Engagement & Affinity Groups

Engage stakeholders during times of change with an affinity group

All change initiatives do not succeed equally. The single most effective way to get stakeholders on-board with change is to enable them to take ownership of it.

SCG is skilled at launching, developing, engaging, and nurturing critical stakeholder groups during times of change. We’ve found that giving end users a voice (but not necessarily a vote!) is an effective way for decision-makers to understand what concerns, ideas, and questions an affected population may have. By connecting with affinity groups at scheduled touchpoints on a project, we help our clients build rapport with these individuals, plant seeds of buy-in with their peers, and can help organizations proactively address needs.

Community Engagement Groups

SCG is able to assist clients who seek to bring their community, constituents, students, or key customers into the fold of the changes they’re planning. Involving critical groups like these in your change management process enables you to learn and address any concerns stakeholders have, identify from which specific areas you are likely to receive pushback, and, importantly, give this targeted population a voice so they do not feel as if the change is happening to them.

Our skilled and empathetic consultants are comfortable dealing with all different types of people in what are often tense conversations and can help to turn the tables for you in beginning to secure buy-in and even build excitement for the proposed changes.

Working with SCG to engage your external stakeholders can insulate you from overly emotional reactions; our facilitators will sort through the noise, relay both the important details and realistic opportunities for compromise, and help you figure out how to respond. Over the course of multiple meetings, we will nurture your relationship with this important population and help transition skeptics into supporters.

Employee Engagement Groups

SCG is experienced at leading employee engagement activities. Commonly, this takes the form of assembling & leading affinity groups, such as change advocates. A change advocacy group is typically comprised of nominated or volunteer representatives from various departments and is invited to attend special meetings, ask questions, and learn about upcoming the corporate initiative.

The information they soak in at these meetings and via special preview communication pieces can be relayed back to their broader groups. A change champions group enables a two-way communication loop; not only is it an opportunity for an organization to share updates, but these individuals play an important role in relaying rumors, questions, and concerns from their peers in the workforce, enabling our clients to tackle these issues proactively.

Setting up a group like this is a big undertaking, and SCG can help you get it off the ground and keep building momentum until you’re ready to take the training wheels off. Clients often lean on our expertise in determining the roles & responsibilities of change advocates, setting up the governance of the group, assisting in determining the criteria for membership, soliciting manager buy-in, and mapping out the cadence and focus of upcoming meetings and events.

Manager Engagement Groups

Similar to an employee engagement group that usually touches individual contributors, some clients will work with SCG to launch and lead ongoing support groups for leaders as part of their change initiative.

Managers have a different perspective and set of needs during times of change and are often an area of an organization that gets overlooked, even though managers, in our experience, tend to account for a great deal of resistance to change in a typical organization.

 

Launch & nurture an engagement or affinity group

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