Working with HR and legal after a reorg

It’s often said that the only constant in the comms profession is change. This is especially true when your organization undergoes major changes like a reorganization.

In these times, you don’t have to go about your messaging duties alone — colleagues in legal and HR are there to lend their expertise and skills to the company’s larger mission. Learning the most efficient ways to collaborate cross-departmentally during times of major change builds a road map that you and your employees can rely on even when things feel uncertain.

Excelling in roles of expertise can lift other functions up

A reorg often comes with tight deadlines and strict messaging guidelines, which can understandably form a source of stress. But identifying everyone’s lanes upfront will help.

Roberto Munoz, CEO and founder of Munoz Communications, believes that each department plays a specific role and that figuring out where they intersect helps keep goals on track.

“Each function has a distinct swim lane, but they must work in concert to achieve overarching business goals,” Munoz said. “HR focuses on the employee experience and legal outlines the guardrails, while communications provide a cohesive narrative that resonates with audiences and helps stakeholders get from Point A to Point B.”

Leslie Cafferty, chief communications officer of Booking Holdings stressed that regular and open lines of communication are a must. This should revolve around shared business goals that guide each department in both its individual activities and its collaborative ones.

“Teams need to have clear and efficient ways of sharing information,” Cafferty said. “All ships rise together — each function has an important role to play. The more we support each other to proactively anticipate and address potential issues, the more value we create for the organization.”

Cafferty shared a few tactics that comms pros can efficiently collaborate with colleagues in HR and legal during change times.

• Setting up task forces. Different functions can huddle to assess the moving parts of a major organizational change and can focus a critical eye on problems that arise. For instance, if there’s a rebrand, legal and comms can work together to determine potential roadblocks with new names and IPs.
• Maintaining a crisis playbook for quick action. It’s not always possible to predict exactly how a change like a merger or reorg will go, but it doesn’t mean you can’t be prepared. Think about building a crisis playbook for any unforeseen eventualities that you can work on with your colleagues in other departments.
• Expertise sharing. You’re great at your job, but so are your colleagues — trust their expertise! At Booking Holdings, Cafferty’s team leans heavily on HR to ensure accurate employee messaging in change times. “HR is a critical partner for us throughout this cycle, as they share insights from our employee surveys, exit interviews and other forums that help us understand the perception our employees have on various topics,” she said, “which makes us more effective in our communication.”

Elevating messaging through collaboration

The knowledge you glean from your legal and HR colleagues doesn’t just benefit the relationship— it will also sharpen your comms strategy.

Christy Noland, vice president of executive and business communications at Elevance Health (and member of the Ragan Communications Leadership Council) underwent a recent rebrand and worked deeply with HR and legal to create an engagement plan for employees.

“Given the critical role of associates as brand ambassadors, we worked together to assess the impact and needs of associates, identifying what changes would impact them directly (like email address changes) how might they perceive the change and how we can build excitement for the future under a new, unified brand,” Noland explained.

Elevance Health takes a similar collaborative comms tactic during M&A processes, too.

“We focus on targeting communications to the right audience at the right time in the right format, emphasizing the highlights of the deal and what it will mean for all of us, now and in the future,” continued Noland.

“We partner with HR to create an overall associate engagement plan to welcome new associates into the company and introduce them to our purpose, mission, strategy, and culture – to illustrate what we can do, together, to make an even greater impact.”

Showcasing the value of collaboration to leadership

It’s also important for all three departments to stick together and make the case to leadership as to why working together makes them more effective.

“Leadership wants results, not silos. If these strategically important functions aren’t collaborating, it will become evident — quickly,” Munoz said.

“In solidarity, we can present case studies of how collaboration with HR and legal mitigated risks or enhanced employee engagement Data like engagement rates or faster regulatory approvals make results measurable and meaningful.”

To learn more about the Ragan Communications Leadership Council, click here.

Sean Devlin is an editor at Ragan Communications. In his spare time he enjoys Philly sports and hosting trivia.