~ Featured Blogs ~

  • Consider the Four Stages of Internal Comms Effectiveness: Where do you fit?

    August 26, 2024

    Transform your organization from a top-down information flow to a dynamic, two-way dialogue that empowers and engages your workforce.

  • Frontline managers: The Bridge for Change

    August 20, 2024

    Top-down change management is a recipe for failure. Discover how empowering frontline managers and embracing the Pelz Effect can drive real transformation, boost employee engagement, and turn change into a lasting cultural shift.

  • Employees Don't Read our Emails: Unleash the Power of Consistency

    August 16, 2024

    A well-timed communication schedule can transform how your employees consume key information and enhance overall organizational success.

The Soteres Consulting Blog

  • CEOs & Internal Communication

    Leadership isolation and communication challenges are common struggles for CEOs. Engaging a strong internal communication partner can bridge gaps, provide unfiltered insights, and craft messages that resonate, helping leaders overcome their most pressing issues.

  • Making Change Downhill

    Change doesn’t happen by fighting the current of organizational culture — it happens by harnessing it. Successful change agents use positivity, respect for the past, and a strategic, downhill approach to create lasting transformation within even the most entrenched companies.

  • Big Changes to Your Company? Add these to your Project Plan

    Sustaining momentum, engaging employees, and ensuring ongoing communication turn vision into success. Avoid common pitfalls in change management by implementing progress checkpoints, two-way conversations, lateral awareness, and frontline manager engagement.

  • Frontline Managers are the Bridge for Effective Change

    Frontline managers are crucial to successful corporate change initiatives. Advocating for sustained communication, empowerment, and the Pelz Effect to bridge the gap between leadership strategies and employee engagement.

  • Campfire tales in the breakroom: three ways to tap emotions for better business success

    Unlock the key to successful business change by learning how emotional connections, shared stories, and positive reinforcement can drive lasting results in your organization.

  • Successful Change Accepts People as We Are

    Change begins with self-acceptance in both personal relationships and leadership. Just as leaders must embrace their own flaws and those of their employees, successful change initiatives depend on accepting people as they are. not as we wish they were.

  • Misconumications: "Repeat messages seven times"​

    Over-repeating corporate messages can be a sure way to lose employee engagement. Instead of pushing the same message, invite employees into the narrative to make corporate messages resonate — because no one responds to stale repetition.

  • Measures that make a difference

    In the workplace, success is not about how many emails you send or meetings you hold, but how effectively you foster engagement and drive meaningful change. Soteres Consulting focuses on aligning communication with organizational goals, breaking down barriers to change, and helping companies implement strategies faster and more effectively.

  • Tell Me More...No, Don't Tell Me

    Employees crave more communication from leadership but often feel left in the dark. Sending more emails isn't the answer — what matters is clarity and connection. Learn how to make leadership messages stand out, reduce communication noise, and empower frontline managers to reinforce your strategy.

  • When Messy is a Must

    Change can be messy, and successful communicators embrace that. Whether in business or life, not every problem has a neat solution, and progress often involves trial, error, and setbacks. In times of major change, it’s crucial to plan for human imperfection and develop messaging that acknowledges the mess while guiding everyone toward a better outcome.

  • The Disengagement of Engagement: There's a Monster Outside my Window

    Is your engagement survey doing more harm than good? Discover why employees rarely say what they mean — and how to break through the noise for real, actionable feedback that drives positive change.

  • The Disengagement of Engagement: Please, Give Us More Work to Do

    Is your engagement survey leading to more work but less action? Discover how overwhelmed employees can distort survey results, and learn how better communication strategies can turn feedback into real, actionable progress.

  • The Disengagement of Engagement: Is the Survey your Biggest Problem?

    If feedback isn't leading to action, or the mention of a survey sparks employee dread, your survey process may be contributing to the problem. Explore common dysfunctions in engagement surveys and learn communication strategies.

  • Where's the click? Of Steve Jobs, Headphones, iPods & Endings

    Discover the power of endings through a fascinating, and possibly apocryphal, story about Steve Jobs and the first iPod. Learn why satisfying closure, like the subtle click of a headphone jack, can be the key to confidence and success in both design and life.

  • Finish First (Part Two)

    Businesses often borrow metaphors from sports and politics but miss the most important aspect: clear endings and defined outcomes. Lacking closure and scorekeeping can harm corporate efforts and employee engagement, but declaring meaningful conclusions can improve storytelling, inspire teams, and create a stronger foundation for future initiatives.

  • Finish First (Part One)

    At an HR and communications conference, insights from industry leaders highlighted a pervasive obsession with beginnings in business culture, often neglecting the importance of clear endings. Defining project conclusions is crucial for mental clarity, emotional engagement, and effective storytelling in the workplace.

  • Benefits may be the most strategic thing you ever communicate

    Effective internal communications are essential for fostering trust with employees. Clear and concise messaging, especially regarding benefits and compensation, can strengthen relationships and improve workplace efficiency.

  • Doing Change Differently: Don't Drop your Outliers

    Organizations often cling to status quo thinking, relying on what others have done to mitigate risk, but this approach can stifle innovation. To achieve outstanding results, companies must embrace change by focusing on human factors and engaging employees in the process.

  • Fear & Overload

    In an age of overwhelming information, companies often respond to the urgent need for change by inundating employees with more data, leading to fear and disengagement. Successful change hinges on simplifying priorities and fostering clarity to inspire trust, drive behavioral change and overcome organizational inertia.

