The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed communication teams into the spotlight, making them integral to shaping what their companies will look and feel like when things return to “normal.” Many people are wondering what a post-COVID workplace will look like and brands need to start thinking about how they’re going to communicate their new normal to their stakeholders (i.e. customers, staff, shareholders, partners, governments, etc.) now and into the future.
Our PR Consult founder Pamela Muñoz was invited to share thoughts with Doug Downs, SCMP host of podcast a new public relations podcast series, Stories and Strategies, entitled “Changes to how we communicate when life ‘returns to normal’ from COVID-19.” Below are redacted excerpts from the interview with our thoughts on a post-COVID world.
Q. We’re in a world concerned with safety and becoming more sensitive. Is it now more important in workplaces and governmental leaders to show that kind of empathy?
The need for leadership at this particular moment in time is so important. We need to have leaders that are showing us they care. We need to have brands that are showing us they care and really putting people first, over profit. That is what is going to lead brands into the future, after COVID.
There are a lot of people wondering what the “new normal” will look like. So, we need to see leadership coming from organisations – not only from experts like the WHO. We need to have companies and brands themselves coming out with their own expertise to explain how they’ve dealt with this crisis and how they’ve responded. They need to talk about the importance of that and their leadership, and what they’ve been able to provide during this crisis.
Q. As we start to return to normal, whatever that looks like, we’ve heard “get comfortable with being uncomfortable” but human nature is to want to form a pattern of normalcy – we will do that inevitably. What does that look like for professional communicators, ourselves as consultants or full-time employees within corporations? Where should the emphasis be in helping communications adjust?
We have a lot of leaders that have shied away from the limelight, who haven’t wanted to speak up during this time. They haven’t wanted to speak up in terms of what they’re doing to help their employees. A lot of companies have asked, “Can we introduce new products? Is it timely? Should we do it? Should we continue with marketing, paid placement?” [The answer to these questions is yes, but carefully and respectfully.]
The Edelman Trust Barometer came out a few weeks ago and stated that 55 per cent of companies are responding more quickly and more effectively than their own government. This is a study that was done in 12 different countries, all around the world in response to COVID. That’s an interesting statistic to have.
At the same time, you need to have a partnership between the private sector and government. You don’t want to have a leader or brands out there speaking out of turn. They need to have a nice combination of information that’s relevant to their brand and getting background information from the CDC or the WHO. You need to have a nice blend there.
Q. You and I are doing a virtual meeting right now. We have used Zoom but there are dozens if not hundreds of different products and services we could have used. Are virtual meetings for communications going forward it? Do we abandon the phone where we just talk to one another and not see one another? Do we work remotely in the future or are these still only trial exercises that will see which way it goes?
Technology has helped us through this [COVID pandemic] absolutely and I think we are going to see that more and more people, and more and more organisations, will embrace this in the future. I saw a statistic that 85 per cent of workers want to continue working from home; it came from Benefits Canada.
A lot of the people that I’ve been talking with are saying that they don’t feel comfortable going back to work. They don’t feel like it’s the right time for them to go back to work even though companies want their staff there in the office. I don’t think that’s going to be the future.
Some companies are considering downsizing their office [space] because they have been able to work remotely. There’s a lot of money that goes into having office space and all the equipment available for staffers.
Q. Working from home is one change but do communications change at the ‘principles’ level if we’re working from home or coming out of COVID? Does communications change or just the technology?
There are some companies that have brought in their communications team as part of the leadership teams and have helped them develop an approach in how to create that message, to tell the company story during all of this. They’re the ones who have helped develop an approach on how to reach employees.
Then there are other companies who haven’t communicated a thing. They haven’t gone to their marketing or PR people. I think that in the future these companies are going to be obsolete. They have created very little trust with their employees. So why would an employee want to stay on with them [after COVID] and what messages are they telling their employees now and for the future? They need to start planning now, if they haven’t already done so.
When we talk about storytelling and looking at change management, that all starts with communication. We need to have leaders and organizations that come out and have told their story properly. Not just their brand story or about a particular product, we’re talking about the stories of organizations and leaders that have come out of that [crisis]. We need to think about the authenticity and the trust factor they have built coming out of COVID. But if they haven’t built it, it’s not going to bode well for them in the end.
Q. We seem to be going from crisis management to change management. Amidst this change, there are management styles that won’t survive this shift. Is the micro-manager about to die here or just change his stripes?
Every manager will have their different management style – the micromanager will always exist! What we’re going to see is people who start communicating differently.
We’ll start seeing people who are more introverted communicating more with their managers – written form or over the phone. We’re going to start seeing managers that want more of a connection with their employees who are not directly in the office – they’re going to want to have much more communication with them. It might feel like micromanagement at that point but we’ll eventually find a nice balance between what each employer or manager needs.
They say when working remotely, it’s best to over-communicate and it can be in the form of an email, memo, voice message or video. With clients, I find I’m much more responsive. In the past, I haven’t necessarily given them all the information and details of my process and now I want them to have it, for which they’re grateful. It will depend, but I think there will be much more communication.
Q. Some companies will want to position themselves differently after COVID. It’s a delicate time to do that, isn’t it?
In that Edelman study, 85 percent said they wanted brands to use their power to educate. It’s no longer just about “how sorry we feel for them,” or “we’re in this together.” It’s an opportunity for brands and companies to go out and actually inform people about how they can help themselves, or how they’ve been helping their own employees. It’s really about educating people on what we can do next, and if they’re not doing that, they need to start preparing now.
Companies need to look at what their business is going to look like, what their employees need out of their business and what their clients will be expecting from them. Consumers are getting that much savvier: they want transparency within organisations, they want to know how they’ve responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, they want brands to step up and make sure they’re responding.
*Podcast excerpts have been edited for readability and clarity. The full Stories and Strategies podcast can be listened to by clicking this link.