Webinar report: COVID-19 is starting an Internal Comms movement

Jonathan Davies
29 mins read

Table of Contents

Internal Comms after COVID-19

Jonathan: My prerogative is that I get the chance to ask the first question before all of your questions start piling in further. So here goes, and Channa, why don't you answer first? And then we'll let Janet give her 2 cents on the matter.

Channa: From my point of view, Internal Comms, unlike any time before now has clearly made a statement and it's not necessarily that we needed an unfortunate crisis to validate this role, but I do think that in the eyes of many companies and executives who previously didn't get it, they now get it. It has been amazing to connect with colleagues, many of you, and in my own experience to really see the importance of Internal Comms, permeate the organization, partnering very closely with human resources, working closely with the finance function, working closely with your tech team.

I mean, there are so many different components that have created a shift in our work world and Internal Comms really is the center of the wheel that kind of ties all of the spikes around it. So to me, this has been very sad, but the fortunate silver lining in that we can have a very positive impact and influence the way companies do business, and the way people are cared for and addressed at work.

I think the challenge, Jonathan, is to keep that going. I mean, It's just like anything else in your life. Something is new - a kid gets a new toy, they love it. They play with it 24/7 before it's in a pile long forgotten a week later. So to me, the challenge is how do you maintain this interest?

Janet: Great answer. I agree with a lot of what Channa has just said, and I think to add on to that - everybody's been asking and demanding a seat at the table. They've just got their seat at the table, but it's been a very reactive thing that we suddenly become known for. Actually the thing that everybody wants, or that I certainly want, is that strategic piece and it's that sort of that outer out unit, it's almost out of your grasp.

How do you get a hold of that? How do we transform that from being, yes, we're very good at reactive. We're very good at, getting channels up and getting that information to that speedy response. How do we actually start to move through re-imagining and shifting that conversation instead of it being “oh well, you’re just a reactive person”.

Piecing the new normal together

Jonathan: Liz Carter just asked a question that relates to this very nicely. She asked:

"How do you educate yourself on what work will look like as companies reopen and what things they need to consider".

Janet: I think it's about having great relationships. Have you got the right relationships with the right people in your organization? Are you in the right meetings? Because if you're hearing things second hand, third hand, it's too late. How can you make sure that you are in the room of those meetings? You're talking to the decision-makers, you're talking to these key stakeholders that you've invited, that you are actually able to talk to them firsthand.

Then you can actually influence upfront if you're getting the decisions that have been made, and just being asked, can you figure out how to communicate that that might be too late? That might be really challenging, really difficult. So I would advise. It's never too late to create good relationships. Have you got relationships with the facilities team? You may never have had to talk to them before, but now that people that you really need to be talking to get regular meetings, figure out what is it that they're trying to achieve, and how can you support them?

Everything comes from those solid relationships. If they understand what you're trying to do, and how you can help them be successful by doing successful communications, strategy plan deliverables, etcetera. You want to help them. So if they can bring you information upfront, if they can make sure that you're not finding things out last minute, or second hand, that supports them in their business objective.

For me, it's all about relationships.

Channa: I just made myself a note to share with you, Jonathan. We can get to this group, perhaps, a list of resources that our HR team did a phenomenal job gathering globally, because we're a global business that has businesses and offices in Europe, Asia, and North America.

They did a phenomenal job just really going through all of the resources that were available, and identifying how we would implement our own phased approach of going back to the offices, in a way that compliments each geography. Unique phase reopening as well. So what we do in New Jersey, which is where I live, is very different from what California is going to do, and it is different from what Austin, Berlin, Singapore, and Stockholm. It's all very different. So, research. I agree with Janet. It is about relationships and doing your homework. I am happy to share what we've put together because it really does help.

Don’t reach out for perfection

Jonathan: Completely agree. We just did a podcast yesterday which was about creating an internal podcast. The number one question that people usually have is how difficult is it to produce this?

Do I need an audio engineer? Do I need to get this done professionally? I guess that goes also into the idea of video editing. No, you don't. It's okay if you do it. It's more important to push things out there with volume and authenticity than it is polish something up, and release something very infrequently.

Janet: It's exactly what people don't want nowadays. They don't want everything to look perfect. They know the world is not perfect right now. If suddenly you put something out that's super polished and looks amazing, it's like, oh, what's going on there?

