Strategies for Change and Engagement

Design and implement strategies for change.

Employees thrive when they are given agency.

Leaders need to take action via people, process, and culture. I help organizations act.

“It’s not about standing still and becoming safe. If anybody wants to keep creating, they have to be about change.” – Miles Davis

Experience

Is your company busy in search of the newest efficiency and its next (in a cascade) change initiative? Do you feel like you’re living the reality of “getting s*** done,” without pausing to align so your people get the right s*** done?

Decades of accelerating pace and scale of organizational change have left workforces exhausted and disengaged. What’s suffering is the human bottom line. If you want to invest in long term solutions that support your people and culture and that stop adding to your change debt (a first cousin of technical debt) those challenges are my wheelhouse. Does your company suffer from: disengagement, apathy, psychic exhaustion, talent loss, or people staying in jobs because of fear or financial need?

In a world where where 70% of change programs fail, workforce engagement is at historic lows, and adaptability and creativity are among the most-needed skills for the future of business, I help organizations thrive.

I use strategic storytelling, natural organization champions, and human-inclusive principles to activate your employee insights and create a better workplace.

Change Management and Organizational Transformation

I partner with you to help you ideate on and solve challenges that exist at the nexus of internal communications, employee engagement, and organizational change. I’ll help you align your programs, leaders, and advocates to design a strategy that fits your company culture.

I’m an organizational sleuth who uses empathy, emotional intelligence, and active listening to connect employee and leader insights into strategy.

I employ strategic storytelling, natural organization champions, and human-inclusive principles to activate your employees’ nascent superpowers so you can reimagine your workplace experience.

Strategic Communication

Do you know your audience? In the world of internal communications, senior leadership’s answer to this fundamental question is often nebulous and vague. In addition, the discipline to apply a WiiFM (What’s in it for me?) lens to what gets communicated gets little attention. What emerges are emotionally hollow, uninspiring communications that focus on “what,” but not “how and why.”

Does your company resort to the use of extrinsic motivation techniques vs. doing the hard work of building culture that bolsters talent retention, supports employee well-being, and creates organizational resilience?

I bring deep experience in communications that reach employees in the right time, place, and way with strong, simple signals that bring clarity rather than contribute to the noise.

Services

Change management strategy, program design ,and implementation
Emotional intelligence communication workshops & outsourced employee resource group programs
Workshops for employee engagement, employee experience, culture-building and ideation
Employee and leadership listening and focus groups
Leader and manager team communications coaching
Technology education and learning design
Internal communications planning and strategy
Content strategy and development
Train-the-trainer workshops
Strategic communications and community outreach

Education

I studied Journalism and minored in Psychology. It’s a combination that gives me a love of finding root causes and storytelling (isn’t it interesting how those things are sometimes at cross-purposes?).

Additional certifications I hold include:

LUMA Institute Human-Centered Design Practitioner
LUMA Institute Facilitator
NVC Group Facilitation
Prosci® Certified Change Practitioner
Firstup Product Certified
Institute of Organization Development Organizational Development Process (ODPC) certified professional

I also incorporate formal training in mediation, conflict resolution, and non-violent communication (NVC) principles into how I work.

Client and Professional Endorsements

In our 4+ years working together, Rachel has been invaluable for projects where the employee experience vis a vis technology and communications was at the core. Clients deeply trust Rachel, which means our projects have always been collaborative and meaningful. I highly recommend Rachel as a partner or leader for engagements where companies need thoughtful, experienced, creative, honest advice to ensure that tech and people work well together for the long term.

Carrie Marshall, Founder
Talk Social to Me and Basecamp Lassen

Rachel worked with our team for over a year and was undeterred in asking the hard questions we needed to hear as we went through the change management work of launching a giant communications initiative for our employees. She brought great ideas to the team and I often think to myself, “WWRD?” (What Would Rachel Do?) The impact of her work will always be present for our internal communications platform.

Stephanie Ramos, Director of Internal Communications
Healthcare organization

Rachel can be comfortable in a variety of situations. She’s naturally observant, insightful and a clear communicator who is able to apply those talents to help inspire organizations and individuals grow and evolve. What I appreciated most about working with Rachel was her ability to, almost instantly, explain complex topics in a relatable way. Every time she engaged, whether with leaders for buy-in or with collaborators for ‘retraining,’ Rachel brought fact-based and very compelling counsel.

