Steering through the tumultuous waters of mergers and acquisitions requires more than just financial acumen and strategic prowess.

It demands a thoughtful orchestration of leadership communications that are built on a solid foundation of clarity, honesty, and empathy. 

While the CEO may not be able to reveal all details of the merger or acquisition—due to legal, political, or strategic sensitivities— leadership communications play a critical role in shaping the perceptions, understanding, and trust of employees.

Here’s how you can help your employees navigate the challenges and changes, helping reduce their worries and fears, with your leadership communications:

: M&A communications are likely the most critical, scrutinized, risky, and impactful communications you’ll ever get involved with in your professional career. 

To mitigate any risks, leaks, unprofessionalism, or inappropriateness, keep your team of key stakeholders close—and your strategic advisors closer. 

Effective M&A leadership comms are orchestrated as a team where everyone from the C-Suite to Legal, Finance, HR, IT, Corporate Comms, Change Consultants, Union Reps, and more, all take responsibility for shaping the plans and delivery of communications to employees in alignment with external and stakeholder communications.

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Leadership comms must never be done in isolation from the other communication cascades and channels. 

Involve key allies (see above) to define target audiences and channels, align on key messaging and timings for sharing information before, during, and after the merger or acquisition. This is one plan that will need to shapeshift as the M&A unfolds, so treat it like you would a crisis communication plan and live and breathe it. 

Your plan must outline roles, responsibilities, and a clear approval process for any communications from the outset.

the inside world when it comes to any communications, especially M&A comms. Messaging needs to be consistent across all communication channels, from official announcements to internal memos or town halls and external press releases, as inconsistencies lead to confusion and erode trust.

3. Set the tone for clear and transparent messaging:

 Nobody can smell spin better than an employee—it erodes employee trust faster than a springtime flood. So craft clear and honest messages from the outset that explain the reasons for the merger or acquisition, the expected benefits, potential challenges, and the overall vision for the merging organizations. 

Employees will trust and respect leadership more if the comms are honest, even if they don’t like the message.

M&As are unsettling periods for everyone involved, even if it means the future promises to be brighter as forces join. Change can be met with resistance, especially if employees are unsure about how it will affect them. 

time to acknowledge the emotions, challenges, and concerns faced by employees who may be anxious about their roles or the future of the company. Balancing this with an emphasis on the shared benefits and opportunities the merger or acquisition can bring, can foster a more receptive attitude from employees.

5. Facilitate regular two-way communication: 

Keeping employees and stakeholders informed at regular intervals is key during an M&A. 

Communication voids are catalysts for causing rumor mills to spin and undermine the integrity of leadership communications. Ensuring regular updates are provided, even if there is nothing to say or that can be shared, keeps official communications the trusted go-to source of information. 

Encourage feedback and questions from employees and stakeholders throughout with opportunities for open dialogue through Q&A sessions, feedback forums, town halls, and direct communication channels with leadership. 

This ensures employees and stakeholders feel valued and listened to, and informs messaging and communications to ensure they continually meet employees where they’re at.

6. Ensure leaders are visible and accessible:

 During periods of change, employees look to leadership for guidance. It’s critical to support and enable leaders to be actively visible and connected with employees throughout the M&A process and any integration or change period thereafter. 

Leaders can play a vital role in quashing speculation and uncertainty, keeping up morale, guiding their teams on priorities and purpose to keep up productivity, and helping to maintain a culture of inclusivity, respect, and trust.

However, they need support to do this with empathy and conviction. Arming leaders with guidance, communication toolkits, briefing sessions and opportunities to gain the support they need to role model good leadership throughout the M&A transition and integration period is probably the best investment you can make in the whole communication process.

6 Best Practice Tips for Leadership Communications During an M&A

For internal communication professionals navigating the intricate web of disseminating crucial messages, the approach of "cascading communication" has emerged as a powerful tool.

 And while cascading communications isn’t as easy as merely passing on a message to the influencers within your business and expecting it to land well, job done, research by the 

underscores the significance of leveraging and managing the cascade channel well. 

The report reveals that employees trust their peers and manager above any other source of information within their organization, driving enhanced engagement and employee experience when comms come through such routes. 

