Top communication tools for managing change in large organisations

What Communication Tools can I use to manage change effectively?

Successful change implementation requires more than just the introduction of new tools, systems, policies, and processes. It’s essential to communicate with people to keep them informed, engaged, and supportive of necessary changes. Ultimately, it’s the people who will make the key difference to the change landing successfully.

Change Management communication is a structured approach to guiding employees through organisational change. It involves clear, consistent messaging that helps employees understand the purpose, benefits, and their role within the transition – in essence, what’s in it for them. Through well-planned change management communication strategies, communicators can align employees with organisational goals, fostering a positive environment for change.

Before choosing any tools, organisations should develop the communication and training strategies to ensure these tools facilitate the desired outcomes and enable the real value of the change to be realised.

Communication strategies will address:

• What information about the change should be shared?
• Which employees will be impacted and need to be engaged?
• How employees will be affected?
• When to communicate with employees?
• How to communicate to different segmented groups?

Change Management communication tools are software and platforms used to manage and deliver internal communications to all employees impacted by the change. These tools support various channels ensuring messages are accessible to all employees.

For large organisations, the most successful change programmes typically use a digital change communications ecosystem rather than a single tool. The goal is to combine broadcast communications, two-way engagement, feedback, measurement, and adoption support.

Rather than introducing several standalone tools, many organisations will build around their existing core platforms such as Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, the future IT strategy and focus on integrating the appropriate tools. When introducing new tools, training should be provided to ensure people are knowledgeable and sufficiently equipped to make best use of the capabilities.

Best Practice Guidance for choosing digital tools

In the current market, there are several tools available and below is some guidance (although not exhaustive) on which tools to use:

Employee Communication Platforms:

facilitate frequent updates to employees to keep them up to date on the current status, progress, and major announcements.

Employee Experience and Intranet Platforms:

provide a central hub for all documents to be stored and managed, enabling employees to have access to the latest information.

Internal Communication Platforms:

are used to deliver tailored communications to target audiences and can be used to automate and schedule campaigns.

Survey and Listening Platforms:

are valuable tools to understand the employee experience, gather feedback and assess the level of adoption.

Learning and Adoption Platforms:

provide training guidance on how to use new tools to support employees in their transition while building their skills and capabilities.

Video Communication Tools :

are often used as an effective channel for communicating key messages with employees in a personalised manner.

1. Employee Communication Platforms

2. Employee Experience and Intranet Platforms

3. Internal Communication Platforms

4. Survey and Listening Platforms

5. Learning and Adoption Platforms

6. Video Engagement Tools

Best Practice for choosing digital comms tools based on organisation size

When considering which tools to use, there is no universal one size fits all suite of tools for every organisation. Therefore, it’s advisable to match the complexity of the digital communication ecosystem based on:

• the size of the organisation
• the environment
• the scale of the change
• the maturity of the change capability within the organisation.

Introducing more tools than is needed will create unnecessary confusion and anxiety.

Below is some guidance for choosing the appropriate digital comms tools primarily based on the organisation size:

Small (<500 employees)

Medium (500 – 5k employees)

Large (5k – 20k employees)

Enterprise (20k+ employees)

What is a project vs product?

Regardless of the size, organisations which successfully deliver change will have a strong change communication ecosystem which provides:

• A single source of the truth for information, typically SharePoint
• One collaboration channel such as Teams.
• One employee listening platform such as Qualtrics or Viva Glint.
• Multi-channel communication (e.g. email, intranet, video, mobile)
• Audience targeting to ensure messages are tailored for the different user groups
• Two-way communication to enable open, honest conversations and further enhancements
• Analytics to measure reach, understanding, engagement and adoption – How to measure change adoption: KPIs, dashboards and analytics
• Integration with project management and learning systems to connect communication with delivery and capability building – Effective collaboration platforms for change teams

This approach helps to ensure communication supports more than the initial awareness, but facilitates a greater understanding, engagement, adoption and sustainability of the change.

While technology enables good communication, remember it’s the people who will make the change successful. There is huge value gained from face-to-face human interaction where:

• Executive sponsors reinforce the vision, frequently update their employees while encouraging two-way discussions and live Q & A sessions
• Line managers lead from the front, adapt messages for local realities and provide forums to discuss any specific concerns
• Change champions advocate for the change, capture feedback, share updates and support training.

Using human channels alongside digital tools leads to higher engagement, faster adoption, more sustainable change and the real value of the change being realised.

Do you need Change Management expertise?

At Project One, our team of experienced change and programme management professionals brings hands-on expertise to drive complex transformation programmes. We combine leadership, governance, and delivery capability to help customers achieve sustainable business performance improvements faster and with greater certainty. If you are embarking on or already delivering a transformation programme and would like some guidance or just a sounding board, please get in touch via theteam@projectone.com.