Inside a company, HR honchos have the most important responsibility when it comes to managing change: helping their people navigate it. Without the help of HR, managing widespread organizational transformation is next to impossible.

According to Gartner’s research, 66% of a company’s change factors relate directly to its people. What this means is that your HR department must take a leading role to make your company-wide change a success story, not a cautionary tale. 

Luckily, you don’t have to do this alone. Those marketing mavens sitting a few feet from you have the exact kind of experience and knowledge you’ll want to tap into to help guide your people during a period of uncertainty.

Take a page from your content gurus

You probably already know what content marketing is all about: writing content that attracts quality sales leads, boosting engagement with targeted prospects, and smoothing out the sales funnel as much as possible. In the digital age, content marketing has become one of the preferred methods for engaging with customers. One survey found that 53% of all companies are spending their time and money on the creation of content.

And just like the way customer experience has become crucial to your marketing team, employee experience has become central to HR. That’s why today’s HR and marketing teams have so much in common, connected by such phrases as recruitment, engagement, and retention.

Change is good: making the case 

The marketing team is your company’s customer-facing communications expert. As you develop your internal communications strategy, you’ll want to have ongoing brainstorming sessions with your marketing mavens. These are the good people who have the professional know-how and technical background to help develop the right questions you’ll need to answer:

1. Change Now? What specific needs do this organizational transformation seek to address? Why does this change need to be implemented now? 
2. Value Timeline: What differentiated value will this organizational change provide your people? When will they begin to experience this value?
3. Implementation Roadmap: When and how will this transformation be implemented? How will each different department be affected?
4. Acknowledging Risks: What are the risks that come with this organizational shift? Is there a Plan B if aspects of this transformation hit a snag?
5. Where Can They Learn More? Which sources of information are you providing for teammates who want to learn more about the company’s new direction? Emails? Social Media? Your company’s website?
6. Tools of Change: Will this organizational change require the implementation of new software that needs to be learned by team members? If so, what’s the specific training timetable?
7. Feedback: Will there be a mechanism in place for people across the company to weigh in with questions and concerns about the changes taking place?

Want to show your people you care? Develop and distribute dynamite content

Lack of communication is often cited as one of the biggest barriers to organizational change. But by developing an internal marketing strategy that addresses each of your people’s concerns, you’ll be showing them that their peace of mind is a top organizational priority. And by delivering clear, concise, segmented, well-researched content, your best and brightest will quickly come to understand that they’re seen as crucial to the successful implementation of your company’s new set of goals and objectives.

We all live hyperconnected lives today. That’s one major reason that HR needs to learn a thing or two from marketing, to maximize people’s awareness about organizational changes both on social channels and the digital web. By learning how to leverage these platforms, your HR team will have a more effective and positive impact on the communication of vital internal matters. 

And by collaborating on internal communications, you and your marketing team will quickly identify common goals connected to awareness, engagement, and retention. Teaming up this way will provide extra value to each of you. 

From Stephanie Stevens

Stephanie is Content Marketer at Hibob. She has a background in Clinical Psychology and Crisis Management, and enjoys abstract painting and watching horror films in her spare time. She believes that people can connect with themselves, their peers, and the world around them through creative writing, helping them foster a deeper sense of self and their life goals in the process.