A year ago, early in the pandemic, we asked simple questions about employer approaches to remote work arrangements in office settings – about your willingness to listen to your employees when many people were demonstrating a willingness to articulate a more direct voice in all things, particularly through social media. Our original thinking is found here:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/you-ready-unmasked-workforce-mike-clement/?trackingId=F76GonPCnDzsdULNZKKLqA%3D%3D

Very quickly, we realized there would be no imminent “return-to-work” or at least a “return-to-the-office” as we knew it.  The level of uncertainty was too high. There was no vaccine in sight. Collectively we did an admirable job of transferring overnight to a distanced work environment. Whether we were “Teaming” or “Zooming,” the resiliency of the human spirit and smart decisions found a way to make it work.

This transition occurred against a backdrop of huge collective anxiety. None of us in the workforce had lived through a pandemic. Our risk planning assessments and “pandemic playbooks” largely failed within weeks. We adjusted quickly to balancing professional duties with 24/7 home lives – and supported parents as they juggled both. We mourned friends and loved ones. In America, other events beyond the pandemic, like a renewed call for racial justice and political strife captured our attention. Whether we realize it yet or not, we were also changed.

So where are we now? We have access to vaccines but reports of surges and declining vaccination rates remain. Surveys note that 12-20% of the US population may decline to be vaccinated. One report noted 8% of those vaccinated did not return for a required 2nd vaccine. We know that many found balancing working from home and schooling from home a challenge, while many others. found working from home liberating. How do we bring all these divergent viewpoints back to the workplace? How can we make it work, again? What more questions do we need to ask?

Old Paradigms May Be Dead Before They Arrive

As one employee of an iconic corporate US headquarters facility said to me, “Our building was so much of our identity and we abandoned it in three days. It’s all working via Zoom”. The largest companies vested in the paradigm of “office space” may face the most difficult challenges in their existing space and work models. Real estate and space planning executives are optimistically planning our return. Many executives spent entire careers aspiring to hold “the corner office’ and the prospect of giving it up suddenly may not sit so well. Employees will look to what leaders say and what they do.

Many employees made our new environment work and made it work better – and they may resist going back to “the way it used to be.” Will your approach reflect flexibility or a return to your traditional model? What do you want, and how does that compare to what your employees want?

“Our Policy is Set!” (Really?)

The sands are still shifting. While we have made great progress in many countries on vaccination rates, we have a long way to go globally. Our recovery will be VERY lumpy. News reports of employees already balking at return-to-office announcements are becoming more frequent. What are your employees already telling you about their concerns and willingness to return? Are you listening and listening with frequency? If your decisions are being made against traditional HR and real estate paradigms, who is bringing fresh thinking and response to your crisis response room? Who has institutional memory to combat resurrected ideas that did not work before? Can those ideas work now?

 Do We Need a Detailed Policy? 

Early in my career, my most annoying conversations usually involved the day someone wanted to talk about implementing a dress code. Many people require rules and structure. My experience taught me that using your best judgement is the best policy for many, although not all, things. In a pandemic, for instance, medical facts must inform judgement.

Recently Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors, stated that GM’s post-pandemic policy would be to “Work Appropriately”. She had earlier taken a similar approach with dress codes. In short, GM probably likely won’t develop tons of policies; they simply expect their leaders to lead. While some frameworks will be necessary, some monitoring of fairness among departments and divisions, we believe this is a great approach for many companies.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/20/gms-simple-message-to-employees-about-return-to-work-work-appropriately.html

It Isn’t Really Over

As happy as some of us are to return to a work setting where we can meet our human need for affiliation, some of us are not. The world will remain uncertain for some time to come. Our best advice, use words like “do what is appropriate,” “it depends,” “we won’t be rigid, but we will protect our employees.” You will have to decide along the continuum of “we encourage” vs. “we require.” Listen more frequently. Be open to new approaches. Your workforce has changed in the past year. Have you?

