Running head: COMMUNICATION PLAN

Communication Plan
Reginald Titus
University of Phoenix
Facilitating Change
AET/560
Charity Jennings
February 23, 2015
Communication Plan
Organizations go through changes quite often, whether financial, management, employee
or a combination of all three. Change leaders are often faced with employee misinformation,
because management has not completely informed the workers about change management
transitions. Persuading employees to move in a direction as a team is difficult when rumors about
the change is exaggerated in a negative manner. A good communication plan should be a
prerequisite to any major change implementation to minimize the effects of negative rumors, and
to gain support for the change (Cawsey, Deszca, & Ingols, 2012, ).
Launching the plan:

Change agents and upper management have had numerous meeting concerning an
organizational change. Middle management, first line management and craft employees (nonmanagement), were not informed about the change during the early stages. The reasoning for the
plan is to make everyone aware of the change, allow employees to understand the change, and
how it affects them, communicate how job changes will occur and explain the strategies used,
and finally keep employees informed on the progresses of the change (Cawsey, Deszca, &
Ingols, 2012, ).
The communication plan takes shape in four different phases:

Preapproval Phase
o Plan to market idea to upper management

Developing the Need for Change

o Clarify steps leading to the change process

Midstream Phase
o Inform employees on progress, obtain feedback, clarify any
misunderstandings

Confirming the Change Phase

o Informing employees of the success of the change process (Cawsey,
Deszca, & Ingols, 2012, ).

The use of electronic mail, video conferences, company intranet change website and
blogs, are the technologies used as an aid to accomplish the communication plan tasks. Testing
the effectiveness and the impact of managements response to the organizational change requires
an underlying strategy.

COMMUNICATION PLAN

1. Communicating the change message redundantly so the information is embedded

in the employees minds.
2. First level management explains detailed change information to gain needed
employee trust.
3. CEO delivering face-to-face communications
4. Communication plans should relate to employee dire situations
Generating feedback for continuous improvement includes scheduled meetings a few
times a week to encourage employee discussions. Positive feedback on how the change is
affecting employees and how well everyone is adjusting. Questions for feedback should be what
the employees did towards improvement, why they thought the change went well and where
improvement is needed (Cawsey, Deszca, & Ingols, 2012, ).
To address negative responses about the change, influence is a key issue for change
leaders developing the plan. When implementing change, leaders must reassure employee are
receiving correct information regarding the change. A systematical change instruction, aid an
employees support, and cancels negative responses and dysfunctional resistance. Resistance to
change is a normal reaction to the uncertainties and questions regarding those changes if details
about the plan were not explained. Change leader must include in the plan to dedicate the time to
listen to the employees and honestly address the issues by a person they trust (Connelly, 2015).
Communication is the key ingredient in the recipe for change. This communication plan
affects organization change in a positive manner by announcing how, when, where, and why an
organizational change is necessary. The bottom line reasoning for change may be finances, if so,
explaining the details on organizational recovery is adequate. Providing answers to questions that
is known improves the change agents credibility. Simply saying I do not know is much better

COMMUNICATION PLAN
than giving false information. The communication plan easies the stress of upper, middle, and
first line management, on the difficult issues. That issues concerns the announcement of,
organizational change.

References:
Cawsey, T. F., Deszca, G., & Ingols, C. (2012). Organizational Change. Retrieved from
The University of Phoenix eBook Collection database..
Connelly, M. (2015). Frustrated By Resistance To Change?. Retrieved from
http://www.change-management-coach.com/resistance-to-change.html

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