5 questions to ask before writing your next change announcement

When a major organizational change is coming, communicators tend to jump straight to: What should the CEO say? What belongs in the employee email? What questions need to go in the FAQ?

But Elizabeth Whittington, senior director of executive communications at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, argues there’s a more important question to answer first.

“What do we need to understand?” she said.

“A change announcement doesn’t arrive in isolation,” Whittington said during Ragan’s Communicating Change: From Strategy to Impact webinar. “It enters an existing relationship between the organization and the audience.”

Before writing your message, communicators should ask these five questions.

Employees interpret changes through everything they’ve already experienced.

A return-to-office announcement may land differently after layoffs. An AI rollout may create more anxiety inside a company that’s focused on cutting costs.

Communicators need to understand the larger environment before deciding how to frame the change, Whittington said. What’s the most important thing you want them to understand? Start there.

A decision can make strategic sense and still feel inconsistent with what an organization has previously told employees.