Don’t build your change comms in the dark

A change messaging rollout can go sideways before the first message ever gets to the audience if internal communicators don’t fully grasp what employees think and feel. Without a deep knowledge of employee sentiment, change communicators can end up building strategy in the dark.

During Ragan’s Communications Boot Camp Virtual Conference last year, Jayli Barkley, information specialist at the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office, shared how her team uses listening tools to get a better sense of how employees are experiencing the organization.

“We wanted to see how effective our communication efforts were,” Barkley said. “Are they landing and resonating with our internal customers and our colleagues? We also wanted to identify areas where we could develop our ability to be more effective.”

Barkley said her team began its listening process by asking its executive leaders to undertake an assessment of the comms department. She said that the survey helped her team understand how much leaders understood about the role of communications and where more clarity was needed.