Breaking Barriers: Strategies to Engage Hard-to-Reach Employees

This blog aims to showcase how you get your communication cascades working effectively, help you on the path to mastering this dark art, and sidestep common pitfalls as you go.

There’s no disputing that senior leaders play a vital role in setting and communicating the strategic direction of the organization and providing a unified vision. However, given the Edelman research, a combination of top-down communication and influencer-driven "cascade" communication can create a better employee experience, and a more effective approach that fosters an inclusive and trust-fuelled organizational culture.


Here are X elements you need to consider to cascade your comms effectively without the pitfalls:

. Get clear on the context and reason why you need to communicate in the first place. Understand the problem you’re trying to solve to ensure you can explain the "why" to your communication networkers and influencers from the get-go.  Without sound rationale for adding what could be perceived as more "noise"  to the organization, nobody will be convinced this is a valuable and worthwhile exercise to undertake, let alone being able to convince others to support your cascade.

2. Understand the flow of communications.

 flows around and across your organization. I’m not talking about how you’d like it to flow through your well-managed, corporate channels, but how word actually gets spread around your organization—as trustworthy, valuable sources of information, not gossip or rumour, I may add! 

Think about who connects with groups of people on a regular basis as part of their role, e.g. Line Managers, Supervisors, HR representatives, Project Managers, Communities of Practice leads, and Subject Matter Experts.  These groups of people are your influencers and connectors and who you need to build relationships with in order to develop your cascade.

Seek to understand who connects with whom, how, and when.  The more you understand their communication challenges and needs, and the opportunities to leverage from a comms perspective, the more effective and trustworthy your cascade will be.

. Like the train-the-trainer approach, an effective communication cascade must "communicate with the communicators".

Essentially, this means getting and keeping your key influencers—as identified in point 2—onboard. Be sure your influencers understand the value and benefits it will bring them by being part of the cascade process so that it’s not seen as just another task for them to do on top of everything else.  

Instead, ensure they can see and feel how it helps increase their profile and visibility, and build trust, credibility, knowledge, communication, and influencing skills. By being part of the comms cascade, and doing it well, they’ll enhance the employee experience and organizational culture in a really positive way.  

Then it’s about being clear on what you need them to know and do and why, understanding their needs and challenges, and vice versa.  Make their role as communicators in your comms cascade as useful and valuable as possible with briefings, support sessions, training, communication toolkits, key message packs, templates, and more. 

Tailor the "support pack" you pull together based on their feedback too, so it hits the mark for them and their audience. And don’t forget to acknowledge and show appreciation for their support. For the cascade to be effective it has to be a win-win for all those involved.

The beauty of getting your influencers onboard and trusting them to cascade the communications means that communications should come across in a more relatable, relevant, and personalized way to employees.  

Give your influencers the content and templates they need, as well as the guidance and non-negotiables, to ensure they’re on message and remain aligned with your strategic goals and objectives. 

Then encourage and allow them to tailor their approach within those guiderails, on how and when they deliver the communications to acknowledge the unique needs and roles of your employees. 

This plays to the influencers communication strengths, capitalizes on the opportunities and channels they have to communicate wider, and ensures they feel a sense of autonomy.   Since they understand the dynamics, perspectives, and needs of their colleagues, trust them to deliver in ways that best suit their audiences.

. Cascading communication through influential channels encourages a more open and interactive dialogue. Employees often feel more comfortable expressing their questions, concerns, and feedback to the people they know and trust most.  

Your influencers will likely act as intermediaries, creating a feedback loop that can be advantageous for internal communicators and employees alike.  Ensure you have a clear process in place that enables any feedback to get back to you, and for you to keep your influencers updated with what’s been changed as a consequence.  

With ears to the ground, the honest truth comes forth helping you refine messages, clarify misunderstandings, and ensure that any employee concerns are adequately and speedily addressed.

It's important to note that while cascading communication through influential channels has its benefits, it should not replace top-down communication entirely. Yet, when the two angles of communication dovetail and are done well, you really have an influential and impactful communication formula.

