Ongoing change can lead to employee burnout and a drop in engagement. There’s probably not much you can do to stem the course of change in your organization. What you can do is communicate the ongoing change in ways that make it easier for employees to absorb.
Here are five ways you can lessen employee overwhelm:
We often see large employers give a new name and logo to every change initiative. To employees, this can feel like something new is changing every day. However, most changes in your organization are likely in service to some larger vision of what the company needs to do to succeed. Brand that larger vision of transformation and communicate each new change as an element of the same vision.
Without understanding the why behind change, employees only see the disruption and difficulties. Be transparent about what business issues or market changes have led to the company to this point and provide a logical explanation of why this change is the right action now. Treat employees like the intelligent people that they are and trust them to understand business realities.
Give employees a way to share their thoughts and concerns with leadership. First, it shows respect for whatever they’re experiencing with this change and a willingness to hear their voices. But also, employees can provide valuable feedback to executive leadership on issues they may not be able to see in real time, like customer experience, product quality or other frontline issues.
The first thing employees want to know about any major change is how it will affect them. Some changes will be virtually unnoticed by certain departments or business units but will create major disruption for others. For those teams impacted more dramatically, provide more in-depth communications and equip their managers with communications tools or talking points.
As any major change initiative reaches milestones, share that progress with employees. Celebrate positive results along the way. If you’re seeing movement in the right direction, don’t wait until the end of the change timeline to call attention to that good news. And of course, at every step, express gratitude for employees’ contributions to accomplishing this change.
