5 Tips on How to Communicate with your Employees in a Time of Uncertainty

The occurrence of this crisis is unprecedented and has greatly impacted our lives. The way our businesses worked has also transformed drastically.  With massive layoffs happening, a steep fall in profits and chaos prevailing across the entire organization, the importance of a unified authority and leadership becomes quintessential. While many companies went out of business, others are scrambling to cope up and meet the demands while staying healthy and productive.

During this time, the main focus of the leaders is to ensure safety and security for the employees and perhaps keep their needs in priority. A crisis like this can leave employees with a lot of questions and hence makes it crucial to provide direction and proactive communications to them. Communications like this can be vital. Keeping the employees updated and giving out any positive news can be very helpful. There is no easy way for an organization to give out layoffs news. Many CEO’s have done a great job at doing the communication. Companies such as Airbnb, while laying off a large chunk of its employees, has made sure to convey to their employees that their value is highly significant and that the team will support them in during the layoff phase with a new employment portal. 

Your employees, your shareholders, your customers, and your stakeholders all of them deserve to hear how you’re providing consistency in an economy that suffered from a cardiac arrest. They will want to know how the pandemic impacted your business. They expect to know the ways through which you are keeping the business cohesive and taking strategic steps to construct solidity when the time arrives. 

There are various ways through which company leaders can community during a time like this. It is best for companies to be as accurate and transparent as possible. So how exactly do we plan when the future looks so uncertain? While you can certainly anticipate that change may well happen soon, it is touch to put anything in place to mitigate the problems that could arise. When it comes to your organization and the people within it, the best thing you can do is to have an internal communications strategy in place. 

Below we have outlined a few tips to help you ensure that you get employees the information they need to hear during uncertain times like this.

1. Create an internal communications plan

Creating a robust communication plan that can cover a range of circumstances that the organization could possibly encounter can be a good strategic step. This step can be put into action when external problems start having an impact on the organization. All situations can be documented for future references.  The plan can be updated and revised as and when needed. 

Brainstorming ideas regarding myriad scenarios that the company can be vulnerable to can be crucial in understanding the weakness. Arranging a meeting where emergency situations are concocted may sound over the top, however, it is an extremely significant method of bringing up issues and distinguishing weak areas that need attention. This can also help in detecting the issues earlier and can be mitigated with strategic actions. This can also be departmentalized and threats across various sectors can be analyzed. 

Identifying the communications gap is another important step that needs to be taken care of. Most businesses will have a diverse range of staff, ranging from office workers to warehouse staff. Some may work outside the core hours; others will out in the field, visiting customers. You might have a vast percentage of employees with no access to computers, or even a corporate account. You may already have a map of where your people are and the best way of contacting them. Depending on what the news you have to circulate is, you may need to include your employee’s families, your customers, suppliers, and more.

2. Communicating frequently and maintaining transparency 

At the point when such a situation occurs, it is essential for you to be the first to tell your workforce. It tends to be harming when an employee hears the news first from the news or a relative. Desk alerts and instant messages are immediate methods of conveying news quickly. At times, calls may be the best medium. Ensure you comprehend the quickest method of reaching all teams and their employees whether or not you're in office hours or not.

To build confidence in the time of uncertainty you have to communicate frequently, clearly, and authentically. That means avoiding jargon and platitudes. It means refraining from a temptation to offer assurances that you aren’t sure you can deliver. For major decisions, make sure to reveal the decision-making process to gain employee trust. This can increase a team’s trust, productivity, and desire to be motivated by the company during times of frustration.

3. Ensure two-way communication

It is crucial to communicate, even when you don’t have an answer. Ensuring that you convey to your employees that you are consistently working to get more information and make things better can be reassuring and can limit the level of hearsay with your company.  Try to be open to any questions and queries your teams may have. Make sure that those leading the communications can be open to discussion, correspondence, and replies as soon as possible.

With an array of digital tools, you can enable feedback, comments, and questions from your workforce. And nowadays, employees expect to contribute to the conversation. This involvement drives engagement but also enhances trust and understanding of the situation. You can help to do this in a number of ways: By enabling commenting on blogs, employee forums, and Q&A sessions.

4. Communicate your purpose and values:

Take into consideration the core values and overall culture your organization has in place. As you determine the steps your team will take to overcome challenges related to the situation– or any other crises that might come your way – keep your culture, company mission, and core values top-of-mind to drive your business decisions. 

Organizations with intentional core values turn to these values to navigate difficult times, during success and drive business decisions for everything in between. 

5. Check your communication channels

Make sure to check all your communications channels during a time like this. Making sure employee’s phone numbers, email addresses, and other contact information is up to date is critical to the running of effective internal communications. Keep your channels in check, carry out a trial run in test conditions regularly to make sure your operation is ready to trigger as and when needed. 

It is crucial to be able to customize your communication as speedily as possible. This allows you to send the message that suits the audience you’re targeting. The bad news or equally, good news can impact different ages, departments, offices – make sure you can hone the message you are sending out to suit the people you want to speak to. 

All in all, just remember to be there. Be there for the team members that need your support and be there to continue motivating and speaking to them throughout it all.

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Denning, Tim. “The CEO of Airbnb Taught Us an Extraordinary Lesson When He Fired 25% of His Company.” Medium, Mind Cafe, 10 May 2020, medium.com/mind-cafe/the-ceo-of-airbnb-taught-us-an-extraordinary-lesson-when-he-fired-25-of-his-company-4d41b2e47656.

Knight, Rebecca. “How to Talk to Your Team When the Future Is Uncertain.” Harvard Business Review, 19 June 2020, hbr.org/2020/04/how-to-talk-to-your-team-when-the-future-is-uncertain.

Potter, Jaime. “How Should Leaders Communicate With Employees During Times Of Crisis?” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 1 Apr. 2020, www.forbes.com/sites/jaimepotter/2020/03/31/how-should-leaders-communicate-with-employees-during-times-of-crisis/#2b1e7edc6b9a.

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