“Companies [that are] highly effective at both communications and change management are 2.5 times more likely to outperform their peers as companies that are not highly effective in either area.”
This is one of the key findings of the Towers Watson Change and Communication ROI Study Report 2011-2012 entitled Clear Direction in a Complex World.
I am regularly astonished at the calibre of intellectual property (IP) that is freely available on the web. The Towers Watson study is a gem. As any comms professional knows, it’s tough to produce demonstrable links between communications and a company’s financial performance. To be able to access, for free, a study as robust and detailed as Clear Direction in a Complex World with its penetrating and insightful commentary is a wonderful resource.
This is the fifth such biennial study produced by Towers Watson who has, for the first time, expanded the scope of the survey to include change management, thus enabling them to explore the impact that an integrated communication and change management strategy has on creating sustainable change.
The survey is a major piece of research with input from over 600 organisations across the world covering a wide range of industry sectors undergoing a variety of change initiatives in the previous two years. The analysis and commentary contained in the report highlights key findings about the role and impact of such diverse factors as:
- a compelling Employee Value Proposition (EVP)
- managers as key channels of communication
- measurement
- social media.
Having been fortunate enough to find this study, I’m intrigued to discover what else I might find once I start digging … and whether other consultancies are as free with their IP as Towers Watson?
Communications in a noisy world 