There is a great possibility that the post-pandemic economy will feature not only a weeding out of weaker companies, but also greater consolidation among those remaining. Some companies will falter, but many will prevail. Whether it is due to financial pressures of this new reality or the normal synergies of bringing companies together, there will still be deals in the coming months.

Beyond announcing the deal- always the more exciting news for reporters and deal makers- we must ask in the post-pandemic world what is required to make each deal succeed. You can make big promises in a deal announcement, but we all know that delivering on your commitments and combining companies with skill, art, and experience is the ultimate challenge in creating new entities that deliver for employees and shareholders.

There is a science to combining cultures and companies. The most experienced merger veterans know this, but even they will be tested in the period before we return to offices and a world with a vaccine.

There are some considerations we should be thinking about now to anticipate a successful combination of companies that produces the best results for every stakeholder.

Throw Out the Old Platitudes

The proclamation of a “merger of equals” is largely a myth. Only one party will likely win control. The cultures of the two companies will be different and the combined company will require either a new culture or will accept that one company culture will dominate. So, just say that up front, recognizing that we live in an age of transparency. Know that combining cultures takes work and expertise, and acknowledge that publicly, from the start, hard as that might be.

If you plan to run the companies separately for a while, say that from the start, as well. However, recognize early on that financial imperatives may require you to accelerate combining infrastructure to achieve synergies you have projected. Reserve the flexibility to alter your plans in communications to stakeholders.

Use What You Have Learned from Zoom Culture

We have learned a great deal about meetings and connecting in the era of Zoom. Use the emerging best practices, including recognizing Zoom fatigue. Yes, you can see too much of each other, even during the intensity of integration activities. Sometimes a phone call will do. Continue to introduce executive teams early on to begin to build trust. Construct smaller group and 1:1 conversation that is personalized to discover not only what work needs to be done but how your teams do their work. Check the culture posters at the door and have real conversations. Consider introducing meeting “proctors” whose job is to ensure conversations remain real, agendas are uncovered, examined, and dealt with.

How Have You Dealt With COVID-19?

Cultural integration is perhaps the most important component of a merger. No test of cultural approach is perhaps more relevant than how the merging companies have dealt with COVID-19. Were you quick to act? Did you mobilize a disciplined crisis team? Was it easy to send people home to work or was a “we like people in the office” culture an impediment? How have the two companies approached return-to-work? The way your company approached the monumental challenge we are facing at present is an excellent diagnostic tool for assessing how your company culture works and ways you may need to adjust to achieve a successful merger.

Some Things Have Not Changed

Even if logistical complications from COVID-19 begin to ease, it is likely most merger integration meetings will still take place by phone or video conference. Investing in large, in-person integration meetings was already becoming a thing of the past. They are too expensive. Most of your work will still be accomplished in detailed sub-meetings on human resources decisions, financial decisions, technology and systems integration IT and culture integration. To the extent possible, deciding between best practices and systems is still a fact-based evaluation process with pragmatic and financial implications. Building trust and communicating what you know when you know it, will still prevail as the best winning tactic.

There will be many issues that we have to face and resolve differently in the combining of two companies during this pandemic. What is most important is that you begin to examine them now, during or before your due diligence. Culture is often given short shrift in due diligence. The ability to understand how we work and recognize where change may be needed is one of the greatest predictors of merger success. And remember, no handshakes in this deal!

You have spent a career building a corporate culture of trust. Your firm ranks highly in every top list of corporate rankings and accolades. Your employee satisfaction scores need some improvement, but overall, you have built a team and culture you are proud of. But are you ready to meet and communicate to a changed workforce when it returns to work?

We are not talking about your social distancing and mask policies here. We are talking about a workforce that is also part of the increasingly vocal American public taking part in fierce on-line debates about COVID-19 and our country’s response to it. Whether through social media or the silent protest of not wearing a mask to the grocery store, your employee base reflects America. Will they return as the generally team-spirited group that left your workplace in early spring, or will they return with the fervor of unionized labor in its heyday?

