Strategies for Change and Engagement

Create and implement strategies for change.

Employees need agency.

Leaders need to take action.

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

Experience

What do you get when you have the guidance of an experienced change management, employee engagement, and organizational behavior professional? My work as a communicator and as a creative has helped companies in many industries navigate the communications revolution, adapt to the Social Age, build their audiences, and mature their employee engagement practices.

Since 2007, empathy and active listening have guided how I create and manage organizational change. In a world where 70% of change programs fail, I’m here to help you shift your employee and customer relationships beyond the transactional by using storytelling, authentic connection, and community engagement principles. I help you connect with your nascent organizational superpowers.

Work with me! I am exuberant about the future of your business and its impending transformations.

Change management, collaboration, and culture

How does your company function? What’s the culture like? What are the shared points of delight or friction for your employees? By being curious, I find most companies often miss the holistic picture. They forge ahead intending to save money/time, or hoping to grow productivity. They accrue organizational “change debt” and end up with exhausted people.

Employee ecosystems and organizational leaders need to be coached by someone with high emotional intelligence on how to create and facilitate change with grace and balance.

Whether you’re trying to make your team more agile, or respond internally to new market forces, your people probably already have the answers. I can help you uncover and implement them.

Community & audience building

Feeling connected with other people because of a shared profession or passion is powerful. I blend analytical and behavioral inquisitiveness so businesses make the most of their online investments, build their audiences and foster healthy employee community.

I organically create audiences using social media and storytelling best practices, combined with behavioral science principles. Strategic communications practices leave positive impacts on internal communications. The result is a more aligned and unified workforce.

Services I Offer

Employee assessments and discovery
Change initiative design, planning, communications, and implementation
Employee focus group facilitation
Leader interviews and communications coaching
Collaboration and communication technology operationalizing and training
Data synthesis and recommended interventions

Technology education and learning design
Community coaching
Community design and building
Virtual education events

Internal communications planning and strategy
Content development and planning
Community content development
Train-the-trainer workshops
Audience building and digital engagement
Gamification and audience rewards/recognition
Strategic communications and community outreach

Learning

My college degree is in journalism and psychology. The combination gives me a love of finding root causes and storytelling (isn’t it interesting how those things are sometimes at cross-purposes?!). Once the digging is over and a scope is defined, I rely on my cumulative expertise working with organizations to define services that fit your company’s challenges.

I am a Prosci Certified change practitioner and I hold an Organizational Development Process Certification (ODPC) from the Institute of Organizational Development. I also incorporate formal training in mediation and conflict resolution, as well as 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 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 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 hat 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 influence despite the blistering pace of technological change and the tsunami of increased customer and employee expectations. From my humble beginnings as a marketer crafting messaging and building brands, I have also helped companies strategically de-construct those same kinds of messages so they are instead shared and co-created with cultivated digital networks. I was among the first to see the power of Web 2.0 in the mid-2000s, and helped innovative content and social sharing mechanisms that were incorporated in the Jive Software community platform.

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 workers collaborate, what motivates them, and how to coach new behaviors that drive engagement. As a consultant, I’ve also worked with startups, non-profits, and philanthropic foundations on their change management and community building 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 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 called Agile Vocalist. I come from a long line of horse-lovers.

Thinking & Aspiring

Songs of Community Managers

I’ve been thinking a lot about community and music. Both are deep passions of mine and in honor of 2016’s Community Manager Appreciation Day, I am compiling “Songs of Community Management” to bring us together around music and meaningful stories...

Building a customer community? 5 checks and balances for success

Online customer communities can be a way to create customer connections and relationships that live beyond your brand. Being the source for bringing people together who go on and connect meaningfully outside your brand is the ultimate win your organization will always be credited with.

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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 systems thinking and approach be your guide and trusted partner.

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