Chesapeake Engergy Corp.: Optimas Silver Winner for Managing Change

The past year for natural gas producer Chesapeake Energy Corp. has been a bumpy one. With the retirement of the Oklahoma City-based company’s founder, a new CEO and declining business performance, Cheapeake’s employees have had to deal with a lot of change, including layoffs.

To manage the culture shift, the company instituted a number of transformational components. This included a “First 100 Day Plan” from the company’s CEO that included town-hall style meetings to communicate company vision, “Transformation Trainings” to help employees understand and embrace the changes, and a pay-for-performance culture, which would align compensation with both individual and companywide performance.

All in all, the human resources team conducted more than 80 transformation sessions in the 15 cities it serves, with a majority of employees saying in a company survey that they found the efforts valuable.

For its efforts to handle the organization’s transformation, Chesapeake Energy Corp. is the silver 2014 Optimas Award winner for Managing Change.