Assess how employees are likely to interpret the change.
When a major organizational change is coming, communicators tend to jump straight to: What should the CEO say? What belongs in the employee email? What questions need to go in the FAQ?
But Elizabeth Whittington, senior director of executive communications at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, argues there’s a more important question to answer first.
“What do we need to understand?” she said.
“A change announcement doesn’t arrive in isolation,” Whittington said during Ragan’s Communicating Change: From Strategy to Impact webinar. “It enters an existing relationship between the organization and the audience.”
Before writing your message, communicators should ask these five questions.
- What else is happening right now?
Employees interpret changes through everything they’ve already experienced.
A return-to-office announcement may land differently after layoffs. An AI rollout may create more anxiety inside a company that’s focused on cutting costs.
Communicators need to understand the larger environment before deciding how to frame the change, Whittington said. What’s the most important thing you want them to understand? Start there.
- Could the change conflict with your culture or values?
A decision can make strategic sense and still feel inconsistent with what an organization has previously told employees.
Look for those contradictions before employees do, Whittington said.
“Has our message on this topic been consistent?” she said.
Inconsistency can quickly undermine trust, which could create an environment of uncertainty or anxiety. Any inconsistencies need thorough and transparent explanations.
- Will people see the decision as fair?
Consider how different departments will experience the change.
Whittington offered the example of requiring one department to return to the office while allowing another to remain remote.
Even if there’s a business reason, communicators need to anticipate questions about fairness and explain the distinction so everyone’s on the same page.
- How could people misunderstand the message?
Don’t only ask whether the information you’re sharing is correct.
Ask what employees might assume, what rumors could emerge and which parts of the message could have multiple interpretations, Whittington said.
“The goal is to avoid writing a message that is technically accurate, but strategically incomplete,” she said.
Bring in people willing to challenge the message and point out questions employees are likely to ask.
- What happens if the plan changes?
Change rarely follows a perfect script, Whittington said.
Before an initial announcement, think about how the organization would communicate a delay, modification or reversal.
This step makes later updates feel more like part of an evolving process rather than a contradiction to what they were told.
Slow down long enough to understand the environment the message will enter, Whittington said.
“If you focus on who is changing just as much as what is changing, you’re already starting from a place of understanding,” she said.
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