Cascading Leadership Communications: Getting it Right Without the Pitfalls

One of the great privileges of working for Poppulo is being part of a team that brings together some of the world’s best workplace communicators who generously share their expertise and insights at our annual conference, Engage.

This year’s event was yet again packed with great speakers on topics that impact internal communication professionals everywhere. 

In fact, there was so much to take in, so much of real value, that it’s helpful to revisit at a more leisurely pace in your own time. 

You can do that by checking out this Executive Brief which my colleague Christine Kendall has curated from the Engage 2023 sessions: 

Unlocking the Power of Employee Communications: Key Takeaways from Engage 2023.

Here’s a taster of what you can expect:

 shares super-interesting findings from a major piece of research by UK-based Ipsos Karian and Box.

Proving the Value of Comms Through Measurement:

Winning Combination: How Personalization & Analytics Drive Impact,

, the Sr. Manager of Content and Channels at National Grid, emphasized the importance of not only tracking quantitative engagement data like open rates, click rates, and page time, but also regularly collecting qualitative feedback from employees through engagement surveys, targeted surveys, and employee focus groups.

Making Comms a Strategic Function for Your Executive Team

, former Head of Comms, at Coca-Cola HBC and SABMiller, and 

, Chief Encouragement Officer at Change Oasis, emphasized the importance of understanding the strategic goals of the business and clearly linking your comms initiative back to those goals.

, Head of Communications at leading life sciences company, Cytiva, gave a fascinating presentation into how strategy, data, and personalized comms played a critical role during a period of transition at the company: 

Embracing Strategy—How Data Led Cytiva to Revise Their Communications Approach.

Strategies for Reaching Disconnected Workers:

, Head of Digital at scarlettabbot discussed the importance of knowing your audience and making content relevant to them, in his session

 Prioritize the Possible—Creative Ways to Engage Your Deskless and Disconnected Workers

, Head of Internal Communications at NatWest Group, explore the importance of developing an Employee Value Proposition (EVP) to align with the employee experience and help attract and retain talent. Especially those hard-to-reach employees, in their session,

 Closing the Gap: How to Turn Your EVP Aspiration into Employee Experience Reality.

 There’s no getting away from Artificial Intelligence, is there? Whether or not you’re ready, AI has arrived and there’s no going back. In his session T

he Future is Here—What AI Means for ICTeams

, Sr. Director of Corporate Communications at Maximus outlined how the Maximus team has adopted AI as an ethical communications tool, with very practical insights into how he and his team leverages it to improve their comms.

And finally, Engage 2023 answered a question we’ve been asked many times here at Poppulo. As a company whose customer roll call is an A-list of the world's best and most successful companies, how do we approach our internal comms with our own people?
To find out, take a look at this short behind-the-scenes video—

A Day in the Life: Poppulo’s Approach to Comms

How Do You Improve Your Comms? Check out These Insights from Engage 2023

Many organizations are already having or will have: pay freezes, hiring freezes, budgets slashed, people projects put on hold, and, worst of all, lay-offs. 

So, how exactly can EX help to mitigate a process of cuts, cuts, cuts?
One of the many beauties of EX is that there really are few barriers to entry. Even if budgets are small or non-existent, so many positive changes can be brought about if you instill the EX mantra of "from the people, for the people" in an organization. 

Positive changes can not only bring about improvements to the culture but productivity too—which will favorably impact the bottom line.

The Multi-Million Dollar Impact of Communication on Employee & Customer Experience


As Mike Sharples and I outline in our book, 

, EX has a more compelling ROI than CX. Why? Well, it’s easier to obtain, quicker to realize, and potentially more valuable. 

Yet EX is generally seen as a poor relation not only to CX but to internal functions such as IT and Governance. This needs to change—and you can influence this. (Yes, you.)

If an organization of around 13,500 employees—who were paying the average UK salary—reduced both sickness and turnover by just 1%, then they could save around £10 million in sickness costs and £1 million in recruitment costs annually.
That's a fair old sum of money! And a target figure worth chasing after... much like sales of £11 million per year are worth chasing after. 

But here’s the thing. If you continue to undervalue the importance of EX then sickness and turnover will go up, which will lead to higher costs and lower productivity, which will lead to lost revenue opportunities. 

