Citrix communicators focus on a single goal when engagement flags after momentous changes

The Citrix Employee Communications team was challenged by a series of changes precipitated by a major investor who insisted the company refocus its business strategy to drive higher revenues. Addressing this challenge has earned Citrix first place in the “Employee Engagement” category of Ragan’s 2018 Employee Communications Awards.

Over the course of two years, Citrix employees witnessed a restructuring of the workforce, executive turnover, product line adjustments, changes to the composition of the board, a new strategy and a layoff. Despite efforts to maintain stability and help employees navigate all this change, the 2017 Global Employee Survey confirmed that trust in leadership had declined and employees lacked confidence in the company’s new direction, as well as their own ability to contribute to it. Engagement overall had fallen significantly as well.

All this led the communications team to select one overarching goal for 2018: Engage employees around the Citrix story. Two approaches drove the department’s activities: a focus on strategy, storytelling and enterprise engagement; and providing communications and messaging consulting support. These activities centered around “The 2020 Goals”—broad, unifying objectives the company also embedded in its performance, development and rewards programs, ensuring alignment with business priorities.

Most significantly, the team created a Center of Excellence to ensure consistent messaging across the organization’s various communication functions. Messages were cascaded through multiple channels, including employee meetings (which were increased to a bimonthly schedule), the intranet, a Five-Minute Manager Update (designed to provide managers with weekly action items) and other internal programs.

As a result, Citrix saw an 80 percent improvement in its Net Promoter Score, along with significant other improvements in employee perceptions.

Congratulations to the Employee Communications team of Jason Vego, Veronica Nur Valdes, Julie Geer and Emily Lewis.