Here's how you can ensure employee voices are heard and valued during culture change.

Since culture change often involve shifts in Leadership, Org Structure and technology, etc., effective listening must be targeted at the souls responsible for shifting those things directly. This can take both active/unstructured and passive unstructured listening. Pulsing managers in charge of key deliverable, listening to what employers are saying in open public collaborative channels, team meetings, can give great insights as to what is going well and getting traction/action and what is not and stuck or meeting resistance. I suggest building much of this listening "ark" before the rain starts. Further, if the culture shift includes changing/deploying enterprise tech solutions, listening closely to those project teams is essential.

Some employees are introverts and they often play the silent voices of the company. These people feel more comfortable focusing on their inner thoughts and ideas, rather than what's happening externally. As a culture change leader, you should be able to recognize these voices and by effective listening and empathy get them to talk so that their voice will be heard. How to unlock silent voices and selective mutism? 1. Discover a roadmap to conquer selective mutism. 2. Ask to reclaim their self-confidence. 3. Encourage and inspire them to break their silence. 4. Amplify their voice during meetings, training and creative workshops.

Formally include employee voices in the structure of the change program. Identify who's voice you are looking for and include them in the decision-making stages. This does not mean every decision is gated or approved by your Employee Reference Group. What this means is the potential implications to this group are clearly articulated early, and decisions can be adjusted or risks accepted. You want to hear from them to avoid missing the desired outcomes at the end of the culture change. Often, these are small things that highlight assumptions held by decision-makers. It's important to be open to learning something new and adjusting assumptions. Otherwise, listening without action or acknowledgement can impact the change program.

In addition to what's here, I suggest that transparency is most valuable when Leaders share not only what they are going to do, based all or in part, on feedback, but also what they are not going to do. And explain why, including real factors like other higher priorities, timing, budget or resource constraints. Further, if they will get to those suggestions at a later point (phase 2)... or not and why. Employees understand this mindset and often cite the honesty of their leaders addressing what will and what won't be attempted.

This is sound advice that sounds obvious to many but is often lost track of in the press of business. Recognizing the role feedback plays in delivering insights and suggestions for improvement is "justice seen as being done." I've heard this referred to as the "golden thread" of communications back to those who gave their thoughtful input to a problem or situation. I have seen it work successfully hundreds of times.

In addition to the topics mentioned already, my recommendation is adding listening items that look at whether employees experiences are meeting expectations. I think this type of question is most critical to evaluating if a change has met its goals in the workplace. Meeting expectations is a KPI for Employee Experience, on par with engagement and inclusion, and well being in todays workplace. Ask all these KPIs and your aperture for understanding widens considerably.

We've just finished up a big Culture and Values Program with a great client, and what made it so successful was Leaderships commitment to genuinely wanting to know what everyone in the business thought - and creating Values by the 'Business for the Business'- using the language the business uses and prioritising the areas they felt were critical to building a Culture they want to be part of and are proud of.