Communicating Change at Scale
by Jayson Miller
When organizations roll out a major change that affects large employee groups, communication is often treated as a final task. A few announcements, an FAQ, maybe a training module, then it's time to launch.
That’s rarely enough.
Change doesn’t just arrive. It unfolds. Successful internal communication helps guide that process from early awareness through adoption, reinforcement, and sustained behavior. In large organizations, where different teams operate under different conditions, communication needs to do more than inform. It needs to guide, repeat, clarify, and adjust.
I’ve led internal communication campaigns for many large-scale transitions, including a project at NYU that involved migrating more than 30,000 employees to a new system. Below, I’ll walk through the key principles which made that campaign successful and how they translate into communication strategies that scale.
Make it personal
The most important work in a campaign that communicates major change often happens before the first message goes out. It’s the decision to focus on what’s being introduced and how that change affects employees based on their roles and responsibilities.
For the NYU rollout, I worked closely with various departments to shape messaging around impact. New features were highlighted, but the emphasis was on how each employee group's day-to-day work would be directly impacted. This helped ensure that messaging resonated and gave employees a personal reason to engage with the change.
When communication is built around how audiences are individually affected by what’s changing and when, it becomes something people can engage with, not just react to.
Communicate across channels and invite feedback
A one-channel approach is rarely enough. Not everyone checks email. Some employees aren’t at desks or on devices throughout the day. Others rely on verbal updates from their managers.
The NYU campaign was designed to include multiple engagement points. We produced signage and flyers placed in shared spaces and break rooms, embedded messages into trusted internal sites, and worked with team leads to deliver information in person. This ensured updates reached people in the ways they already consumed information without relying on just one channel.
Beyond delivery, focus on access. I set up weekly Q&A sessions and hosted live webinars to offer direct points of contact. These weren’t add-ons. Create space for that into the entire plan.
Maintain consistency across message, tone, and timing
Employees need to hear the same message more than once, in more than one place, without wondering whether something has changed. Inconsistent messaging is one of the fastest ways to lose engagement.
This campaign created a shared set of content guidelines that helped everyone stay aligned. We used consistent language, tone, and visual branding to reinforce clarity no matter where the message came from. This helped establish trust and made it easier for employees to follow along.
Designing this rollout over a four-month window allowed us to space messaging strategically. Each phase built on the last. Instead of a single, overwhelming announcement, employees encountered timely, focused updates that moved with the pace of the transition.
Define success early and report throughout
Don’t wait until after a new initiative has launched to figure out how success will be measured. Early in the planning process, work with stakeholders to define which outcomes matter, and which indicators will show whether communication is landing.
These help teams understand if people are engaging and if additional support is needed.
Just as important: Reporting shouldn’t happen only after launch. Stakeholders need regular updates before the process too. Are key messages correctly set up to reach the intended groups? Are there questions coming up that weren’t anticipated? Is the timeline still holding?
For the NYU platform transition, I created a recurring reporting cadence with leadership. Tracking engagement allowed me to surface insights in real time, share progress across teams, and adjust course as needed. Timely reporting builds confidence and helps identify problems early before they escalate.
Final thoughts
Clear, well-paced communication doesn’t just help people understand what’s changing. It gives them a path through it. That was the goal of the campaign I led at NYU: to ensure that every employee, no matter their role or location, felt informed, supported, and ready.
Communication isn’t just about telling people what’s coming. It’s about making the change feel both smooth and manageable.