Kat Mereigh
Client who worked with Rachel

Rachel facilitated a human-centered design session among volunteers we hope to recruit more deeply to advancing awareness of our cause. She convened an interactive and creative experience that removed us from our familiar ways of brainstorming and shifted us into ideation.

Her process helped us expand not just how we were thinking about things, but also to reimagine what constituted engagement. She then helped us refine our volunteers’ ideas into specific actions that were easiest to execute on and that had the highest impact. Rachel helped us reframe our challenge and increased our comfort with new approaches to creating awareness of our cause. Her impact will is expected to be felt beyond our next event.

David K., Nonprofit Director
Lorraine K., Volunteer Lead

Rachel joined the HR Strategy Forum as a committee member to add outreach to the group’s collective skills. Within a few weeks, the board recognized her unique contributions as an advocate for the interests of senior HR professionals and chose to promote her to a Board Member at Large so she could bring even more value to the organization. Rachel is an expert at fostering interactive relationships her leadership has helped HRSF challenge the way we think about our mission to build community and collaboration.

Craig Ramsay
Board President
HR Strategy Forum

Rachel stepped into a leadership role for our 2019 annual fundraising event. Her skills as a communicator, strategist, as well as in analyzing and working with data from past year’s events helped her to mobilize our community. She led a professional result from idea to implementation that exceeded the prior year’s fundraising achievements. Rachel is a pleasure to work with and takes initiative, always finding ways to innovate and add value to the bigger picture.

Paloma Baquerizo, Director of Development
Escuela Bilingüe Internacional

Additional references and endorsement can be found on LinkedIn.

Results

I have helped companies build their brands inside and outside of company walls. My outcomes have been measured in things like adoption, increased employee engagement scores, risk prevention, and leader behavior changes that included shifts in perspective, attitude, and actions.

My early career experience in marketing, public relations, and digital communications for tech companies and non-profits led to work that has always been in supporting how companies participate and stay relevant in the various communications renaissances (digital, social and mobile) of the past 20+ years.

Agency Work

Since 2013 I have been a consultant working clients of Bink, Talk Social to Me, Redefining Communications, and others. I have led and worked on employee communications, executive thought leadership, change transformation, collaboration, and cultural transformations with large enterprises, technology companies, non-profits, and philanthropic foundations. Some organizations I’ve worked with include: Becton Dickinson, Genentech, Peninsula Open Space Trust, Roche, Splunk, Spotify, Stanford Seed, UNICEF, United Rentals, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

Cisco Systems and Intuit

I have helped companies like Cisco Systems and Intuit use online customer communities to create new products, services, and offer more cost effective customer support. I was a founding team member for the Cisco Learning Network which grew to 900,000+ members. The community generated learning product sales of $1m+ annually. I helped Intuit retain 30 super users in the QuickBooks help community at a time of deep changes to the company’s flagship product.

Startup Companies & Non-Profits

My early career was built on a communications and customer-voice foundation. I am at heart a marketer and know the power of built relationships and content on telling a company’s story internally and externally. I was part of two successful initial public offerings for companies in business intelligence tools and mobile security. I also spent 5 years in the non-profit sector helping organizations serving the business, humanitarian, arts and professional development sectors get more publicity, raise more funds, and serve more constituents. Since 2020, I have been a board member and internal advisor to non-profit arts organizations.

What's My Human Element

I am unquenchably creative and resourceful. I think “outside the box” and take action with ideas, wisdom, and savvy relevant to your company’s environment or situation. I’m a portmanteausiast (“portmanteau” + “enthusiast”) who is passionate about futures thinking, the performing arts, and applying creative skills that support a resilient and agile future of work.

For four years, I produced Agile Vocalist, a podcast about sound and the performing arts. I come from a long line of horse lovers.

Perspectives You Can Use

Emotions, the Unsung Currency for Fueling AI Change

Emotions are not a side effect of change; they are the currency that makes change possible. When organizations start transformations such as bringing AI into the workplace, the real gap emerges. Today’s modern workplace is still well-grounded in...

Culture Shift? Don’t Underestimate Perception and Storytelling

Perception crafts value. This was an interesting lesson I took via my artist-friend’s restoration of an 1876 first edition of Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer. While the book looked worn, the careful repairs maintained its narrative integrity, amplifying...

Let’s change your world.

Let’s talk

I look forward to working with you! I’m exuberant about the future of your business and its impending transformations to create meaningful, lasting change.

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