Don’t let news of restructuring become a source of anxiety.
Get the right information across in the right way and reduce the cost of concern and confusion.
The way an email, article, speech or presentation is written sets the tone and cadence of subsequent conversations and chatter. It also has tremendous influence on the scope, intensity and reaction to rumors.
There are three main internal audiences
- The staff directly affected
- Frequent collaborators and internal customers
- All employees
Tip Be sure to communicate with the audiences in this order. There is nothing more damaging to productivity and engagement than finding out about a restructuring that directly affects you from a mass communication.
The time between communicating with each of these audiences can be minutes, hours or days. The point is for those directly or indirectly affected to learn about the change before everyone else. (Further, external customers and stakeholders should find out after all employees know.)
Take a few minutes to further segment Audience A, paying particular attention to job function. Remaining aware of basic facts of function, will help you stay on track when it comes to decisions about language and channel. For example, if the employees directly affected are mostly on the road (think sales reps, drivers or inspectors) the communication needs to have a tone and shape and be delivered in a way relevant to people on the go or not all in one place.
The communications objective varies slightly different for each main audience segment
For the Audience A (employee directly impacted), the objective is often along the lines of “Minimize anxiety about negative impacts on daily work, workload and future opportunities.”
For Audience B (collaborators and internal customers) it’s probably more like “Reassure that measures are being taken to minimize disruption to projects and deliverables.”
For Audience C (all employees), the communication objective might be “Demonstrate how this restructuring aligns with growth strategy and makes the company better able to adapt to changes in the marketplace.”
Tip Be mindful that each audience will read or see what’s initially delivered to the other segments. Therefore, you want each to reinforce the others. For example, the message to all employees needs to ring true for those who are directly impacted and know more details.
Keep the scope of content tightly focused on what is relevant – to each main audience
The closer someone is to the actual restructuring, the more detail they need and want.
For example, Audience A will need to know what the change means to their current deliverables (even if the answer is “nothing”), if they have to change any of their routines (e.g. work from a new location or have different work hours) and new expectations. However, Audience C won’t be interested in that level of detail.
Put each audiences’ needs first
Even though the restructuring is an act of the company re-organizing itself, when it comes to communication, it’s about the employees. Be sure to write or present the facts from the centre of the circle of impact out.
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Give employees multiple ways to access and absorb the information
Content about restructuring should almost always be pushed to employees. That is, provide the information in person or by email, depending on the audience and scope of the restructure.
However, there are probably aspects of the content that employees will want at a later time when they have a specific need. This is considered “pull” content. The most common channels for pull content is an intranet or resource library. Be sure to adjust the scope and presentation of the content (originally pushed to employees) to suit the medium. For example, after news of a minor restructuring, posting the new org chart with a title and effective date will likely be enough to satisfy employees’ needs.
Tip Think about future employees when creating pull content. What will they need to know considering they won’t have experienced any change?
Offer a clear path for questions and comments
A simple way to help reduce concerns (warranted or not) is to give an easy way for people to ask questions or make comments. Most employees won’t use it yet knowing that it’s there sends a subtle and reassuring signal that the organization recognizes that employees’ reactions matter.
The request for feedback needs to be specific and, of course, genuine. For example, instead of saying “feel free to drop a note to Mr. Big Stuff, if you have any questions” say “contact Mr. Big Stuff at [insert email address here] if you have any questions.”
You can also use free online survey tools if you want to provide an option for remaining anonymous. This is usually only necessary for major restructuring events.
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Prepare managers
The vast majority of questions and concerns pop up during the course of an ordinary workday. When you prepare the managers in your organization to be able to respond well, you help everyone stay on track.
Note Responding is not the same as answering. Managers may not know the answer to an employee’s question. However, they can still respond well by acknowledging the concern or issue, listening and providing guidance and/or making a commitment to find the answer or discuss the topic further.
Find ways suitable to your organization to provide managers with what they need. For example:
- 2-3 slides with speaking notes they can use at a team meeting
- “cheat sheet” recapping the key points of the restructuring, important deadlines, feedback mechanisms
- managers-only meeting
Be human
Yes, restructuring is a part of business life. That doesn’t mean it has to be devoid of humanity. Acknowledging likely emotions — both negative and positive ones — shows respect and helps prevent high stress levels. Keep talk of what it means to others (e.g. investors) to a minimum. At the moment of learning about restructuring, employees don’t care. They’re thinking about what it means to them and the more you talk to them as real human beings with a range of perspectives and experiences, the faster people will accept the change and carry on.
A closing thought
Writing about restructuring usually involves a certain amount of confidentiality. That can easily lead to tunnel vision. At several points throughout development, stand back and make sure review each objective in relation to each of audiences A, B, and C. For example, “Would this make me, an employee directly affected by the restructuring, know how the scope of my responsibilities will be altered and what I need to do differently tomorrow?”
