Riding the wave: Tips for internal comms pros after a major change

Communicating through a major change like a rebrand or leadership shift is much more than just putting out a press release. There’s a lot of heavy lifting that needs to be done by communicators long after a change is revealed to ensure that it sticks as intended.

At Ragan’s Employee Experience Conference, Daviera Powell, director of strategic internal communications at Blood Cancer United, shared insights about her organization’s rebrand from The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society to its current name — a process that took careful communication both internally and externally. Powell said that the most important work for change communicators comes in the after the initial excitement after an announcement dies down.

“Once those headlines fade away and once everyone is settled into the change, that’s when that human impact starts,” Powell said. “And that’s when the real work starts for us. This is about rebuilding the trust, the culture and the connection with your staff.”

Powell said that the first step her team took amid the rebrand was building out a framework for employee messaging. This kept everyone on the comms team organized and united in the task of making employees aware of how the changes would impact them and why they were happening.