But if you focus more on EX then sickness and turnover will go down, which will lead to greater savings and higher productivity levels, which should lead to more revenue.


You can view the ROI from investment in EX for your organization via our EXO ROI Calculator. The savings and productivity gains can be significant, so do share them with your CFO. Once seen, these numbers can’t be unseen. Even though you can get going with EX with very little or even no financial investment, senior leaders will still require a business case to review the "why bother?"


The best things in life are often free and so are some of the best EX initiatives which our clients have undertaken. These initiatives have come "from the people, for the people" via Employee Journey Mapping workshops with existing employees.
Here are some examples of no-cost or very low-cost initiatives from our clients:

Hiring: Allowing final shortlisted candidates the option to talk to a non-hiring member of the team

First day: Assigning someone to offer to go to lunch with the new joiner                                

Support: Encouraging colleagues to contact one other colleague per day, just to check in with how they are

: Introducing a culture of saying "Thank You"

Alumni: Sending an e-card to ex-employees on their birthday, to show they’re not forgotten.

The above examples alone will support with:

Ensuring the right people join the organization, which can mitigate costly early departures	

Making colleagues feel welcomed and appreciated, so they’re more likely to be retained

Ensuring your brand isn’t forgotten about, which can lead to future sales

Of course, as you will have seen from the ROI calculations, with potentially significant savings at stake, it may be worth asking for a budget for EX improvements. 

After all, spending a little money on the right tools will be worth it if productivity gains are made. And motivated, productive employees will perform better, which will boost profits, which will negate the need for all the cuts.
Investing in the employee experience is a win:win:win:

It benefits the employees, as they have a more enjoyable and fulfilling work life

It benefits the business, as employees will be more productive

It benefits the customer, as they will be served by motivated and satisfied employees

In short, when times are tough start with focussing on the Employee Experience, don’t start with destroying the Employee Experience. The ROI is clear. It’s not: "Can you afford to invest in the employee experience?" It's: "Can you afford not to?"


When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Should Focus on Their Employee Experience

A couple of years ago a job listing boldly exclaiming "We hire old people" went viral and threw a spotlight on hiring practices across the Tech industry. 

It reads: "Unlike Silicon Valley, we do not discriminate based on age. Experience matters. We hire old people. (And young people, too.)"

So what exactly is considered old? A 2021 study by the University of Gothenburg found that anyone over the age of 35 is considered old by industry standards. In most other sectors, 35 is just about when people are hitting their stride. To put that into context, the median age of an American worker is 42; at Meta (formerly Facebook) it’s around 28.

From Boomers to Zoomers: How to Bridge the Generation Gap in Workplace Communications

The study showed that older employees are perceived to be less up-to-date with technological trends, and have more difficulty processing information or picking up new things. In many sectors older workers are deemed to have "too much experience" as code for "too old and expensive", in Tech it’s often the reverse.

These things matter. Perceptions not only impact how people are treated within an organization but also their success rate in landing jobs in the first place. Job applicants in their 40s and 50s are routinely shaving years off their CVs or LinkedIn profiles—in a bid to appear to improve their marketability.

There are countless reports of experienced workers being laid off and replaced by younger peers, or being unemployed for painfully long periods of time. 

The current Tech cull is seeing its fair share. Some find it impossible to land a job past a certain age, and move industries, taking decades’ worth of valuable expertise with them. Others leave the workforce altogether.

While companies openly tackle racial or gender diversity, ageism is often a neglected topic. So ethical considerations aside, why does it matter?

By 2030 the Tech labor-skill shortage is forecast to reach

 – with an unrealized global output of close to $450 billion. The UK alone will fail to realize almost 9% of potential revenue because of it. That's hardly chicken fodder. Older, re-trained workers, women—and people from different ethnic backgrounds—will all need to be part of Tech’s future.

Diversity is a key driver of innovation. 

Companies with above-average diversity produce a greater proportion of revenue from innovation

. More inclusive business cultures and policies translate into a 60% boost. This uplift in turn drives better ﬁnancial performance.

And, as technical products and services become more commonplace, so do older users. If the aim is to offer them to as many people as possible, in order to generate higher profits—then people of all ages need to be included in the design of those products and services.

