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

Are you in search of a partner who can 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.

Since 2013, my work has positively impacted more than 25 enterprises and non-profit organizations in medical technology, biotech, media, technology, healthcare, energy, streaming media, entertainment, logistics, and entrepreneurship.

I’m an organizational sleuth who uses empathy, emotional intelligence, and active listening to connect the insights you may not be able to see into strategy. In a world where where 70% of change programs fail, engagement among workforces 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 employees’ nascent superpowers.

I am exuberant about creating your organization’s living future state.

Communication, Change Management and Culture

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

Decades of compounding pace and scale of organizational change is starting to have an impact on the human bottom line. We’ve moved beyond short term solutions and workarounds that used to create change debt (the next iteration of technical debt) to levels of human debt that are manifesting as disengagement, apathy, psychic exhaustion, talent loss, or simply staying in jobs because of fear or financial need.

I facilitate organizational change with grace, clarity, and balance. You can expect an approach informed by emotional intelligence, empathy, creativity and years of work creating results for other companies.

Strategic Communication

Do you know who you’re communicating to? In the world of internal communications, it’s all too common for people to not know how to answer this fundamental question. And the question of WiiFM (What’s in it for me?) gets regularly overlooked in favor of short term results and use of extrinsic motivation techniques.

I bring deep experience using a honed communications nozzle to reach people in the right time, place, and medium so the shared interest of internal communications thrives to create strong signals rather than noise.

I use storytelling best practices in combination with behavioral science to inform, engage and inspire your workforce. Good communication impacts talent retention, clarity, employee well-being and organizational resilience.

Services

Change management program design and implementation
Emotional intelligence communications workshops & outsourced employee interest group programs
Design thinking 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

My academic training is in journalism and psychology, 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?!).

My certifications and training 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.

What People Say

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

Results

I have helped companies maintain their brands inside and outside of company walls and despite the pace of change in business and the tsunami of increasing employee and customer expectations. My work has been measured in things like adoption, risk prevention, and more humbly, in small leader behavior changes such as shifts in perspective, attitude, and actions.

From my early career in marketing, public relations, and digital communications I have helped companies craft key messages that build their brands. I have also helped companies strategically de-construct those same kinds of messages so they are instead co-created with cultivated digital networks like employee and customer communities. I saw the power of the mobile revolution and of social media networks in the mid-2000s. I made sure my expertise and my work on behalf of my employers were fully part of that communications renaissance.

Talk Social to Me

I have been a consultant since 2013. However, my tenure (2017 to 2021) with Talk Social to Me was especially formative for my current work helping companies understand how employees collaborate, what motivates them, work together and how to create cultures that engage and retain them. I have consulted with startups, non-profits, and philanthropic foundations on their change management, employee community and learning and development efforts.

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 450,000+ 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

At the beginning of my career, my skills as a marketer and in building relationships and content was part of two successful startup companies’ initial public offerings. 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.

In December of 2020, I joined the board of directors for Cazadero Performing Arts Family Camp.

Fun Facts About Me

I am unquenchably creative and resourceful. I think “outside the box” and take action with ideas, wisdom and savvy relevant to the environment or situation. The arts have always helped me keep my perspective and method fresh, creative and unencumbered.

I’m a portmanteausiast (“portmanteau” + “enthusiast” combined into a new word) who loves hybrids, mashups, extemporaneously rewriting songs, dance, and singing. I produce a podcast and blog about sound in the performing arts called Agile Vocalist. I come from a long line of horse-lovers.

Thinking & Aspiring

It’s Time to Bring Human Centered Design to the Employee Experience

As we face the overwhelm of today’s work reality and a rainstorm of challenges, companies that grasp the overwhelming (untapped, perhaps?) value of employee intelligence have a unique opportunity to create better human-centered design outcomes....

Career Reflection: Ten Years

2023 marks my 10-year anniversary as a consultant. My hope is that these career reflections will be helpful to the so.many.people who are in transition in this bold, bright year called 2023. I hope these resonate with how you may be feeling—because...

Let’s change your world.

Let’s converse!

Work with me! I am exuberant about the future of your business and its impending transformations. My experience with organizations of all sizes and in diverse sectors are my lens of organizational experience.

Creating meaningful change is a journey. Let my design-thinking approach be your guide and trusted partner.

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