We share how to effectively communicate organizational change by prioritizing trust over tools. Learn how thoughtful communication can enhance employee engagement and understanding during transitions.
In Brief:
- Effective change communication starts with building trust, not relying solely on polished tools or templates.
- Employees respond best to messages delivered by trusted figures, often their direct supervisors, not only executives.
- Choose the right channels and formats for your audience. Avoid oversimplifying complex information.
- Establish a single, consistent source of truth to minimize confusion and prevent mixed messaging.
- Poor communication choices — from tone-deaf humor to buried updates — can erode trust and stall transformation.
When organizations communicate change poorly, it’s not the lack of tools that causes breakdowns. It’s the erosion of trust. The messenger, the format, and the clarity of your message matter as much as the message itself.
Yet too often, leaders lean on fancy presentations or generic emails, overlooking what employees really need: relevance, consistency and connection. At Centric Consulting, we’ve seen firsthand how effective communication during change can boost engagement, reduce confusion, and build momentum.
When we worked with an advertising and marketing company to help increase employee engagement during a massive shift in how the organization operated, we knew we couldn’t just turn to communication tools. We had to implement a change strategy that incorporated communications that would meet their employees where they were, including events, town halls, team engagement, fireside chats, and other critical components.
As a result, the company witnessed a significant increase in employee understanding of the company vision — from an average score of two to eight on a 10-point scale — and received positive feedback from both employees and leadership.
Similarly, to navigate hybrid, high-speed environments, you must tailor change management and communication, keeping them relevant and rooted in understanding. Here’s what we’ve learned from years of guiding clients through change — and what may not be on your radar yet.
1. Choose the Right Messenger
Employees want to hear change messages from someone they know. In fact, according to Prosci’s 2023 benchmarking report, 58 percent of employees prefer to receive communications about the personal impacts of change directly from their supervisors. That’s why who delivers the message often matters more than what’s being said.
“People want to hear it from their direct supervisor,” says Verna Montgomery, my colleague and senior manager of People and Change. “There are some messages that come from the CEO, and there are some messages that come from the grassroots level. If you want to incentivize action and engagement, the messenger matters.”
We’ve seen this firsthand: One global client sent a major reorganization announcement solely from the C-suite. Weeks later, local teams were still unsure how it applied to them — because their managers hadn’t translated the implications. The message wasn’t wrong — it just didn’t have the right voice behind it.
2. Format Matters More Than You Think
Employees are drowning in information between Slack, Teams, email, dashboards, and a sea of notifications. A 2022 Gartner study found that, according to HR leaders, 45 percent of workers feel overwhelmed by the volume of communications they receive at work.
We worked with a client who liked to ensure that their team received all of the information about a problem upfront, which meant that they would write all of the details of a new change into a Slack thread that would take several scrolls of the mouse to complete. It was overwhelming for everyone on the team and made it harder to discern what was critical information and what could be absorbed later.
That’s why the delivery format matters as much as the content. Employees won’t read an executive update that looks like a dissertation. They might watch a two-minute video. A brief Teams message might work for one group, while another needs a live Q&A.
“It’s about understanding what your message needs to be and who your audience is. That drives the right messenger and the format,” says Montgomery.
3. Don’t Confuse Clarity With Oversimplification
Clarity is essential, but it doesn’t mean treating your audience like they can’t handle complexity. Shortening messages too much can actually increase confusion.
This aligns with research from the Nielsen Norman Group, which shows that while plain language helps all users — including experts — oversimplifying content can obscure meaning, especially when the topic is complex or technical. Their studies emphasize the importance of providing enough context for users to make informed decisions, rather than minimizing detail in the name of brevity.
In one case, we worked with a company that tried to “simplify” a complex HR policy change by stripping out context. The result? Employees were left with more questions than answers and flooded the help desk. We helped them rework the messaging with better structure and links to a well-organized FAQ, improving self-service and reducing confusion.
4. Establish a Single Source of Truth, Every Time
When people are overwhelmed or unsure, they instinctively look for something steady, something they can trust. That’s why having a single, consistent source of truth during change efforts is critical. Whether it’s a central SharePoint site, a project dashboard, or a pinned Teams channel, your communications need an anchor.
“I also think it’s important to have a single point of truth,” says Montgomery. “People need to know that this is the single point of truth for the entire enterprise when there is a transformational change in particular.”
Without it, people chase updates across inboxes, slide decks, meetings, and chat threads. The message gets muddied. We’ve seen major transformations stall because conflicting communications caused confusion, rework and mistrust.
5. Avoid Common Pitfalls
Not too long ago, a global tech firm announced layoffs via an internal email stating that if employees received a calendar invite, they were being let go. It led to chaos, missed messages and headlines — literally. As Montgomery puts it, “Anything you put in writing needs to be written like it’s going on the front page of the Washington Post.”
But that’s not the only pitfall to avoid:
- Overwritten content: A five-paragraph explanation doesn’t beat a clear three-sentence message.
- Long videos: Anything longer than two minutes and 12 seconds? Drop-off rates spike dramatically after 90 seconds.
- Misused humor: It’s subjective and can backfire, especially when employees are anxious.
- The wrong messenger: A message from a faceless “steering committee” is likely to fall flat.
- Inappropriate channels: If your people live in Teams, don’t bury critical updates in email.
It doesn’t just fail to inform when communication misses the mark, whether in tone, format or delivery. It actively erodes trust. And in a time when people are balancing nonstop change with nonstop demands, trust is the one thing your communication can’t afford to lose.
Building Trust With Thoughtful Change Communications
In times of change, your employees aren’t just looking for information — they’re looking for stability, clarity, and connection. How you communicate can either reinforce trust or quietly chip away at it.
Yes, people want transparency. But they also want relevance. They want to hear from someone they trust. They want to know where to find the facts and that those facts won’t change tomorrow. They want just enough context to feel confident, not overwhelmed. When you take time to get the message, the messenger and the medium right, you give people the tools they need to adapt, not just comply.
Great change communication doesn’t just reduce resistance, it builds momentum. It shows people that change isn’t something being done to them, but with them.
And in a world where change fatigue is real and attention is scarce, that kind of communication isn’t just helpful. It’s essential.
Our organizational change management checklist will help you make sure to hit the top ten leading principles throughout your change implementation.
Change is inevitable, but successful transformation requires more than just a project-by-project approach. We specialize in Enterprise Change Management — enabling your organization to enable change and create a competitive advantage. Skip frustrated employees, missed opportunities, and a lack of sustainable transformation by working with ECM experts to drive your organization toward change. Learn more