People from different generations have a lot to offer each other. They will have different world views, ways of working, core values, and experience—all of which make for a more diverse workplace, which in turn drives innovation and profitability. That means dusting off some myths about older workers and creating opportunities.

Even common assumptions about start-ups don’t hold water. While we glorify the concept of the young founder conceiving a brilliant idea in their mum’s basement and dropping out of college to pursue his dreams, the reality is a bit different. 

The most successful founders clock in at 40+ years old. 

The average age of the top 0.1% of start-tups in terms of growth is actually 45 years old.

 And a 50-year-old founder is 1.8 times more likely to achieve upper-tail growth than a 30-year-old.

And when viewing age in the context of other characteristics, if you’ve not benefited from the same access to opportunities earlier on in your career you might take longer to rise up the ranks. 

So while all older workers face the prospect of age discrimination, if you’ve faced barriers because of race or gender your career trajectory is likely to take even longer. 

We know, for instance, that the gender pay gap is skewed against older women. While everyone gets paid less as they get older, the gap for women is even more marked. Age and gender: a double whammy.

That intersection matters. A report from the non-profit Black Women in Leadership Network found that a staggering 84% of Black women in senior positions reported racial bias at work. It’s not enough to look at one single characteristic. A truer picture is how factors like gender, race or socio-economic background, and age, play out together. 

If you’re thinking the solution is flying solo, the truth is that funding is a big blocker. Women-led start-ups, and especially those founded by Black women, are dramatically underfunded. So right now, only a very select few are managing to get the financial backing they need.

Dig a little deeper, with a DE&I lens on the current over 50s "exodus’" and I believe the focus should be less on luring early retirees back into work, but rather on employers offering:

a) Meaningful opportunities to a diverse workforce in rapid-growth sectors such as Tech

b) Putting protective, and progressive, measures in place for employees

In other words, the onus should be on employers to attract the talent, and for VC to fund Britain’s entrepreneurs, many of whom have been passed over or made redundant by a sector heavily skewed towards youth.

Set the right framework, and that will be the key to unlocking the "great return to work" for the over 50s. But that means shaping a culture that will enable it. Long hours, lack of flexibility, and a ruthless work ethic, combined with a lack of diversity and sluggish progression won’t incentivize people.

The bottom line is this: If we want our older workers back in the mix we are going to have to re-think the environment we provide for them. One thing’s for sure, DE&I certainly doesn’t have a hard-stop past the golden age of 35.

So here are some tips for attracting talent of all ages:

 say they have not been contacted by a recruiter in the past 12 months.

  — Studies show that recruiters in their 20s are significantly less likely not to screen the CVs of older applicants. Ensure candidates are not locked out due to age (or any other characteristic).

  — Strive to eliminate bias when hiring, by using age-neutral imagery and language in job descriptions or on social media.

  — Don’t assume that people are not up to date on trends, will be too expensive, not committed, etc. If in doubt, ask directly (within the confines of legislation).

  — One structured interview is a good way to level the playing field, but don’t ask for strategy presentations in the first round. Interviews should not be used as a means of harnessing the skill and experience of older workers for free.

  — Offer flexible working arrangements (remote, part-time, job shares, etc). Studies show that almost 60% of workers want to work beyond retirement age, but less than one in three have the option to move from full- to part-time work.

  — Upskill and re-train. Many people are eager to learn new skills and continue to grow. And because of the labor skills shortage, Tech will need older workers, and it will need to re-train workers (of all ages) to bolster its workforce.

  — Create a welcoming culture for all ages. Broaden your opportunities to learn and collaborate with colleagues, by including them in meetings. And outside of work, find things to do that everyone can enjoy. Try not to always stick to your own age group. 

  — Finally, be at the forefront of change, as opposed to being on the backfoot. Be a champion of the over-50s by advocating across your industry. And of course, last but not least, factor in age as part of your DE&I strategy. 

#Tech #innovation #diversity #equity #inclusion #DEI #ageism #career

Ageism in Tech: Too Old to Code?

Most organizations have been through a whirlwind of change in recent years, and nobody needs a crystal ball to know that companies can expect more of the same going forward.

