CASE STUDY: Ford’s 12-Member Team Engages Staff with Multi-pronged Approach
The employee communications team at Ford reached out to hundreds of thousands of employees and retirees with a ‘hive’ approach.
John Cowan, Editor, Ragan CommunicationsThe COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine fundamentally transformed how businesses communicate with employees.Ford Motor Company’s 12-member employee communications team, responsible for all communications that reach Ford’s 187,000 employees globally, had to quickly pivot to address emerging employee and business needs resulting from the pandemic.A hive approachThe team functions like a hive, holding regular communications, daily meetings, cross-functional planning and calls to ensure alignment around priorities.They regularly juggle several strategic goals:
- Supporting the strategic objectives of the company.
- Listening and responding to employee input through Q&As, online chats, pulse surveys and dataanalysis.
- Addressing unexpected needs as they arise.
- Evolving the overall employee experience working at Ford.
- Building a coalition of brand ambassadors.