There is a lot of talk around colleagues working from home during this coronavirus epidemic (COVID-19) but what do you do if that’s not an option, and a lot of your colleagues work on the operational floor or in a customer facing role?
I’ve always worked with front-line remote and hard to reach workers, so I understand some of the challenges when it comes to communicating with them, especially when you don’t have the right tech or channels in place to support. Here are some practical tips to consider when communicating with this group:
1) Align your messages. It’s imperative colleagues know where to go for up-to-date information. You need to ensure that your messages across the different channels are aligned. If you’re lucky enough to have a channel that all colleagues can access then just use this and make sure everything links back to it. But in my experience this can be rare in some large organisations with a remote workforce, so do your due diligence, be consistent and make sure you’ve covered all internal stakeholders.
2) Remember two-way comms. During times of uncertainty colleagues will definitely have questions or concerns. Try to have a dedicated email or some form of contact where colleagues can get in touch if they want to ask any questions – this should help reduce some worry but also rumours and speculation. Also make sure that your policies are up-to-date and easily accessible (if they weren’t before).
3) Line manager check-ins. Your line managers are going to be key during this time. Colleagues will be looking for reassurances, it’s likely some may be worried about coming into work and others may genuinely have to take time off if they or someone in their family have been exposed.
Our colleagues in the front-line are probably at a much higher risk than anyone else and their safety is paramount. So, it’s imperative that line managers keep in regular contact, share up-to-date news and are clear on the company policy e.g. sickness, absence etc, so messages are consistent across the organisation.
It might be worth creating a group chat for line managers on your social network if you have one available (workplace, yammer etc). Alternatively whataspp/text messaging group works well (as long as it doesn’t breach security). This will allow two-way conversation and line managers will be able to get information fairly quickly from a trusted source.
4) Be creative. There are still fairly cost-effective ways that you can communicate without having to travel across different sites, such as video, webcasting, podcasts, live streaming etc. Check out this interesting article from mediafour about webcasting:
https://www.mediafour.co.uk/blog/webcastingbulletpoints.html.
5) Task force / Business Continuity groups. A few organisations I have spoken to recently have created dedicated coronavirus task groups, led by their H&S person. But make sure as comms, you or someone from your team are involved in the meetings/conversations so you know first-hand what’s going on. Everyone should have a dedicated role, sign-off for comms should be agreed without a convoluted process and a spokesperson allocated if needed. The last thing you need is to run around getting sign-off from every senior person in the business, especially when time is short.
Trusted sources:
If you want to have a further chat about how to communicate effectively to a hard-to-reach workforce then get in touch via advita@commsrebel.com.
