Transforming a critical division of the world’s largest biotech company
With new executive leadership and challenged with preparing for a multi-year phase of explosive growth, our client initiated a major restructuring program. It was quickly realized that a strategic change communications program was needed to ensure success. Our team also recognized the need for a clearer understanding of the awareness, understanding and perception among employees about the change.
An Employee Engagement Survey was conducted, resulting in an empirical understanding of what management needed to do, or avoid doing; to ensure employee alignment around vision, set expectations of the employee team, define the future state, prescribe direct action and further drive engagement across the division.
An executive workshop was conducted with the leadership team to build consensus around what needed to be done differently from a division-wide level to mobilize employees to embrace the transformation.
Data was gathered to the team level and individual sessions were held with managers, guiding them to an understanding of what they needed to do to improve engagement within their teams in the context of their role and the overall vision for the division.
A new division-wide, integrated communications program was launched to ensure consistency and eliminate confusion about what was necessary to succeed with the new mission and ensure everyone had the information they needed to succeed. Work Streams based on the key drivers of engagement, as identified by the survey, were created and designated senior leaders were charged with setting up dedicated Task Teams and driving these initiatives.
Following 8 months of intensive effort a follow-up survey was held to gauge effectiveness of the initiatives deployed and determine the impact on employee engagement. Significant improvement was made as supported by the new data, for example:
- Increased overall engagement with the company by more than 10%
- Decreased the number of disengaged employees in the division by 50%
- Improved communications effectiveness by 57%
- Improved alignment around vision by an average of almost 35%
- Enhanced by 27% the perception that senior leadership’s vision provides a clear direction for the division
- Boosted by 35% the number of employees that believe there is a clearly defined career path for themselves
- During the same period, attrition fell from 25% to 9%.
