Change Community of Practice Webinar: 'Engagement - Not just communication: Engagement with Virtual Teams''

Community of Practice Webinar: 24 April 2018
Engagement – not just communication: Virtual Teams
Presented by: Vicky Emery, General Manager and Joanne Rinaldi, Director – Service Delivery

© Prosci. All Rights Reserved. 2
Agenda
• Virtual teams: Welcome to the digital world!
• Engaging with Virtual Teams
• Tools to aid engagement with Virtual Teams
• The use of Social Media
• The 3 benefits of using Social Media
• Most effective Social Media tools
• Top 5 tips for engaging with Virtual Teams

Virtual Teams - Welcome to the digital world!
The workplace was once composed of a physical office space with
employees working face-to-face, and through email during set hours
between 9am and 5pm.
Fast forward several years and it is now the norm for employees to be
working across multiple locations, hours and devices, the workforce no
longer confined to a single office environment.
The method of collaboration and engaging between virtual team members
that is carried out via technology-mediated communication can be done in a
variety of ways.

What often gets in the way of engagement with
these teams?
• We forget about them – out of sight, out of mind
• They are ‘out of scope’ – we have not considered the role they can and
need to play
• They are spread geographically or by different lines in the organizational
chart, especially if they involve community or external roles
• We have not fully considered all the impacted groups and so have not
considered the ‘channels’ of collaboration or support
• We don’t want to scare them or burden them with extra work too early
• There is some thought that they may ‘slow us down’ or ‘challenge’ the
change
• Others?

What do we mean by engagement?
• Communication is not necessarily engagement. You know you have engaged
people when you receive feedback.
• With change all around us, organisations that recognise the significant positive
impact engagement can have and the ways to measure and manage it, will come
out ahead.
• Identifying ‘engagement’ such as conducting activities like pulse check surveys is
important to maintaining a flow of feedback in the workplace. For example; It’s
one activity to help create Desire and another activity to maintain Desire!
• Gathering employee feedback is the first step towards making more informed
decisions that affect your people during change.
• When undergoing any sort of strategic change, to understand the engagement
levels of your employees with enable required action according to the feedback
we receive. Also, try not to delay assessing engagement levels early during the
Awareness stage of change, as this is actually the perfect time to get a baseline
measurement, not only of how engaged your employees are, but to develop
activities to manage engagement risk.

What is the impact of effective change
management on employee engagement?
Participants were asked to describe the impact that applying change management
had on employee engagement.
Seventy percent of participants reported that applying change management had a
positive or very positive impact on employee engagement.
Copyright © 2018 Prosci Inc. Best Practices in Change Management – 2018 Edition

So how do we engage with Virtual Teams?
Collaborative spaces with private, group messaging and chat capabilities
provide the perfect business communication tools to keep teams working
together, informed and engaged.
Such spaces are important when business communication managers need
updates on the progress of adoption to change or when they need to
communicate with team members.
There are many tools and applications that leaders and change champions
can utilise and extend conversations and feedback across multiple sites and
over any distance.
Most importantly, these are also in ‘real time’ keeping messages and
feedback current.

Tools to aid engagement with a Virtual Team
• Chat platforms: Skype for business, Yammer, WhatsApp, MS Teams
• Blogs, eblasts, bulletins
• Social Media: SharePoint, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google +

The use of Social Media
Thirty-eight perfect of participants used
social media to support their change
management communication, a
continuing increase from 28% of
participants in the 2015 study.
Participants reported that social media
tools were used to create a more
inclusive and supportive work
environment by encouraging open
dialogue within the organisation.
These newer methods of communication
were used to engage all generations.

The 3 benefits of using social media
Three primary benefits were identified by participants who used social
media during communications.
1. Get messages out
The most commonly cited reason for using social media was to
communicate messages to a broader audience faster and more efficiently.
2. Engage the organisation
Social media tools were used to create a more inclusive and supportive work
environment by encouraging open dialogue within the organisation –
engaging all generations.
3. Informal feedback and tracking
The availability of informal feedback and monitoring of staff member’s
perceptions regarding change helps identify and manage resistance or
potential resistance and solve misconceptions or problems early during
change.