Let’s be blunt. The employee/employer contract has changed dramatically over the last few decades. We can’t ignore that COVID-19 has likely impacted the contract as well. In a highly charged, risk-filled environment, employees accustomed to “having their say” in the political and social media arenas may very well demand a more decisive role in how you bring them back to work.

What questions should you be asking now? A starter list could include:

• Have we taken steps to engage and understand our employees’ changed attitude post the onset of COVID-19?
• Have we mapped the tactical questions regarding how people return to work? How much is speculation? How fast? What is an enforceable policy and what is merely a guideline?
• Do we return at all or do we develop an ongoing culture of remote work? If we choose to remain apart, how do we keep a one-team culture?
• Have we considered equity issues among employees who must stay home to care for themselves or others and those who could return to a more traditional work environment?
• How do we handle disputes over the wearing of masks? Against our policy? Between co-workers? Have we even formed a policy? Have we thought about whether the question ‘to wear or not to wear?’ is a right or a responsibility to others? Either way, how does that philosophy reflect the company’s brand?
• How will we continue to monitor employee readiness and attitudes towards our safety measures?
• How do we continue to keep employees engaged in their own safety and welfare?

News reports already detail altercations between customers or with employees and security personnel in retail. Your personal social media pages are likely filled with the “open now” factions and the “follow all guidelines” proponents. Dissension, deep opinions, and a willingness to confront issues publicly have grown in our culture. The high stakes health and economic impacts of the COVID-19 crisis have only exacerbated emotion in response. If you think your workforce is immune to seeing a more vocal employee inside your company, you may want to think again.

Do not be seduced by your current culture and your confidence in it. Do not let your CEO be lulled into a false sense of security either, as leadership will turn to you and wonder why you had not been discussing this issue. Begin dialogues today about how to engage a changed workforce. Yes, people still need to work, and the labor market will be tight. None of those things will prohibit a changed workforce from expressing its opinions more freely, unmasked, and unfiltered. Are you prepared for a new type of employee engagement?

We acted quickly and independently to send many of our team members home. Thankfully gallant and brave parts of our workforce remained in place to deliver essential services in healthcare, distribution, groceries, emergency services, and other industries. We thanked them and must continue to do so.

For many however we published the notices to begin to work from home and we dutifully shared tips on the best way to be productive and efficient in a new work from home environment. If we were doing what we should, we sent clear empathetic messages to all our stakeholders that our collective health was the most important thing.

The reality is people largely left willingly. Despite the multitudes of conflicting information at all levels of government, people are smart, and they understood the risks. Now we must ask, are we prepared for them to return? Will they have trust and confidence in our companies and cultures to accept the risk of a return to work?

In short, our greatest challenge as leaders and communicators wasn’t helping people exit the buildings in the beginning of this crisis, it will be building enough confidence for them that it is safe to return. It’s not too early for crisis response teams to be building this plan.

What should we all be considering? Here are some starter thoughts for your planning:

• People will need to return to work but they will want to know it is safe and that companies put the personal safety of every stakeholder first.
• Many large companies were retrenching on distributed workforce concepts prior to the crisis-some may find they liked working from home-what is your approach going forward?
• News reports currently suggest mass screening and testing will need to be widely available before people can return. In the US our testing response has not met demand so far. Will it going forward? Will it differ by geography therefore impacting rates of return for different facilities and locations?
• Workplaces even if “virus-free” may require sanitizing procedures to instill confidence for employees-are supplies readily available now? Will they be in time for your return to work notifications?
• Will external systems that support your employee base be ready such as childcare, eldercare, transportation, and other essential services? These will certainly vary by geography.
• Policies and practices that exist for attendance may need to be reviewed-how will you enforce compliance with a potentially hesitant workforce?
• In the US, governments at the state level are demonstrating autonomy in decision making and there is no clear Federal appetite for orders over guidance-return to work notifications will be just as dependent upon state and local officials as the shelter-in-place orders were.

These are just a few of the questions we need to begin to wrestle with as leaders in corporate crisis response. There are many, many more. We must begin to ask and plan now in order to anticipate our ability to begin to return people to work, to restart economic sectors that have been damaged by the crisis.

