Best Practice Exchange from the Managing Engagement during Organisational Change and Downsize

On the 20th May 2009 at the Institute of Directors in London, 65 employee engagement experts from leading European organisations including CIPD, Virgin, HSBC, Accenture, Brita, Kodak, Air France, Sony, EDF, BP and Sodexo came together to take part in a ‘best practice’ brainstorm and exchange session.

Challenge

The challenge was to identify leading strategies and tactics to address sustaining employee engagement during organisational change, also to list common pitfalls to avoid during such programmes.

Outcome

The following pages list:

• Specific strategies to build / sustain employee engagement during organisational change and downsize

• Specific tactical elements that build / sustain employee engagement during organisational change and downsize.

• Pitfalls to avoid.

Summary

From a strategic perspective, having an effective well thought through plan with simple road map, associated communications plan, executive management buy in / support and the right team to handle change is a priority. Recognise that as much effort should be put into looking after those who remain as those leaving and/or the change process itself.

Tactically speaking; involving those undergoing change, fully preparing team managers to handle all situations and keeping an eye on the metrics (i.e. survival syndrome, engagement) is key.

Common pitfalls to avoid include lack of alignment across the organisation, inconsistent messaging, trust breaking down (informal communications take over), invisible management and a lack of appropriate metrics (i.e. employee engagement) at the programme onset.

Read more of this article here!

More: Employee survey, Employees, Engagement, Motivation, Performance, Survivor Syndrome