  • Best communication practices require year-round benefits campaigns (Part Two)

    As benefits evolve, annual communications about open enrollment are not sufficient. Year-round messaging is paramount to ensure employees make informed decisions and engage effectively with their benefits.

  • Best practice communications: communicating health benefits year-round (Part One)

    With the evolving landscape of healthcare, open enrollment communications need year-round campaigns and ongoing education beyond the traditional fall enrollment period.

  • Get Better Value from company events

    The financial impact of an all-hands employee meeting can exceed $90,000 when accounting for employee salaries alone. This raises the question of whether these meetings deliver sufficient value. Consider improving follow-up surveys for actionable feedback, ensuring clarity in messaging and associated actions, and committing to robust post-meeting follow-ups to reinforce key points and maintain engagement.

  • Change Imperatives: Hand-Washing in Health Care

    Hand hygiene in healthcare is critical, yet many staff wash their hands far less than required. Simply placing posters won't drive the necessary behavior change; organizations need a comprehensive approach that includes behavioral cues, habit formation, and strong engagement from all staff.

  • FLSA changes: Get a good start on creating more effective internal communications

    Discover how to effectively communicate Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) changes with tailored strategies that ensure clarity and engagement, helping your workforce navigate the complexities of employee status updates amidst evolving regulations. Clear communication when change happens can help reinvigorate employee trust.

  • The Crimson Sphere: A Short Allegory

    Max, a front-line manager, navigates the bewildering world of corporate jargon and miscommunication as he confronts the bizarre "Crimson Sphere Initiative", initiated by his oblivious director, Janet.

  • Make your Message Actionable (Starting Now)

    In an era of email overload, businesses are losing productivity as employees grapple with unnecessary information. Learn strategies to reclaim focus in the workplace.

  • Communication Volumes Could be Killing your Business

    Corporate change communications often struggle to capture employee attention, with a mere 0.6% of content making an impact. Learn strategies to ensure your messages stand out.

  • Managers are the Fulcrum for Successful Change

    Front-line managers play a crucial role in translating corporate strategy into everyday actions and fostering trust within the organization. To empower these key influencers, companies must treat them as management, provide training opportunities, and seek their feedback.

  • Drowning in Randomness

    Internal communicators serve as vital navigators, tasked with cutting through the noise to deliver clear messages. As they face mounting demands like open enrollment, acquisitions, and strategic shifts, they must prioritize employee attention, ensuring that communication remains meaningful.

  • Three ways employee communications can be more strategic

    Effective internal communication can cut through the noise. Discover tactical strategies to streamline messaging, engage employees, and drive successful change initiatives.

  • Studies in Simplicity: Microgoals

    To tackle complex workplace challenges, embrace the power of simplicity by implementing microgoals: achievable milestones that create momentum, celebrate successes, and keep employees engaged on the path to meaningful change.

  • Four Reasons your Communication Cascade Won't Work

    Is traditional top-down communication failing your company? Watch out for signs that your messages may not be reaching employees, from long delivery windows to a lack of feedback.

  • Trust & Consequences

    Trust between leadership and employees shapes the success of change initiatives. Through the contrasting approaches of two CEOs facing significant changes, learn why transparency and open communication foster engagement and accelerate acceptance.

  • Falls or Infections: the Courage of Simplicity

    A hospital struggles with increasing patient falls due to competing priorities among multiple committees. Discover how a strategic shift towards prioritizing one clear goal can enhance accountability, foster behavioral change, and ultimately improve patient safety.

  • Three Misconceptions about Change

    Successful change initiatives challenge common misconceptions, causing us to rethink the way that we think about change. Focusing on behavior, simplifying solutions, and appealing to emotions can elevate your organization above the 75% failure rate, and restructure how your employees feel about changes both big and small.

  • Attention is a Resource

    In the world we live in, where attention spans rival those of goldfish, effectively capturing employee focus amidst a barrage of distractions is of utmost importance. Learn how to prioritize clarity, brevity, and impactful presentation in your communications in order to grab attention and incite action.

  • The Human Factor

    Businesses often misidentify the true challenges they face, but by focusing on the right problems — specifically the human factors that influence behavior — can transform change initiatives from failed kickoffs into sustainable successes.

  • Change Is Personal

    The principles that guide successful organizational change also resonate in our personal lives, emphasizing the importance of empathy, communication, and individual understanding in navigating life’s complexities.

  • The Conflict Inherent to Change

    The parallels between the change acceptance curve and the stages of grief reveal how effectively managing emotions, like denial and resistance, can transform negative feedback into constructive conflict.

  • Three ways to help employees accept the next big change

    Discover three essential strategies for fostering employee acceptance of change: inviting feedback to co-create solutions, clarifying roles to drive action, and establishing short-term goals to celebrate progress.

  • Four reasons “burning platform” gets change wrong

    Move beyond the outdated "burning platform" metaphor in change management. Focusing on collaboration, clear solutions, and positive emotions fosters a resilient workforce ready to tackle challenges together.

  • Tactical and strategic employee communications

    The transformative power of strategic communication in organizations allows for trusted messaging to foster purpose, confidence, and measurable success, moving beyond tactical approaches to cultivate a culture of collaboration and impactful narratives.

  • What does strategic communications mean? From bricks to cathedrals

    Strategic communications can transform employees into engaged cathedral builders, fostering trust, shared purpose, and clarity in their roles — crucial for navigating change and achieving organizational success.