How internal comms can keep employees informed before a company divides.
A company can announce a split in one press release, but the employees affected need a story that lasts much longer than that. That’s the comms challenge Comcast faces as it separates its media and technology businesses into two public companies.
“You’re essentially having to run two communications programs almost simultaneously,” said Ted Birkhahn, managing director at Vested. “One for the legacy company, the folks who are going to stay, and one for the split company that’s going to go off.”
That leaves employee communicators with two stories to manage over the long-term — about a year in Comcast’s case. The first is about momentum for employees staying with Comcast, and the other is about what’s being built for employees moving to the new company.
“For a legacy company, it’s more about reassuring continuity,” Birkhahn said. “What’s exciting and up next? Why does this make sense for long-term growth? For the new entity, it’s building identity from scratch. That means a new name, new brand, new vision and new mission.”
Keep both employee stories tied together ahead of the split
Employees moving in different directions will need different details, but the basic explanation should stay consistent. Messaging needs to answer why the split is happening, what changes now and what employees should keep doing.
“If there’s inconsistency in the message, it creates confusion,” Birkhahn said. “It breaks trust, and it creates concern for both legacy employees and split company employees about what’s going to happen to them. Consistency across the board to both groups of employees is really, really critical.”
Birkhahn added that the long stretch between the announcement and the completion of the split can pose a challenge for comms pros. Business still has to continue, but employees will be listening for signals about what their future holds at work.
“During that time period, you have to balance business-as-usual communications with making sure that you’re sustaining confidence in the split,” he said. “Things are coming up along the way. You’ve got to deal with all the communications that are required regarding the business as usual while you’re also continuing to nurture and manage the split communications and what that means for both entities.”
When there’s a split, the core story will need to be repeated in different ways without turning stale. A town hall, an FAQ sheet for employees or an ongoing series of intranet posts can all serve different purposes, but they should all point back to the same basic points. All employee comms about the split needs to cover:
- Why the company is splitting
- What’s changing now
- What’s staying the same
- What decisions are still in the future
- Where employees should go for the latest answers
“Repetition is OK, and it’s actually encouraged,” Birkhahn said. “You’re going to have to repeat yourself over and over again. It’s beneficial for employees because it starts to reinforce what that core central story is.”
Prepare managers for team-level questions that may not have answers
For managers, the biggest challenge in communicating a split involves knowing what to say when there aren’t concrete answers yet. By giving managers a simple messaging framework, communicators can help point employees in the right direction. The framework can look like this:
- What we know: The answers managers can give clearly and immediately.
- What we don’t know yet: The questions to acknowledge without guessing.
- What not to speculate on: These involve the details that will be refined as time goes along. They can include benefits, reporting structures or job details.
- Where to send people for more: The contact information for the right people or the links to resources that can answer tougher queries.
“Oftentimes, the answer is that they don’t know yet,” Birkhahn told Ragan. “That’s OK, as long as they don’t promise something or speculate. If you don’t know, say that. Then make clear that when the answer is ready, employees will hear it.”
Montieth Illingworth, CEO of Montieth & Company, said that employees will want to know that leaders have thought through what the split means for their teams, not just the business.
“At that level, it’s like, ‘Let me just level with you. We needed to do this, and here’s why,’” Illingworth said. “Yes, there’s uncertainty here, but we’ve got the right people in place. This is how we’re going to sail into the future.”
Birkhahn added that when employees know where the latest answers are, they’ll be better equipped to work through uncertainty and explain the changes to themselves and those around them.
“Employees also become ambassadors of your brand,” he said. “You want them informed, you want them educated, you want them feeling good about what’s happening. When they’re talking to the market, whether it’s customers or just at the neighborhood barbecue, you want them talking about the split in a positive way, not in a way where it’s like, ‘Yeah, I don’t know what’s going on.’”
Sean Devlin is an editor at Ragan Communications. You can reach him at seand@ragan.com.
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