Organisational change can often feel overwhelming, especially when its complexities touch every part of a workplace.
For Sarah Leong, Change and Communications Manager in the Australian Federal Government, effective communication is essential to making sense of this change.
As she prepares to speak at the upcoming Public Sector Comms Week 2025, Sarah shares how communication can bridge the gap between confusion and clarity.
What role does communication play in navigating the complexity of organisational change? How do you ensure consistent messaging during these times?
Communications is a critical tool and part of the determining success factors for implementing change that will stick and last.
With change, you need people to understand why it’s happening, the journey they’re going to be involved in, the impacts and benefits, and what role they play in making it successful.
When communications is done right, it is a powerful driver of influence in change.
Organisational change is going to be inherently complex with various factors that interact in dynamic ways (from cultural shifts to alignment of leadership and balancing business needs).
When people are impacted, they want to be informed and feel involved in what’s going to happen to them. Crafting a core narrative that connects people with a shared purpose and vision, supports you in creating clear and consistent messaging that can be reinforced and tailored to meet the needs and concerns of different stakeholders, and to keep the change on track.
Communication through organisational leaders (as your spokespersons) plays a crucial role in change management, so using this to also create a change and communications toolkit with key talking points, FAQs and templates will help ensure everyone have access to the same information, language and tone to communicate in.
Remember though, communications alone isn’t a cure all for change and needs to work hand-in-hand with strategy, strong leadership, support and resources, and more!
How should an organisation prepare for frequent and complex changes?
Building organisational change maturity through a culture of adaptability is the cornerstone to this, but cultural change is the most complex of them all and easier said than done (especially when change fatigue is present through repeated changes that have fallen through or been reinvented)!
Change shouldn’t be seen as something that only happens during transitions and/or transformations, it should be cultivated and embedded into the day-to-day environment and functioning of an organisation.
People need to be supported and equipped with the skills, tools and mindset to have the confidence and resilience to prepare for change as part of an on-going culture of improvement.
Facilitating an open environment of learning and continuous feedback supports the growth mindset and psychological safety to foster this shift in behaviour – replacing fear with curiosity and failures with learnings to grow.
Read also: Susan Bogle on adapting communication strategies for rapidly changing political environments
It’s about building trust and engagement through times of uncertainty – you want your employees to be able to share what they may be uncomfortable with or fearful of during times of change so you can support and address that, as transparency during times of change is crucial in communications and goes both-ways in feed-back loops as you monitor the change progress.
Having leaders and ‘change agents/champions’ visibly role-model this and present a united front helps drive this too. Personal communications on-the ground to build that relation is just as important as official communications in change management.
A personal maxim I go by is that not everyone has to agree with one another, but can endeavour to understand each other, so building that knowledge to understand and engage with change through education is also something I champion!
What practical frameworks have you found useful in managing change?
While I don’t focus on frameworks as a one-size-fits-all solution, what’s most important is tailoring them to the change that’s being implemented and the specific needs of the organisation.
I find frameworks that are people-focused and flexible work best. The ADKAR model (Prosci) is widely known and used for a reason as it addresses the personal aspects of change, and the emotional engagement of people is such a critical part of change management (think about the ‘Change Curve’).
From an organisational side, Kotter’s 8-step model provides a structured approach for that broader change and emphasis the importance and influence of leadership in driving transformation.
Ultimately though, you can take one framework or merge a few, but the key to success with any framework is tailoring and aligning it with the specific challenges and culture you’re facing in change management.
What are the common pitfalls of communicating organisational change, and how do you avoid them?
A personal dislike of mine (and I’m sure for everyone else) is lip service from leaders and organisations! People see right through it and it lacks authenticity to connect with the emotional part of change.
Building trust is so important and we all know how easy it can be to break, so crafting transparent communications (whether things are going right or wrong) garners much more credibility and engagement through the change.
Knowing when to communicate and what to communicate is a delicate balance too – you don’t want to overwhelm people with the change, but you also don’t want to go through dips of radio silence.
I’ll always say no update is better than no communications or else people will start making assumptions, so follow-up when you need to and provide regular updates, while setting realistic expectations.
As mentioned previously, clear and consistent messaging plays a crucial role. Mixed and unclear messages cause confusion, so make sure there’s a unified front across all channels, with key messages to reinforce clarity – and most of all ensure your leadership group is aligned as your spokespersons!
Failure to articulate and address the ‘why’ behind the change and the ‘so what’ to stakeholders will lead to skepticism if you can’t showcase the benefits and make it relatable to different audiences, so always tailor to the way different groups are impacted.
While I’ve underlined the importance of leadership in change, remember the two-way aspect of change management. Relying on top-down communications will alienate your employees when all they want is to feel involved and have a say in what’s happening to them.
Encourage feedback and address concerns to show that you’re actively listening and that their voices are valued. A common pitfall can be downplaying employee resistance and concerns at the start, you don’t want to ignore them and let them fester.
If I have to give one takeaway, I’d say don’t underestimate the emotional impact in communications!
Organisational communications that tends to be traditional and focus on the technical aspects of change without addressing the emotional impacts undermines the change journey. Acknowledge it. Last but not least, always monitor the effectiveness of change and communication efforts and fine-tune your approach when you need to!
How do you define success when managing organisational change?
Success in change management isn’t just about meeting immediate goal of adoption, it’s about ensuring the change is sustainable and integrated into the ways-of-working and operation.
It’s also about minimising disruption and ensuring employees feel engaged and supported through the process. Much like habits, change takes commitment and consistency, you can’t expect a shift overnight and sometimes the hard bit is having to wait and see if it sticks in the longer term.
Ultimately, if the organisation is functioning more efficiently and the people are still on board after the change has been implemented, that’s a sign of a lasting success.
What are the key takeaways attendees can expect to gain from your session during the event?
First thing is to hopefully make change less scary!
Secondly though, is to understand change management and how communication works within it to ensure a human-centric approach, as well as how it can be practically used to address workforce needs as we go into the future of work.
I’m excited for everyone to come together as a community!
Sarah will be speaking at the upcoming Public Sector Comms Week 2025. Check out the event and register here.
