Case Study: A strategy launch and a lockdown

A new strategy that would completely transform the organisation. Over 900 staff dispersed across Australia. And almost every state and territory in lockdown.

HMC was engaged by one of Australia’s largest non-profits to help them roll out an ambitious, transformational strategy that would completely change the way they worked and interacted with their clients. Centred on digital and technology, the strategy also encompassed all other areas of the organisation, including people and culture, the services offered, and the brand.

The challenge

Our goal was to launch the strategy in a way that built understanding of the ‘why’ behind the change, but also excited people about what was to come. But when you have 900 people all mostly working from home or regional offices, and many on 24-hour shift rotations, how do you successfully engage? In addition, the organisation had limited internal communication channels, and no internal communication team or channel governance.

The solution

Build a platform

Working with the IT team an external provider, we built a new SharePoint site that will become the organisation’s new intranet in the very near future. This site aims to provide a channel to share news and information related to the strategy - a one-stop-shop for everything you need to know.

Create an event

We then developed a two-week Strategy Festival. This completely virtual event saw 12 online events with guest speakers sharing their research and expertise to demonstrate why the organisation needed to change, and internal subject matter experts and sponsors explaining what their part of the strategy was, and what it meant for their people and clients. All the online events had Q&A functionality - and the questions came thick and fast! The sessions were all recorded and - along with presentation materials and sketchnotes done by our team - were made available on the intranet.

Build capability

The last session of the two-week festival was a capability session just for leaders. We ran a workshop to help leaders learn how they could effectively communicate about the strategy with their teams, and make it meaningful for their contexts.

The outcome

Over 150 people tuned in live to each session, and the recordings of the event have been viewed hundreds of times. The event set the scene for the next phase of communication, with communications aligned to strategic projects as they come to life. Feedback from the event also demonstrated employees felt well informed, and were grateful for an experience they could access any time, any place.