During times of crisis, leaders are often challenged to address the root cause of the crisis and to layout a clear message to shareholders, and external audiences as to how they are going to address the issues and emerge from the crisis.
Unfortunately, far too often executives forget the impact that a corporate crisis, and its subsequent communications will have on the employer brand and employee engagement. This error has proven to be the downfall of a number of some of the most respected CEOs in history.
Why Is the Employer Brand Communications Strategy Critical During Times of Crisis?
Lets be honest. Whenever there is a large scale disaster, almost inevitably there has been a series of errors, mistakes and oversights that led to the current situation. The moment that the blame falls directly on your employees and/or subcontractors, you have entered a very dangerous landscape.
Preparing for crisis management is one more reason that Blu Ivy Group coaches our clients that employer branding strategy must be developed with, and owned by the executive leadership team, rather than the HR and Talent management group alone.
Setting the foundation of an employer brand, employer promise, and leadership playbook, ensures that should a crisis emerge, the CEO and communications leadership protect the culture that has been built over years. The culture that is so critical to employee, customer loyalty, and the bottom line.
Employees are looking to see if the CEO has a long term strategy to emerge from the crisis, or is simply making efforts to protect themselves and their individual reputations. They will begin to ask themselves some emotional questions about the values and behaviours of their leadership team. They will also begin to get asked those questions from your clients, their family, and friends. The answers they share will have a long lasting impact on the perception of your company brand in the marketplace.
Your legal and compliance advisors will rarely identify your employer brand during the crisis communications so it is key that you have the foundation to reference and guide your leadership.
What Are Some Best Practices On Employee Communications?
Company crisis will typically cause many employees to feel insecure and potentially disillusioned with the corporation and leadership team they had pride in. A CEO message that is perceived as being defensive is exactly how not to handle it.
Employees are looking for signals from leaders during crisis to understand as a team what happened, to learn what management is going to do to help emerge from this moment, and where the company can expect to land. What will this mean for employees, their stability, and their pride.
Consider the promises that your employer brand makes to employees, what the company values and behaviours promote. These are key to reference with consistency in both your internal and external communications.
At this time your employees (and customers) will be asking themselves if your organization has violated any of their personal values, and how proud they will be to work with you through this crisis to help get to the other side. They will be watching to see if you are a true partner, a compassionate leader, an individual who can be trusted to do what is right over the long term.
Address the crisis directly with employees. Employees should not hear about the crisis management solution in the media first. They should hear from you directly as well as in person. They need to understand how to respond to the questions they have personally, and will receive from others. If they don’t hear from you, they will begin to form their own opinions, and often those opinions will be based on fear, and an emerging lack of trust. Ensure that you look at the impact of this crisis on the team, not just leadership and shareholders. It is key to long term success.
Set up town hall meetings and online forums. Employees will be looking to all of your leadership and will expect all of them to be able to answer direct questions. Get in front of employees as frequently as possible. Ensure that your leadership and management team are coached and provided with an FAQ. This will provide consistency in message and help ensure everyone is looking to address the employer promise and company values. It will also provide more consistent management behaviours at a critical time.
Other best practices include setting up internal websites or internal social media forums with regular updates and communications. Stay close, stay engaged with your employees. It is key for any CEO and organization to successfully emerge from real crisis.
Through all communications, refer to the employer brand promise that was co-created with the team. Much like the customer value proposition, it is the foundation to help you emerge a strong and trusted CEO, and corporation.
For questions and inquiries about internal employee communications during crisis and employer brand strategy, please reach out to Blu Ivy Group’s Managing Director, Stacy Parker. The team at Blu Ivy Group has been coaching and consulting CEOs and HR leadership teams for many of North America’s top employers.
About Blu Ivy Group
Blu Ivy Group is a leading employer branding and employee engagement consultancy that aligns your organization with contemporary workplace paradigms. Blu Ivy Group’s mission is to help client’s build award-winning people practices, inspire extraordinary employee engagement, and cultivate unique and desirable workplaces.