Whether you’re adapting to a different work model, trying to shift company culture, or undergoing a merger or acquisition and need restructuring, change is and will be inevitable.

Many factors will determine whether your change plans and initiatives succeed or fail, but one of the single most important determinants—always—is communication. Poorly communicated change initiatives are doomed to failure. On the other hand, HR and Internal Comms working closely together to deliver well-developed and clearly articulated change plans can play a critical role in driving successful outcomes.

A recent Poppulo webinar focused on exploring several ways organizations can overcome change challenges, specifically looking at the role of HR and Communications teams. We looked at four major strategies by which leaders in an organization can leverage communications to solve key HR and change challenges—which we’ll dive into in a moment.

If you want to dig deeper into the discussion, you can watch the full webinar on-demand 

. But to give you an overview of what to expect, here are the key takeaways.

1. Engage Internal Comms When You Define Your Problem

It’s common to immediately jump to the easiest or most obvious solution when you identify a problem. But in many cases, the problem affects more than one department, and teams forget to engage other parts of the organization that need to be involved. Before jumping to a solution, it’s critical to answer questions like: What’s the challenge? What problem are you looking to solve? What is your vision for success and how do you define it

Change always starts with people, so the first step is to engage departments that are in constant communication with your employees: Internal Communications and HR.

By engaging Internal Comms early in the process, they can help make sure everyone in the company is on the same page by communicating to employees on the most effective channels with the most effective message.

This allows Transformation teams to focus on shaping the future vision so that they don’t have to worry about the specifics of how this vision is communicated to employees.

There are two crossroads where we engage with change and transformation professionals first, after they’ve already started implementing solutions—which is usually too late—or when they first identify the problem—which is when we can have a real impact."
– Andrew Hubbard, Director of Internal Communications & Engagement at Poppulo

2. Know Your Audience—And Recognize That They Have Changed

The modern workforce is no longer a homogenous group. After the pandemic hit, a new generation entered the workforce, and you likely have employees of all ages with diverse experiences, perspectives, and expectations. As a result, HR professionals and communicators must adapt their approach to support the needs of the new generation entering the workforce.

In addition to generational challenges, there’s also a need to recognize that employees work from different locations, in different roles, and communicate differently—especially since the pandemic.

We have lab technicians, manufacturing and supply chain workers, and office workers—and they’re all distributed worldwide. Each of these workers has a different context, and a one-size-fits-all communications approach won’t work."
–Ricardo Troiano, Global Head of Organizational Change & Development at Syngenta Group

Organizations must re-learn how to engage with this dynamic and evolving workforce. Learn what your employees care about and frame change in a way that shows the direct impact on each individual’s role. More likely than not, after communicating a change, most employees will immediately ask, "How will this impact me?". Companies should consider how they talk about change and leverage IC teams to identify the most effective way to present it to employees.

3. Change is Uncomfortable, So Embrace Vulnerability

People are naturally uncomfortable with the unknown. And changes implemented since the onset of the pandemic have led to many unknowns, leaving employees feeling uncomfortable and disconnected.
The shift toward hybrid and remote work has eliminated the impromptu interactions that were so vital for building relationships and creating a sense of connection in the workplace. And when employees can’t connect with coworkers in the hallway or at the coffee bar, it’s up to leadership to step up and offer vulnerability.

Leadership and HR teams need to empathize with employee sentiment and recognize how they’re feeling. When leaders and employees can be vulnerable with each other, it creates a sense of trust and openness that’s essential for building strong relationships and a healthy work environment.

Leadership needs to be more vulnerable—and allow that space for employees to be vulnerable. HR teams should understand and empathize with employee sentiment and how those feelings are happening. We move fast, and it doesn’t always feel okay to be vulnerable."
– Rachel Brownlee, Human Resources Manager at International Feed Corporation

Through these shared experiences, employees will understand that feeling uncertain or uncomfortable is okay. They can talk about those feelings without fear of judgment or repercussion, resulting in them being more willing to embrace change.