The authenticity is now what we're doing. I mean, this is mine. This is my house. That's tennis. That's your house. It would seem bizarre if suddenly there was something that was super duper uber polished. That's not the way it works right now. I think just to come back to what the channel was saying, the listening piece is absolutely huge, but listening doesn't mean taking orders. Listening is not me sitting there with my notepad. I don't think I've ever done this. I find it really bizarre when people say, oh, are you an order take? I've never taken orders ever. Bizarre. Why would you hire me? It's more about listening so that you can have a point of view listening so that you can adapt to whatever it is that you need to do so that it supports the business in the best way. It’s so you can be flexible and be the partner that your business team needs you to be, that your CEO needs you to be, and that is that. That's huge.

Everyone is an Internal Communicator

Jonathan: Awesome. moving on. I see we have two questions that came in from Christina. Christina asks:

"How can Internal Comms engage and empower managers to communicate key updates on reopening with their teams?"

Channa: Consistency, consistency, consistency. I think every organization needs champions and other influencers who can carry important messages throughout the organization. It is not just your job. In fact, the way I think about Internal Comms is we are the ones who are supposed to advocate for discussion, right? It doesn't mean we have all the answers. It doesn't mean we have to be part of all of the discussions. It means that we make sure the discussions are happening in our business. We really make sure that if we're rolling out a new policy, there's a new initiative.

There's some sort of internal campaign that we're launching. It's making sure that we, the comms team, are brought in at the right time so that we can think about what the rollout plan really looks like. Right. So at the right time, let's make sure we are arming everybody who needs to be armed with the messages, the cue, and a document.

You have a conversation with them to make sure everybody is on the same page. If you do that once, you don't get the reaction that you'd like, you don't get the buy-in. You don't stop. You keep doing it for every single thing. Eventually, even your biggest naysayers will understand that you're just trying to help them, because inevitably, what happens is people ask managers questions. Everybody likes to feel smart, informed, and knowledgeable. And if you're a leader, it's a responsibility to have the answers. In my opinion, our responsibility is to help them look good. I've often said to some of my colleagues over the years: help me help you. I am here to make sure that you are well supported, versus making sure you say this here as a preachy top-down order. As you were saying, Janet, it’s a very different conversation. I think leaders often feel like you are there to really counsel them, going back to that strategic comment. You are there to counsel them versus push things at them and ask that they just run through the script. It's not about that. It has to be about genuinely setting them up to be leaders. I think if they understand that that's the perspective that you're coming from, it makes all the difference in the tone of the conversation. They tend to be more perceptive, but you have to do it consistently.

Janet: I agree. There's a couple of things, depending on the organization, depending on the managers that you have, some managers don't realize that actually it can be part of their job.

Giving them permission to have some of those conversations sometimes because they go, well, the time will come. It's just going to put something out. I think sometimes it's about giving them permission. If they don't realize that, as Channa said, if you're organized, you make sure that they have everything they need. They have the cue, but also give them a safe space to be able to ask questions themselves because it's a big thing that you're asking them to do. One of the things that we did in a previous life was to actually create a clinical and we would provide information or one call. Everybody could take that information. They didn't get to ask questions. They just listened to the information. They were like, okay, we've got to download. They would then go away and think what of all the different questions that my team might ask, that I might not be able to ask at the moment in that hour, but given myself a day, I can sit there and go, okay, what are all the different things that are going to be asked? If I'm a manager of managers, maybe I'll bring them in. And they can also say here's some other things that we think might get asked, bring everybody then back and say, okay, managers, what kinds of questions do you have to allow everybody to learn from each other. That is simply about answering the questions that others may have.

Honesty is the first step in Diversity & Inclusion

Jonathan: At the start, we agreed to also address questions around the situation that's happening right now. So we've received two questions and I would like to put those forward. The first one that came in was actually the first question that was asked. It comes from an anonymous attendee who's from New York, and would I assume TLV would be standing for Tel-Aviv. This person would like to say:

"We sent an email from our VP of HR to New York stunning against racial injustice, and setting up a donation match was also a bit of a check-in because many of our employees are in New York City and are impacted by the police presence and chaos around it."

He or she adds to this:

"We also only have one black employee, which is a glaring problem. Do you have tips for acknowledging and addressing this as part of this conversation outside of pointing to a renewed effort in our diversity and inclusion efforts?"

