How do you tell people that things are going to change?
I would be surprised if you have not seen this week's news that nearly 3,000 Telstra employees will lose their jobs. My heart goes out to anyone impacted; it's tough news during an economically challenging time.
I won't analyse how this news was delivered; there's already enough commentary.
The reality is that if you work in communications, at some stage, you will have to tell people that something is going to change. It could be that the services your organisation delivers are changing; perhaps you need to introduce new team members, and unfortunately, you may have to help deliver news when people are losing their jobs.
Here are my tips on how you can do it well.
Get organised
It pays off if you carefully plan who you will tell and when. Step through how your key audiences will receive information and which channel it will be delivered through. The last thing you want is to look disorganised or uncoordinated when sharing vital information.
Tell people as much information as possible
Give people as much information about the change as you can. If information is missing, acknowledge it and tell them when they can expect to hear it. This shows that you want them to have a complete picture of what's happening and that there will be an ongoing conversation.
Humanise it
Be mindful of the impact that your change will have on people's lives. It might seem small to you that a service your organisation once provided is changing, but if someone has relied on it for a significant time, this will have a considerable impact. Acknowledge that impact. This also means thinking about how this information is delivered. As much as possible, this should be done by a human to another human.
Own the narrative
You want to take ownership of this message as much as possible so that others don't take over and add their opinion in the process. Think carefully about all the impacted audiences and include them in your plan.
This list is not exhaustive, but I hope it helps you when you're planning to communicate an upcoming change!