Change Communication Live Event

The executive board of a supplier with a long metalworking tradition and over 150,000 employees at 230 sites (turnover: +30 billion EUR) wanted to transform the company into a technology group with its own software and hardware development. At the same time, the company had to react to a declining profit situation. Among the 50,000 employees in Germany, especially at one of the largest locations with about 9,000 employees, these plans led to unrest and even demonstrations. A change communication live event was supposed to remedy the situation.

One of the biggest social and emotional challenges of this multi transformation project was the fear of thousands of employees that their original qualifications might no longer meet the new requirements, so that they would be dismissed. In addition there certainly was a risk of internal conflicts, resistance, unwanted fluctuation (departure of high-performers) and major productivity losses. The works council and trade unions played an important role in this scenario.

In order to reduce the fears outlined above, we at the change consultancy viadoo designed a live communication event together with the supplier. It was intended to trigger motivation among the workforce. We therefore prepared a panel discussion with representatives from politics, education, management, works council and trade union. We then moderated of the panel discussion in front of 4,500 participants.