Channa: I'm happy to start.

My first recommendation is the next email. with all due respect, does not come from the VP of HR, but it comes from a CEO or president. The tone at the top is 100% what matters first and foremost, regardless of the words, I think by showing that the highest decision-makers in the company have a position that they care about, that they are willing to make a statement of some kind, it has to come from your most senior leaders.

We can communicate on behalf of them. Other leaders can communicate with the VP of HR. I do not think that is complementary communication. It's not primary communication from my point of view. It's a really difficult conversation for a lot of people to have, which is why I think we're still having these racial injustices happening. It's a difficult conversation and people tend to shy away from it. It's uncomfortable. People don't know what to say. It feels like maybe I'm not part of the problem, or you're the exact opposite. You feel like you have every solution in the world, but maybe nobody really wants to hear it.

Maybe the workplace doesn't feel like it's an appropriate place to have those conversations. And all of those are valid if they are authentic perceptions in the minds of your employees, but I would strongly consider that you have your CEO give you an honest opinion. Where does the firm stand? Does the firm have a position that mirrors its mission, its culture, its values, because if they don't match up, you have a problem? It's one thing to say. We really care about diversity and we really believe in it, whatever the words are. But if you look at the website and you see that you have one black employee, it's going to cause attention to a glaring gap, so you really need to figure out what can we say that is credible, that has authenticity, and then be able to back it up.

Rolling out a diversity-communications plan

Jonathan: Great way of addressing this.

I promised that we would address the second question that came in on this. So here we go.

"We hosted a company-wide, optional, all hands around current events and let people share faults and stories. I was very nervous as to how it was going to go, but our CEO for what it was worth pushed past our fears, and be willing to let it get unwieldy if necessary was powerful for everyone that participated, but it was reactive. Now we want to continue the discussion and give people a platform for them to continue to share any ideas, how other companies are doing this."

Channa: We're having that conversation ourselves right now. Our CEO's are amazing. They have office hours on Slack every week and we have two co-CEOs. So one takes the morning shift for the international folks. It's very early East coast time. And then another one does it in the afternoon, for our West coast, employees.

Our level of communication has ramped up a lot. We've got emails and office hours with our CEOs, video, and all of these channels. We also have an ability for people to send in anonymous questions. The question that we're now asking ourselves is, okay, do we need to facilitate some other means for people to have conversations, talk, share, and express themselves? We're building that bridge as we walk. We really are because these are just an amazing set of months that we've had this 2020. I will say that in my view, do what you can to keep the conversation going, but you really do want for it to be productive. If it turns into just a gripe Fest, it's really difficult to glean real insights from that.

For us, one of the things we're going to do is leverage a platform that we have called all voices. Our HR team is actually the one that really manages this, but it is a completely anonymous way for you to submit. Anything whatsoever that you're feeling about, your work environment, if you don't feel psychologically safe, if you've experienced bullying if you have just a really difficult question about racism and you're afraid of asking it because of any potential backlash, we give you an opportunity to share your concerns and your stories, completely anonymously.

Creating transparency through dialogue

Channa: That's that's such a great point. Jonathan, there was a follow up that came in that that I’d love to address very quickly if that's okay. It's about authenticity and truth incomes. The anonymous attendee says "what do you do when you sense that your leadership is hiding something, and only giving you a piece of the information to communicate."

Janet: It would terrify me to put somebody out there who everybody can see through. The damage it could create could actually be repairable. Exactly what Channa said: you have to ask questions. This isn't about being liked, and this is about making sure that your audience is respected, and that your audience isn't being fed align. And if you think there's something not quite right, your audience will see it immediately. and that's also something that you can say. The fact that I'm coming and still asking more, you will get questions from the audience. Are you prepared to answer them?

Open communications are effective communications

Jonathan: Funny story - I can tell you what not to do. What not to do is tell your CEO, do you not want me to do my job correctly? And the reason why I'm saying that is because when I was very new to what I was doing within Internal Comms, this is what happened to me once in a similar situation.

That is not a good question to ask because they don't really care, but that taught me something very invaluable, which is - make it about them. What's in it for them. It's the most important factor in getting somebody on your side and helping them to see the opposite of what they are thinking right now.