What are the best ways to engage employees during change?

Share the why Communicate the how Make clear the what Then share progress and next steps and updates along the way. This is where most orgs fall short. It’s easy to get caught up in just the planning and first step but if we stop the comms then the rumor mill starts to bring treachery to our people. Squash the falsities with ample stats and facts and progress!

Start with empathy. Acknowledge that the first thing that we all, human being, experienced with change is a sentiment of uncertainty and anxiety. When explaining the why, anchor the vision and purpose of the changes in the company own mission/purpose.

I think the objective of this point is painfully wrong. Communicating the vision is pretty pointless. You have to demonstrate the vision. Live it. Show you mean what you are saying and are prepared to make sacrifices to achieve it. Far too many visions never have any impact on day to day life because they are crusty, academic and dry. Also people don't feel the link between the vision and how they see leaders behave on a daily basis, what they are asked to do and how decisions and actions are prioritised. Vision needs passion!!!!!

1st, address employee concerns promptly. Be empathetic and supportive, demonstrating that their well-being is a priority for the organization. 2nd, encourage employee participation and involvement in the change process. Seek their input, ideas, and suggestions. When employees feel their opinions are valued, they are more likely to be invested in the change. 3rd, offer the necessary training and resources to help employees adapt to the change successfully. They can include workshops, mentoring programs, and access to additional learning materials.

This resource is highly useful when you have a middle/long term change management strategy. When companies have to make top down relatively fast decision that involve change, adding this idea is counterproductive. Employees don't like to be involved or empowered after the facto.

I will not start with bonuses. Though financial awards are welcome, they should not be the first element in your reward and appreciation program. For purpose-driven companies, recognition for being a change agent in front of other peers, company leadership and even among the community they live has a much powerful impact.

Fostering a positive culture for your team should be #1 on the list. No change can come if there is already discontent on the team. Change means uncertainty, surprises, and excitement, but not everyone processes these emotions the same or ‘reacts’ to them similarly. Before embarking on any change or scaling, know the temperature of your teams and make sure that you have ALREADY established a rapport that allows people to come to the table with their ideas, their concerns, and their solutions. Without that, no initiative can be highly successful. You need feedback before you begin, while you are implementing and afterward, if your team isn’t invested before it all begins, you could be missing out on integral information to drive success.

Absolutely. The mission and culture of an organization are the guiding lights, the North Star if you will. They are the blueprint that instructs everyone, from the C-suite to the interns, where to go and how to behave. Let's take a look at the big dogs, the Big Tech: Google's mission "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful" is not just a pretty sentence on their website. It has been the underlying force that has propelled them into stratospheric success. It's the common denominator that aligns and motivates their employees, giving them purpose and direction. Culture is the company's personality, its DNA. It's how things get done. It's the unwritten rule book that people refer to.

Your engagement monitor/measurement in time of changes has to be very light and genuine. Leverage technology by open the opportunity for open ended feedback that later can be text-analyzed with NLP. Your key goal in an engagement tracker post change should only be to track overall morale (do not add efficiency/performance metrics)

Be vulnerable, acknowledge mistakes. If after 3-4 months of the change decision you are seeing opportunities, be upfront with your employees. Acknowledge what you learn and share immediate corrections. If you are a company that has already an open forum for employees to share and comment, do NOT shut it down in light of a change implementation, rather encourage employees to build constructive ideas and even open a suggestion box/forum. Encourage employees to talk directly with their supervisors or HR should they have(legitimate) concerns.

It is useful to have an appointed leader for the change, either in a formal role or someone already on staff. This person would be trained in change management, emotional intelligence, and effective communication strategies. They would be the 'go-to' for questions, suggestions/feedback, etc. This individual should have the authority to slow or speed the change based on employee tolerance and the effectiveness of the change itself or change strategy. This person should be involved in the planning and understand the risks, rewards, and stakeholder viewpoints. A project manager would work well in this role.