Business restructuring communications

Carefully planned and crafted communications is a critical element to successful business restructuring or change programmes.

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented disruption for all organisations, and many businesses will be looking at restructuring, redundancies, administration or significant change programmes as a result.

With extensive experience in managing change communications programmes, WA supports organisations to deliver effective communications across a variety of scenarios, from takeovers and leadership changes, to restructurings and administrations.

How to communicate business change

Change communication doesn’t happen in a silo: there are a wide range of audiences that need to be considered from employees to regulators to suppliers. The right message for each group needs to be carefully crafted to be delivered at the right time, and channels for ongoing two-way communication managed.

A strong, consistent narrative is central to a successful change programme, along with a carefully planned timeline of cascading actions.

WA works closely with senior leadership teams who are preparing to implement a change programme to understand the unique situation they are facing. We work with our clients to develop tailored strategies to ensure change announcements are sensitively managed and supporting communications are ready to roll out.

How to develop your change communication strategy and plan

Every company is unique; the current challenges your business is facing, your employee structure, and the relationships you have created over the years with customers and beyond.

While every communications strategy needs to be bespoke to the particular situation your business is facing, there are key components that you need to address when developing your plan.

These are the top-10 things you need to be considering:

1. Ensure you have a core narrative and consistent messaging about the business decisions and the reasons for it

2. Make sure you plan out all possible scenarios ahead of the announcement

3. Ensure you have mapped and categorised all the stakeholders you need to be considering for engagement

4. Develop a media strategy and statements, including a leak management strategy

5. Put together a comprehensive timeline and task planning matrix

6. Develop a suite of materials: emails, letters, FAQs, social media, digital etc

7. Write scripts and talking points for face-to-face communications and meetings

8. Ensure you have 24/7 press office support in place for the announcement

9. Prepare a post-announcement outreach and meeting programme with regulators, government, industry bodies and other key stakeholders as necessary

10. Ensure that there is a programme in place for ongoing employee engagement with those both affected and unaffected by the changes

If you would like to discuss your communication needs with WA’s experienced team, please contact our Corporate Communications consultants today.