisor hired in a department); or changes in policies for one reason or another.<br \/>\nThe way in which changes are communicated will determine how successful the changes are understood and adopted by the employee group. Having been involved in a number of change initiatives in various organizations I can tell you with from experience, communicating effectively is a must!<\/p>\n<p>You can never over-communicate a planned change \u2013 and in particular \u2013 to those most impacted.<\/p>\n<p>Simple (but not easy) steps to think about in your communications:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bcjobs.ca\/blog\/onboarding-call-to-senior-leaders\/\">Leadership<\/a> must support the change (even if in fact, they may not agree they shouldn\u2019t share that with subordinates)<\/li>\n<li>Rationale for the change must also be communicated clearly \u2013 help make it make sense<\/li>\n<li>Be sure to ask for questions from those impacted and listen to what is said \u2013 dialogue with the impacted parties is very important \u2013 otherwise your employee buy in is hampered<\/li>\n<li>Communicate consistent messages \u2013 and communicate them often<\/li>\n<li>Use a number of ways to communicate &#8211; speaking, writing, video, training, focus groups, bulletin boards, Intranets<\/li>\n<li>Communicate what you know, when you know it \u2013 you may not know everything up front \u2013 that\u2019s O.K. \u2013 tell what you do know and be honest about what you don\u2019t yet know<\/li>\n<li>Be honest about what you don\u2019t know and above all \u2013 do not make things up \u2013 you will destroy <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bcjobs.ca\/blog\/restoring-trust\/\">trust<\/a><\/li>\n<li>While I know this has been mentioned above already; I am going to repeat that you need to encourage dialogue \u2013 allow people to ask questions \u2013 you don\u2019t just want to present information \u2013 you want the employees to accept the changes, so they must feel involved<\/li>\n<li>Even though a change may impact one group of employees more than another; it is still advisable to keep everyone in the loop \u2013 this will avoid gossip and fear mongering \u2013 and will also provide an opportunity for people to safely explore new behaviours and ideas about changes<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>While I realize this list is rather simplistic (change management typically requires a well thought out communication plan and will take time to develop) the idea here is to think about making an actual communication plan and having distinct steps to take toward successfully implementing change.<br \/>\n<strong>Related to Tips for communicating change:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bcjobs.ca\/blog\/onboarding-call-to-senior-leaders\/\">Onboarding: call to senior leaders<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bcjobs.ca\/blog\/restoring-trust\/\">Restoring Trust<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Every organization at some point in time will have to announce some type of change in the workplace. It\u0092s right up there with death and taxes \u0096 we can count on it!<br \/>\nThe changes may be new or updated technology; changes in leadership (a new supervisor hired in a department); or changes in policies for one reason or another.<br \/>\nThe way in which changes are communicated will determine how successful the changes are understood and adopted by the employee group. Having been involved in a number of change initiatives in various organizations I can tell you with from experience, communicating effectively is a must!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[166],"tags":[156],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bcjobs.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2722"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bcjobs.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bcjobs.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bcjobs.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/63"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bcjobs.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2722"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.bcjobs.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6411,"href":"https:\/\/www.bcjobs.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2722\/revisions\/6411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bcjobs.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bcjobs.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bcjobs.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}