What questions are you asking in your crisis response war room? How will you be prepared to communicate them? This will likely be a lumpy process requiring the sound judgement and agility of every critical decision maker at your crisis table.

I’ll dispense with all the adjectives we are using to describe the COVID-19 crisis. You might too. In fact, there are many course corrections communicators should be taking right now to ensure you are maximizing the effectiveness of messaging to all stakeholders. Some of these corrections are tone, some of them are things you should stop, and some of them we should stop forever. Messaging and messaging process must both be examined in this crisis.

Review and Rework Your Editorial Calendar

Every channel you are communicating through should already have an existing editorial calendar. Halt your presses. On LinkedIn alone I have observed content publishers merrily pushing through their business as usual content calendars. Stop! No one is listening to your message about a new product launch, your culture initiative, or some ranking your company received. We’ll get back to those, but for now, you need to be generating new content designed to build confidence, empathy, and support your stakeholders.

Toss Out Old Phrases

Nothing makes me shake my head faster than reading another spokesperson say, “in an abundance of caution we are ….” Let’s use the Coronavirus to put this phrase under a tombstone and never rely upon it again. This crisis demands more. There isn’t enough caution that you can be taking. When lives are at stake, be direct. Be urgent and clear. Declare what you are doing, don’t seem like you are doing something because you are giving us the gift of your thoughtful wisdom. Let’s also bury “corporate speak” and ensure we are using the language of our stakeholders. If your executive’s quote of concern looks like any executive’s quote of concern, it’s time to rethink.

Unify the Communicators

Many communications functions are siloed both within formal communication functions and other functions such as investor relations or marketing. This crisis and every crisis demands unification of effort. Your leadership should be naming a single communications czar reporting to your crisis response team. This isn’t just a big company problem. Even small companies have “many” communicators. A crisis is a time for command and control management. Name a communications commander.

A Tone of Hope and Comfort

A number of national advertisers have begun to do exactly what needs to be done in all communications. These smart communicators are expressing empathy and support from their capabilities, not hawking product. In time, we must return to messages that drive revenue to help drive our economy and the health of our individual enterprises.

Track Your Lessons Now

All the years we spent creating crisis playbooks, seemingly faltered after just the 1st week. Like 9-11, we are living through another period where a failure of imagination has left us unprepared. Our profession demands that we rise in every crisis. It’s not too early to begin to track your lessons learned. We’ll each make some mistakes, but it is our responsibility for future communicators to help improve our ability to respond. We’ll have some real wins, too, that more effectively ensure our stakeholders are confident and secure to the best of our ability.

You’re in the middle of a battle. We all are. Unlike one we have ever encountered. Take a few minutes to ensure you aren’t facing a new enemy with old tools.

Strait Insights 10 Year Anniversary

True: I once ran corporate communications for a global financial services giant that was at one time the fifth most profitable company in the world. We became the best at integrating companies and the communications they required. We handled multiple crisis responses on a global scale. Our communications team was constantly building great talent and did so while reducing the overall cost of our operating platform in a growing company. We were complex business problem solvers, not just press release writers. Bright lights, big city, high stakes, you get the idea.

Also true: I now run my own successful boutique PR and communications firm.

True: I never set out to run my own firm. I left a 28 year large corporate career at the beginning of the financial crisis, the summer Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers blew up. The seas looked very dark in the world. No one was hiring and often recruiters in the communications space had no idea how to handle my non-traditional background.

Also true: In the past ten years I have had dark days professionally and personally. We endured great tragedy in my family during this period. A childhood of stormy crisis steeled me. You can read about resilience all day long but you have to live the challenges of life to really understand it. Building your own firm will teach resilience too.

Not true: My illustrious corporate past opens door after door for me. All I need do is cold call a potential client, or fire off a slick introductory email, and I’m hired sight unseen.

The truth is, in the past 10 years of being on my own, I have not had one cold call converted to new business. I can count on two hands the number of former peers, people I did not know personally, who have found the time to return a courtesy introductory email.

