Business context

  • National telco with $17.5 B revenue and 56,000 employees
  • New and relatively unknown/untested CEO in this industry
  • Internally and externally there’s a wait and see attitude
  • This is his first major announcement
  • The new strategy would mean a significant reorganizaiton from regional to client segment and a change in culture from inward-looking to customer-serving
  • There was a need to maintain and build the customer base through transition

Communication issue

  • This would be a significant announcement and subject to rules of materiality
  • Internal and external communication plans for key stakeholders need to be coordinated and aligned to create a reinforcing loop
  • This is a unionized environment and there would be some job change and job loss.  Many reporting relationships would change
  • Employees [and customers] were very cynical.  Employee morale was very low – “I’ve seen it all before

Solution

  • Integrated communication plan to ensure alignment of all internal and external communications
  • Pre-announcement:   Call to union leadership, key customers, Ministers, etc., a face-to-face meeting with all VPs and up (160 – brought to Toronto from Quebec and other parts of Ontario) and the CEO while the markets were closed.  Each of them received personalized and customized support material (binder and CD ROM) including:  News release, key messages by stakeholder, transition plan milestones, “What your employees will see”, questions and answers by stakeholder, detailed information concerning their current and new teams [who was moving where, to do what, etc], communication contact information
  • Announcement:  Customer-facing employees package, town halls with VPs,  conference call with the CEO for all employees [front-line only able to listen to taped version], CEO road show (linked to visits with Government and Customers) to respond to employee issues/questions,
  • Post-announcement:  Daily feedback from VPs and up on how it was going, etc for a week

Results

  • General understanding of the logic for the change
  • Very positive customer feedback.  Maintained and build customer base through transition
  • Positive feedback from executive level leadership felt well supported
  • Support from employees higher than expected.  Cynicism decreased.
  • Announcement created context for a culture change from inward-looking to customer-serving