Supporting Employee Experience Through Change Excellence

The winner of this category is SUSE for their work in Using Our People to Co-Create a New Mission and Values at SUSE.

SUSE collaborated with employees to co-create the company mission and values, aligning with the CEO’s vision. A small internal team organized 65 in-person workshops, led by local leaders, to collect employee input, shaping the mission. The Comms team analyzed submissions to identify shared insights, forming new values. This approach reduced attrition, aligned employee goals with company direction, and improved company-wide engagement by 5 points within six months. Judges praised the project for involving employees in shaping values and mission, highlighting its effectiveness over outsourcing. The methodology emphasized democratized communication and employee involvement, supported by strong metrics.

Watch the video to discover more!

SUSE’s award-winning approach to co-creating mission and values with employees exemplifies how organizations can drive engagement and alignment during times of change.

Gartner’s research, 'Align Employee Behaviors to Influence Culture', provides actionable strategies for communications leaders aiming to build a resilient, unified culture—especially when navigating disruption. 

Download this research to:

  • Address cultural tensions during change
  • Empower peer-driven culture initiatives
  • Build shared experiences for stronger alignment

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    Q&A with Gartner Experts on Employee Experience

    Gartner experts address some common and pressing questions about supporting employee experience through change that are most relevant to communications leaders. Read through to navigate this ever-evolving landscape effectively.

    CMOs and communication leaders are striving to bring audience understanding and insights into their change communication plans before they communicate them. Understanding how change will impact employees' perceptions, engagement, and performance is key to ensuring communications are targeted, relevant, and enabled before they are shared.

    Communcations leaders could:

    • Identify influential employees to serve as representatives on a standing panel for feedback on planned changes. The optimal candidates will likely be well-established among peer networks and energized by the opportunity to influence organizational change.
    • Assign employee representatives to give feedback on changes that align with their responsibilities, interests and capacity to motivate them to participate fully and to avoid fatigue.

    Communications leaders are focusing on building trust as a way to create a workforce that is more resilient to weathering change. As a result, chief communications officers must design executive communications that give employees the context they need to trust their employers and their leadership.

    Communications leaders must strategically collaborate with executives to improve organizational trust among employees by:

    • Promoting opportunities for executive dialogue
    • Increasing visibility into executive decision making
    • Crafting messages with formal, emotional and value-aligned tones

    Managers play a crucial role in driving organization wide strategic alignment. However, many managers feel ill-equipped to handle difficult conversations during periods of change because they are uncertain about their own role and what the change will mean for them.

    Communication leaders should:

    • Educate managers about their critical role in helping their team through change
    • Prepare managers to lead dialogue sessions that surface team needs and local actions
    • Prompt managers to elevate unresolved challenges to change leaders