People hire who they know. They will often hire people their colleagues know. They hire larger firms with bigger brands and often less experienced people at higher prices. Your existing network and relationships are everything. Cold calls mean nothing. Arguably, I run one of the most effective and experienced M&A communications consultancies in the US. But my cold call stats won’t demonstrate that.

So what can you learn from my experience if you are starting your own firm?

If you were important before, you aren’t now

When you start your own business, you find out who your corporate friends really are. There are those who will always respect you because of your reputation and your reciprocal relationship; and there are those it seems who were more likely fond of your corporate checkbook or ability to wield influence in the past. The same is true for vendors and external relationships that you no longer pay. It won’t take six months for you to determine where your real allies are. Move on. Invest in those who invest in you.

Colleagues are still trusted colleagues – but probably need reminding

A trusted colleague is in a conference room with ten other people when suddenly the need for an outside resource emerges that includes your exact skill set. Someone other than your friend is quick to the punch with a name or referral. The room moves to the next issue and an opportunity is lost for you. Don’t get mad, get over it. Your trusted colleague is still your trusted colleague. They’re just human and you’ll get lost in their memory banks unless you keep reminding them you’re open for business. Quick emails with relevant articles, tweets, sharing a quote you have in the WSJ. All of these small efforts keep your name blipping on the radar.

Don’t waste time on cold calls

Cold calls are called that for a reason. It can get chilly out there. Pitching your skills and experience to someone who has never heard of you is like standing outside their office window holding a neon “pick me” sign. They don’t know you from anyone. Research and use your network to find introductions to new clients. Even former industry peers are more likely to return an introductory email if it’s made on your behalf by someone they trust. Establish your friends and tend to them, before you need them for something. All that said, I keep doing it. I am stubborn enough to convert just one cold call to new business.

You will never be McKinsey

A senior executive will rarely take the bet to hire a small firm whose principal they do not know, no matter your corporate pedigree. They will hire the brand name over a lone wolf unless, again, someone they trust vouches for you. Find your client base in those you know or in smaller firms that will be more willing to take your experience over a big brand name. While your personal experiences may outweigh those of the principles in a larger competing firm, it’s a very tough slog to sell experienced insights and reduced infrastructure costs over a big brand name. You can still do work at the largest of companies, but it will be work that comes through networking or relationships.

Marketing, websites and social media

Create a website. Create a logo and a nice business card. Maybe create a couple of videos with your viewpoints or approach to the kinds of problems your firm solves. Post on LinkedIn and Tweet with commentary, but don’t spend a lot on marketing. No one who is buying your intellect and experience will find you through a search engine or your website. Someone may check it out, but it’s because they already know about you and want to know more. Create your own PR by writing and getting thought leadership quotes out there.

Don’t worry about creating content when others’ will do

Content is king! Except when it isn’t. Creating content takes time away from developing business. Tough love for you English majors, I know, but trust me on this. Unless you’re a noted author, you’re better off leveraging existing content. Articles, news media, and social media posts are all things you can share with others to let them know you’re keeping up with things that are important to them. Curate thought leadership that reflects your points of view; create it when you feel absolutely compelled. It’s much more efficient. You should of course, pen a few pieces to publish now and then.

If your peers start retiring, know their direct reports

You may be of an age where you’ve noticed more and more of your contemporaries leaving their corporate or agency careers to start consultancies or join boards. As this trend increases, you’ll find that you have fewer first contacts inside companies. Make sure that in every assignment you’re creating relationships with multiple generations of leaders and decision-makers. Your current contacts will get you in the door; the newest leaders will keep it open.

Truth be told: The benefits of running your own shop are well worth the uncertainty and humility you’ll feel when you’re just getting started. Trust in what you know; let those who believe in you be your advocates; and don’t waste your time on dead-end leads or busy work. If you decide to return to a large corporate environment, you’ll have a 100 new cultures to draw from in your experience base. It’s an incredible learning experience! Like me, you will be incredibly thankful for existing colleagues, their referrals, and those new relationships you create along the way. Good luck!