With the first wave of COVID-19 receding, most companies are keen to get their employees back to work. The key to this is to embrace the six communication principles that will make it easier to get your message heard above the media noise.
- Begin the conversation early
Don’t leave things to the last minute, the earlier you open up the lines of communication the better. This is a two-way process, not a monologue so you need to allow time in the process to listen as well as speak. The more opportunity you can offer your team to support and create the solution, the greater the buy-in.
- Create understanding
Your employees have been bombarded by conflicting and confusing messages from both the government, friends and family and the media. You need to communicate clearly in English if you are a national company or in multi-languages if you are a global operation. Agree as a leadership team the key messages you want employees to understand and communicate and position these in a consistent and clear way.
- Manage expectations
Things are going to change, perhaps forever – we have to face facts. Managing your people’s expectations of how these changes are going to affect them is key to increasing engagement and promoting resilience. Setting realistic targets for moving staff ‘in and out’ of furlough and from home to office working is key to building trust and commitment to the company.
- Pick the right channels
With many of your employees working remotely, you need to think carefully about your channels of communication. Consider what channels you can use to create the maximum reach and number of touchpoints for your internal audiences to see and understand. You could have printed collateral, PowerPoints and PDFs, apps, surveys, videos, Intranet, video conferencing and town hall and departmental meetings.
- Be inclusive
Consider all the job roles you need to communicate to – think about both your back-office and customer-facing roles. What different challenges do each of these audience types face and how can you introduce them to the different health and safety procedures they have to consider and implement?
- Embed new positive ways of working
Recognising all the changes you are implementing are likely to be for the long-term – take the opportunity to review, revise and embed new positive ways of working. This will make things ‘the way we do things round here’ and encourage good future practice. Involve your team in the process to get maximum buy-in and support and provide training on any of the new policies.
We are working with our national and global clients to put solutions in place and to provide them with a model for managing this process and communicating this out to all employees. If you would like to find out how we can help your business, contact Hayley Meakes at hayley@gainmomentum.marketing or call 07841 054167
