Awarded best agency 9 years running
Arco
Supporting leaders to communicate change
The challenge
Arco was moving from a regional to a sector-based structure, creating hundreds of new roles and development opportunities, but in a central location. Meaning hundreds of regionally-based employees faced relocation. The challenge was to communicate and engage employees with the why of the change and retain talent.
Making it happen
As the change would have a significant impact on people’s lives, we believed it needed a change from the traditional approach taken to communication updates. Managers needed to take more ownership and responsibility for the communications to build authenticity and trust with their teams.
At a briefing conference, we replaced the senior leaders’ presentations with snappy 10-15 minute discussions. The usual managers’ conversation scripts were replaced too with blank storybooks for them to record key messages in their own words. It demanded their full attention, quick thinking and a deeper level of engagement.
We stripped back all the support materials too. Professional videos were replaced with shorter self-recorded clips. Throughout the programme, less emphasis was placed on presenting information. Instead, it focused on experiential and game-based learning activities.
The Outcome
We’ve been supporting delivery of Arco’s Conversation cascades for six years, tracking impact, understanding and engagement before and after each one. The measures have remained consistently high over time. Even in the face of accelerated change – change that would have a personal impact on many people – this ‘humanising’ refresh in the way the content was designed, delivered and shared still resulted in an improvement in the scores.Following the programme, there was a much better understanding across the board of what constitutes a critical control:
