CASE STUDY

Communicating an organizational restructure

In this engagement with the Canadian arm of a global pharmaceutical company, Jack supported the communications of a business-wide restructuring. Even in sensitive situations, positioning and preparing leaders with effective communications can keep everyone on message while enabling teams to move toward their new objectives.

The challenge

The new Managing Director of an established eye care business unit arrived with a deadline and a mandate – to identify efficiencies in her group and complete an organizational restructuring all within her first six months.

Big change was clearly on the horizon at the Canadian arm of this global pharmaceutical organization. For the new leader, building trust, connection and opening the lines of communication with her team were first on the agenda. The very steps needed to successfully carry out big organizational change, and ensure the business unit moved forward stronger and more focused.

Our solution

The Managing Director called in Jack Communications. We offered our expertise and experience in internal change management strategy, leadership coaching and support, and delivering multi-channeled content to employees on all levels. Our plan was two-fold.

Phase 1

We created a multi-faceted communications strategy, including quarterly town halls, cross-country road shows, blogs and monthly emails.

These deliverables were designed to:

Strengthen visibility, trust and leadership of the new Managing Director and her vision.
Establish lines of open and honest communication, and create forums for discussion with the Managing Director.
Develop confidence amongst employees and their team leads to help support the new vision.

Phase 2

Working with HR, the legal team and others, we drew up a cohesive communications plan to drive the organization’s restructuring plans.

We provided:

In-person coaching for team leads on how to calmly, clearly and confidently carry out restructuring meetings.
A detailed manager playbook with approved employee scripts for team leads covering all possible scenarios, answers to common questions about the restructure program, a timeline of events and an overview of leader/manager roles.
Human-centred pre-meetings to prepare leaders as well as an all hands meeting after the restructure to ensure employees were informed and had an opportunity to ask questions.

The outcome

Our first measure of success was the employees’ positive interest in and welcoming of the new leader and her vision. As the organizational restructuring was implemented, team leads reported that they felt very prepared taking on challenging meetings with their team members. We also heard that team members felt heard, supported and valued throughout the change.

What makes us proud

We supported a significant organizational change in this Canada-wide business. We partnered with the new Managing Director as she established trust, designed and implemented meaningful leadership training, and thoughtfully developed and executed human-centred communications materials.

The new leader achieved her goals and felt she had confidence, buy-in, and support for her team. She had a solid foundation of open communication as her group moved into the next phase of their work together.

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CASE STUDY

Communicating an organizational restructure