How Company Values Can Guide Your Exec Comms Strategy
You can’t spend all your time communicating about every current event.
Chelsey Louzeiro, Digital Community Manager, Heifer International
Employees want, and expect, companies to speak out about significant world events. They also need to know their leaders are authentically connected and understand how current events are affecting them. And certainly, as this Brunswick article argues, the companies that do not have a plan for speaking up will be left in the dust.
If the past few years have shown us anything, it’s that calamity is an ever-increasing companion. Disease. Social and political conflict. Economic disruptions. Climate and environmental degradation. The list goes on.
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But you can’t spend all your time communicating about every current event. As a communicator, you must work with leaders to help them define the company’s position and their own viewpoints. It will mean choosing when and where to take a stand to influence employee and public perspectives and knowing that not everyone will be comfortable when leaders are silent.
Researchconsistently shows that people want to work for companies that share their values. The World Economic Forum argues that a“belief-driven” workforceis on the rise, and they want more than “just salaries and benefits, but also social impact”.So we must answer the questions: “What do we stand for?” and “Why?”
Too often, a company’s core values get an honorable mention during onboarding, but employees are left without actionable behaviors to guide key moments throughout the entire employee lifecycle.