Change communication is a key skill set of any experienced communicator or leader. It’s much more than simply having a conversation or sending an email - especially for large-scale, complex, or ‘messy’ change!

At HMC we use our EPIC system for change communication. It’s a series of tools and templates that take you through a logical process of communication, that will support the change project and importantly, support the people involved. Here’s a quick overview of the key steps.

Evaluate

Before you even start thinking about communicating, you need to understand the ins-and-outs of the change. Who is impacted? How are they impacted and what is the level of that impact? And what does that impact mean for them - including their role, responsibilities, team structure, or the way they work?

Another important question to ask at this point is ‘What stays the same?’. In an environment of change or uncertainty, reiterating what isn’t changing can be helpful and comforting to some.

Position and plan

Now that you know the scope of the change, it’s time to prepare your messaging and think about how you will position the change. This is your time to plan your compelling case for ‘why’.

It’s also the time to determine the communication outcomes you want for your audiences - what do you want them to know, feel, and do? And in a change project, those outcomes will be different for various audience groups, based on how they are impacted by the change.

Once you have those two key elements sorted, it’s time to draft your comms strategy and plan! The strategy will be your approach to how you will communicate; your plan will be your tactics, outlined in a sequence of activities. To learn more about how strategies and plans differ, check out this podcast episode.

Implement

It’s now time to put the plan into action! In this stage, you’ll support leaders to deliver their communication, update various platforms with content, and track when and how the comms is being delivered. Particularly at the very start or launch of the change, this will be a very busy phase!

Most importantly, this is when it’s critical to know more about how people respond to change, and how to have challenging conversations, because there may be a few to be had…

Check

Now that comms are being delivered, it’s time to check if they’re actually working. So you’ll be measuring against your outcomes - what did you want people to know, feel and do, and are you getting those results? For help on measuring, check out this blog post and this podcast episode.

When you work out what you need to tweak, add, or remove altogether, it’s back to the top of the cycle to re-evaluate, and make amendments to your plan as you need them.

Experiencing change in your organisation?

Get prepared! We offer training in our EPIC Change Communication framework - it’s perfect for change managers, communication professionals, or team leaders to get the skills and tools you need to successfully communicate change. Find out more here.