Insights on navigating change, building trust and preserving humanity in an AI-driven workplace.
There’s a lot of change going on.
Communicators and HR leaders are tasked with helping employees through it — whether that’s a technological change, a leadership transition or just making it through the chaotic world we live in. It’s no small task, but the professionals gathered in Nashville for Ragan’s Employee Experience Conference had plenty of innovative ideas. Across sessions on culture, leadership, artificial intelligence and well-being, five themes emerged.
- Culture provides stability during change.
Change communication must explain what will be different without losing sight of what will remain constant.
Values define who an organization is, while cultural principles determine how its people act, said Ryan Poe, APR, director of executive communications at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Neither can be introduced once and forgotten. They must be repeatedly embedded in the employee experience.
His colleague at St. Jude, Hilary Hamblin, manager of organizational change management and internal communications, noted that during disruption, organizations must also remind employees that their underlying values will not change. Culture can provide continuity when other parts of the organization are in flux.
- Managers should clarify information, not merely distribute it.
Employees cannot act on information they do not understand.
Managers should serve as filters rather than funnels, said Heather Kestly, senior communications director at Medtronic. Their role is not to pass along every detail but to provide the context employees need to understand what matters.
That distinction is critical because employees can execute only what they understand, not what leaders believe they communicated, according to Jamesia Harrison, director of university communications at North Carolina A&T State University.
- AI adoption requires judgment and permission to experiment.
AI should solve a genuine employee or business problem, not simply demonstrate that an organization can deploy another tool.
Organizations should resist the assumption that AI belongs in every part of the business, said Scott Armstrong, director of communications at Microsoft. When technology replaces opportunities to speak with a person, leaders should stop and consider whether it is truly the right solution.
Human support remains especially important during stressful or emotional moments. Someone dealing with the aftermath of an accident, for example, may need a person rather than a bot, said Shoshana Leon, strategic communications lead at CSAA Insurance Group.
AI adoption also depends on culture. Samantha Stark, founder and chief strategist at Phyusion, said organizations need to give employees room to experiment and fail. Without that freedom, AI use will remain cautious and superficial.
- Communicators must separate meaningful insights from noise.
More data does not automatically lead to better decisions.
Not every metric deserves equal attention, said Adam Perrow, senior director of employee experience and human resources at Ally Financial. Communicators add value by identifying what leaders need to know and filtering out distractions.
When diagnosing employee frustrations, organizations should also examine their processes because friction often lives in workflows, systems and handoffs, Perrow said.
Craig Thomason, director of global employee and executive communications at Merck, offered another filter for content: ABC, or audience before content. Communicators should understand what their audience needs before writing a single word.
- Human relationships remain a critical workplace investment.
As technical capabilities become more accessible, judgment, curiosity and empathy are becoming more valuable.
Building relationships with frontline employees, managers and senior leaders can help communicators understand how messages are likely to land, said Kerrie Vnuk, head of internal communications at Cotality. That outreach should include both skeptics and supporters.
Informal advisory groups can provide another way to test ideas before they are broadly distributed. These groups can surface confusion, resistance and unintended interpretations early.
Strong performance also depends on employee capacity. Nick LaFave, senior director of organizational communications at Children’s Minnesota, connected mental and emotional well-being with an employee’s ability to perform at a high level. Leaders cannot expect sustained performance without also caring about employees’ health and capacity.
Technology may transform how work gets done, but the human fundamentals remain at the center of a strong employee experience.
Want to learn more? Join us in Seattle for our upcoming Internal Communications Conference.
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