Most effective Social Media tools
Participants emphasised the importance of face-to-face communication, but
they identified the most effective social media tools based on functionality
1. Tools that support of encourage collaboration
Including intranet platforms, wikis, document repositories and shared
calendars
2. Web media tools
Web media tools that supported media uploads and downloads such as
blogs, bulletins, newsletters, forums and discussion boards
3. Messaging tools
Including eblasts, SMS or chat.

The 3 attributes of a successful change message

Attribute 1
Share what the change will mean to the employee
Employees want to hear about how the change will impact them personally
including:
• How will this change impact me?
• What will I do differently?
• What’s in it for me? (WIIFM)
Employees want to know how the change will affect their jobs including the
impact on daily job duties, reporting responsibilities and changes in
compensation.

Attribute 2
Explain the business reasons for why the change is happening
Employees want to know why the change is important and necessary for the
success of the business and the benefits to the business as a whole.
Employees need to understand the business reasons for the change and
how the change aligns with the organisation’s goals, vision and strategy.
Employees also want to know what would happen to the business were the
change not made, the consequences of inaction.

Attribute 3
Be honest and clear
Employees want to hear a message that is sincere, truthful and accurate.
The message should include the good and bad, and honest answers about
what the communicator does and does not know.
“Say what you know and admit what you don’t know.”

Top 5 Tips for engaging with Virtual Teams

Tip 1 – Leverage your Leaders and Champions
• Employees want to have a personal connection to leaders and co-workers
like the role of Change Champions. This need is heightened during times
of change when status, certainty and autonomy are all threatened.
• Leaders need to be visible and engage in two-way dialogue to listen to and
validate employee concerns as well as convey rational, factual information
about what is changing.
• Finding ways to build team cohesion and a sense of “pulling together” is
also important for an individual to stay engaged through transformational
events and this is where the role of Change Champions is crucial.
• Make your leaders real – how can people ‘hear if from the horse’s mouth’
in a virtual world? You Tube, Yammer, live stream FaceBook.
• Remember ‘preferred senders’ – Primary Sponsor and my Manager or
Team Leader

Tip 2 – If you use social media, make sure your
Sponsor ‘gets’ it
• Using social media could be a change for them
• You lose the narrative on social media – some Sponsors are not ready for
the criticism or open dialogue so make sure they are ready for the
potential reactions and how to reply in a way that is real but smart
• Make sure Sponsors know the purpose of social media as a channel and
they are clear on what goes out and what does not, how often and to
whom
• Make sure someone (the Change Manager?) monitors the channels and
helps manage the effectiveness of the channel
• How will you close the loop with local leaders?

Tip 3 – Localisation is still important
• At some point it still might be impactful for face-to-face time
• If that just isn’t possible, allow time for focused and localised online time
or live streaming, not just broad messages
• Establish the role local Sponsors and Champions need to play during these
sessions and post-session. You will sometimes need an onsite ‘facilitator’.

Tip 4 – Digital is just one of the ingredients
• Like any good engagement strategy, there are many parts that add to the
reach and effectiveness of the message
• What else will you use to ‘back up’ the message and engagement?

Tip 5 – Use ADKAR as the language of engagement
Utilising ADKAR
In 2017 Prosci introduced the Applications of ADKAR research study with
over 400 change professionals responded, giving new insight into how to
effectively expand the use of the ADKAR Model
Overwhelmingly, the employee’s supervisor was the preferred sender of
personal messages. Executives and senior leaders were preferred senders of
organisational business reasons for change.

Language of communication and engagement
• Participants reported that training key parts of the organisation in ADKAR was the
primary way they established ADKAR as a common language for change.
• Participants consistently used ADKAR language to talk about change in any
context. ADKAR was not only used to discuss change management activities, but
also when discussing general change and individual transitions. This aided
participants in instilling ADKAR as the way of talking about change as a concept
throughout the organisation.
• Selecting a common language for change that utilises words that everyone in the
organisation can relate to allows for change to become something that everyone
can not only understand, but also positively influence.
• Common language is not only for change management professionals; it is for
everyone. ADKAR provides simple, common terms in a framework that is both
easy to understand and implement in day-to-day situations. Using ADKAR as a
common language provides not only clarity and ease of communication but can
also positively impact the outcomes of change initiatives and produce better
change results.
• Reinforcement to maintain Desire. Once your organisation implements action
plans, it’s critical to ensure they don’t lose steam.

Change Community of Practice Webinar: 'Engagement - Not just communication: Engagement with Virtual Teams''

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