Steps to supporting employees through massive change

When it comes to organizational change, employees often feel unsupported from their company or leadership, recent data shows.

Evolving workplaces due to tech integration or renewed RTO policies, means a two-way communication flow is critical to help employees feel supported during times of massive change.

Employees not only want to be “in the know,” they want to feel empowered, heard and valued, said Matt Tidwell, dean for graduate and professional studies at the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas.

“Our generations today, especially when you look at Gen Z, or when you look at Millennials, they’re demanding a fairly high level of transparency, and the transparency really equals support in their mind,” he said. “If they feel like they’re getting a glimpse of what’s really happening, then they’re going to feel that much more supported, because there’s good two-way communication flow.”

“Transparency cures a lot,” Tidwell added, “and people want to know the real story.”

Large brands or corporations have responsibilities to examine the legal and regulatory ramifications of sharing too much information, which is why they can appear more guarded to employees, Tidwell said.

But internal communicators need to work with leadership on how the transparency issue is addressed, as data from Gallagher’s 2025 Employee Communications Report shows that only 34% of employees feel they are supported and that they could thrive during times of organizational change.

Become advocates for transparency

Internal communicators must advocate for more transparency, Tidwell said.

From the Gallagher report, comms teams said “what employees need to know” is rarely considered in contrast with “what leaders felt they needed to share” as only 29% of comms teams say leadership’s overall visions and strategy align with employee expectations.

There’s now a blurring of the lines between internal and external communications. With so many avenues for leaking information, company leaders should assume the information is going to be made public and just be transparent from the start, Tidwell said.

“One of the reasons companies don’t want to be transparent is because they’re afraid that when they tell their employees, it’s going to leak to the outside. I guess what I would say is, you just need to assume that that’s going to happen.”

But organizations have to walk a fine line, Tidwell said.

“Many times, it’s simply inconvenient to share news, or there’s some shallow political reason not to share it,” he said. “Those are usually not good reasons and employees see through it. As we know from research, younger generations expect that, if it’s relevant and able to be shared, it absolutely should be.”

Methods of delivering messages

With that in mind, executive teams should convey clear and true messages to employees and do their best to explain the why behind the rationale for change.

“What I teach now, is that (we must) try to get the message more down toward the line worker, employee level,” Tidwell said. “So as an example, when we ask employees, who do you want to hear from when there’s big news about the company? And then they’re given choices. Is it the CEO? Is it the HR director? The number one choice is always, I want to hear it from my immediate supervisor because that’s who I’m closest to.”

Sharing blast emails about company change rarely lands well. It feels cold, distant and doesn’t do much to instill support or trust, Tidwell said.

Instead, companies seeking to offer support should be “arming our managers, our line supervisors and our people that are out there touching the workforce, arming them with the message, or at least with the details,” Tidwell said. “Maybe the CEO announces we’re doing the layoff, but then (says) go see your supervisor, because we’re going to have department meetings in 20 minutes to explain all this.”

Steps to supporting employees

A good strategy to instill transparency, support and trust among employees can be built in steps, he said.

This includes:

• Two-way communication: Announcing sensitive information in small groups where people can ask questions.
• Anticipate questions: Understand what employee concerns may be and address them before the question is asked.
• Have a clear message: Know what the critical, true information is and know how to pass it along in a way that reflects the reality of the situation.
• Consider communication channels: Who should be delivering this news and why? What makes the most sense and will employees feel comfortable with this team or person to raise concerns?

“I think an ounce of transparency at the beginning (of change) is worth a pound of cure at the end for organizations,” Tidwell said. “Because people want their organizations to be transparent. But in fact, they don’t just want it. If you look at the look at the demographic data, they really demand it.”

Courtney Blackann is a communications reporter. Connect with her on LinkedIn or email her at [email protected].