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Communicating to non-corporate workers about your change initiative means taking their point of view.

 

You know the feeling. Another email, another meeting, another agenda with follow-ups and action items. For corporate workers, this is all part of everyday life. We live and breathe Outlook.

But for non-corporate workers, daily life feels very different. The work doesn’t start and stop based on an Outlook calendar. The most important element of their job might be a piece of machinery, a truck, a product, or a live interaction with a customer.

These employees’ contributions don’t happen at a desk.

They’re not logging into company meetings or accessing SharePoint sites, but they are delivering on the mission of the company.

When you have a change impacting non-corporate employees, how do you reach them? Typical channels like email, meetings, or town halls aren’t going to cut it.

Think of a nurse working on the hospital floor. They’ve just finished an exhausting 12-hour shift, mostly on their feet. The last thing they want to do before they head home is read a long email with a list of bullet points about a new HR process. Consider the truck driver, about to start a shift of deliveries, being asked if they’ve watched the new video on the department SharePoint site. Even the sales professional, who might well be sitting at a computer, will see any time spent on internal company activities as time that could have been spent with customers.

Conventional methods may not work, but that doesn’t mean these groups are unreachable – it just means we need to meet them where they are. There are two good ways to do that. Both involve taking the employee’s point of view.

Talk about what matters to them.

When you work in the field, you care about the field. What happens in headquarters can feel a million miles away; that can make non-corporate workers resist internal communications.

So, show how the initiative is going to impact what they care about.

  • A nurse is much more likely to tune in to a new initiative if it helps provide patients with better care. For example, talk about how the new technology is going to deliver a better patient experience. Motivate through altruism or the greater good.
  • Truck drivers pay attention to anything about safety, compliance, or efficiency. Will the change make them safer, cut down on paperwork, or enable them to finish a route faster? If so, lead with that!
  • Sales professionals want to stay sharp on product updates that could increase sales and help them meet their quota. Be direct. Show how the product updates differentiate your company from others on the market. Give them the talking points in a clear and concise way, so they can use them right away.

Deliver it in a way that makes sense for them.

In other words, stop thinking about how you would want to receive the information.

  • The nurse might not want to read an email at the end of a shift but would be happy to listen to a short presentation during a morning huddle.
  • The truck driver doesn’t want to login to a SharePoint site but would be happy to watch the video if it were delivered straight to their iPad during a short break.
  • The sales professional might want one email a month — with all corporate updates – timed to align with when their sales forecast is due.

These non-corporate field teams are critical. They are the ones who make the magic happen – who surprise and delight the customer, maintain and improve the process, and get the product into the hands of those who need it. If we treat them with respect, understand that their world is different, and meet them where they truly are, then we can figure out how to make change work – for them and for the organization.

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