To understand how effective the changes you make are, you need to measure the impact of change. And this starts with identifying the key metrics that need to be tracked and benchmarking your position over time.
But this requires looking beyond descriptive analytics and raw data. Companies should leverage technology to look at predictive analytics and paint a picture of potential outcomes. Eventually, you can move toward using prescriptive analytics to identify options to drive business results, giving you a closer view of your workforce and how it moves to impact outcomes and business strategies.

When measuring the impact of change, remember that it’s not just about asking whether people have received the message—it’s about asking whether they actually understand what’s being communicated to them. By doing so, you can get a clearer picture of how effective your communication efforts are and whether further changes need to be made. To achieve this level of understanding, you should regularly check in on the key metrics you’ve identified and adjust your approach as needed.

Let Poppulo Help You Reach the People with the Information they Need to Know

Enforcing change in an organization can be challenging for a variety of reasons, but one of the top challenges is communicating change to employees and customers, especially if you don’t have the right tools and people to help.

The Poppulo platform makes it easy to communicate with any audience via the channel they prefer—including email, digital signage, mobile devices, Intranet, collaboration tools, and more. If you’re interested in learning more about how Poppulo can help you more effectively introduce change in your organization by reaching all of your audiences with the information they need to know, reach out to us today.

4 Top Tips for Overcoming HR & Change Challenges with Internal Comms

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) continues to be in the top priorities for organizations, but are we seeing real progress on the change needed to drive the inclusive cultures and sense of belonging we all crave?

Last year, commissioned by business book publisher, Kogan Page, we embarked on a journey to discuss DEI and the role of effective internal communication. 

You see, in the past year, organizations started reaching out to us for consulting support, feeling stuck in their DEI efforts and seeing employees ignoring and/or resisting organizational efforts. We wanted to share our learnings with our global communication community.

Getting DEI Right: Lessons from Microsoft, Gilead Sciences & Capital One

We spent the year researching history, listening to practitioners, paying attention to our experience with client challenges, and mapping and testing solutions. A few key findings struck us:

DEI is professional and personal. Those delivering DEI efforts struggled with separating their own feelings and opinions from the programs being delivered.

DEI is a transformational change process. That means that reactions to change—shock, denial, anger, resistance, acceptance, adoption, and commitment were human and expected and required support through proactive strategy and communication.

DEI should be conversation instead of campaign-led. A series of campaigns that simply checked boxes versus changed attitudes and behaviors lost credibility and caused fatigue.

DEI requires employee engagement. DEI does not become a reality without shared effort. If it was treated as the responsibility of a few versus embedded into strategies with measurable goals that everyone was accountable for, it struggled to move forward.

When consulting with clients on any change or engagement initiatives, we always start by asking about the present and end states: where is the starting point and where do we want to go? 

It makes it easier for business leaders to map operational change initiatives and for communication leaders to provide the right messaging to create awareness, understanding, action, and belief.

It’s with this in mind, that we created our DEI E-volution.

 In this stage, organizations fight for the status quo and dig in their heels to keep them from becoming more diverse, equitable or inclusive.

 We describe this stage as black boxes and rainbows. Organizations feel they need to make a statement or performative gestures to show support.

How Others Are Promoting DEI in Their Workplace: Employee Storytelling

 In this stage, we introduce training and celebrations for cultural, religious, or commemorative dates or months to create awareness.

In the past few years since the murder of George Floyd, we saw an increase in DEI budgets and the hiring of leaders accountable to the DEI efforts of their organizations. We also saw proactive plans starting to focus on business-related measures.

Organizations in this stage had plans in place and moved their focus on engaging leaders and employees to translate plans into action.

 When organizations are in EMBED, they incorporate DEI initiatives, goals, and accountabilities into the employee and customer lifecycle.

We find that most organizations today fall between Educate and Engage and are struggling to move DEI efforts from performative to progressive performance.

The DEI E-volution has really resonated with so many that we have talked to. That’s why, in support of our book launch, we worked to create an assessment to help organizations identify where they fall on the continuum. After all, it is so important to truly understand where you are in order to move forward to the next step.

What can you do to make progress on DEI in your organization?

https://5tk19jo8cpn.typeform.com/to/HH4nNewp

 and discover where your organization falls in the DEI E-volution.

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The Multi-Million Dollar Impact of Communication on Employee & Customer Experience

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