Riordan Communication

First and foremost the team must have a meeting with all the employees that this change is going to directly affect, immediately. They are the ones that are going to feel the effects the soonest. We need to get them on board with the formalization of customer information so that as the effects trickle down they have the appropriate information and can give it to their teams and answer any questions that they may have.

The next thing the team should do is to send out an email to anyone that may have missed the meeting due to unforeseen circumstances and let them know that the consultants are available for any questions that they may have, as well as detailing the information that was discussed during the meeting.

By this time, managers will have begun to talk amongst themselves about the coming change and it would behoove the consultant team to send out an email to everyone in the company notifying them of the change, that it is indeed in the implementation stages and managers have as much information as possible about the change. At this time, generating an interoffice memo that can be posted in common areas would be a good idea, because email servers are fallible and the team wants to make sure that everyone gets all the same information.

Potential barriers to this information include physical as well as mental barriers. Physical barriers include an email server not functioning properly so the email is not received, a voicemail getting lost in the system notifying employees of a mandatory meeting, emails being sent to the wrong folder or even wrong email address. Some mental barriers that could exist include information not being heard directly from the person that understands it and putting their own twist on it, if a particular employee has been managing their customer information in a way that is completely different from the system that is being implemented their emotions could be involved and create a barrier to receiving the information because they feel that the way it has been done has worked fine for them so why should a formal system be implemented? It is these emotions that we must overcome. The team must also make sure that too much information is not given and overload the employees with everything all at once.  

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