A leading British B2B telecom giant with over 5000 employees and presence across 13 European countries, North America and Asia was in the process of redefining their core business and entering into an altogether new business vertical.
Being a voice and data connectivity solutions company having their own optical fiber network, they were facing increased competition and commoditization of their core business.
It was felt that it was time to provide customers, not just connectivity, but also value-added IT enabled support. Therefore, in order to survive and thrive in the future, a decision to diversify into cloud-based services, data centers and information delivery platforms was taken by the leadership team.
This diversification created a need to upgrade the company branding and change the positioning to showcase the new offerings to customers.
These changes had resulted in some crucial human resources related challenges.
Managing employee perceptions and curbing rumor mongering was a major challenge for the management.
The speculation amongst employees was that the company was struggling. 
A sense of unease was developing and the feeling of imminent job losses was growing amongst the employees.
There was a high risk of demoralization and loss of talent due to prevailing uncertainty and ambiguity in the minds of the employees.
An anonymous Change Readiness Survey (CRS) was conducted amongst all employees to gauge their levels of awareness and understanding of the industry and the company’s situation. It was also used to measure morale, motivation and satisfaction of all internal stakeholders.
Designed to understand the employees’ knowledge and points of view on the industry, technology, products and trends, it also attempted to uncover employees’ interest and opinions on the need for diversification and the resulting need to change the identity and positioning.
Based on the prevailing mood and the results of the Change Readiness Survey the communication needed to clearly and emphatically do the following:
1. Explain the ‘need for’ and ‘meaning of’ the new brand identity and positioning amongst all employees.
2. Describe what this change means for the employees; ‘in the present’ and ‘in the future’.
3. Spell out what changes in the organization and what doesn’t change.
4. Demonstrate how these changes are beneficial for all concerned.
5. Get the employees’ and key external stakeholders buy-in for training and reskilling in preparation for new roles and responsibilities.
All this in a clear, professional, truthful, non-preachy, reassuring, and friendly tone, style and manner.
Working on the insight that if people don’t understand, agree and participate in the change, it won’t work. The communication was devised to be both interactive as well as informative.
Keeping in mind that people have distinctive personalities and unique mechanisms for processing information the messaging was both analytical & logical as well as evocative & emotional.
1. The multi-media, interactive campaign broke simultaneously across all offices with the CEO sharing the new Brand Identity and Positioning with the employees before unveiling them to the world.
2. A direct mail campaign (both print and email) was initiated. The mailers started with an invitation to a Town Hall meet and continued for a period of 2 months – till the time when the change and first phase of training was over.
3. All mailers had details of helpline numbers and designated email IDs where employees could call for answers to any questions they might have.
4. Town Hall meets were organized across all offices. A company Director interacted with employees, explaining details of the changes and answered their questions.
5. Specially designed leaflets outlining the trends and forecast for the industry and containing information on new products and services were distributed to those interested.
6. Training sessions were organized for team members and managers separately. Manager training was aimed at skilling them to handle employee concerns and question.
7. Helpdesks & information kiosks were established in offices across Europe & Asia. The kiosks were manned by trained people, equipped to handle all queries pertaining to the diversification and brand change.
The change communication campaign was a big success. Employee participation and buy-in was nearly 100%.
Employee understanding of the need to change and the acceptance of the change rose from 55% to 87%.
Employee attrition was negligible.The annual Employee Satisfaction Survey post the change exercise also reflected similar results.
The employees were quite vocal about the facts that the changes had actually given them growth, opportunity to learn new technologies and skills and had resulted in the overall increase in satisfaction and motivation.