No template: PR for the reopening

By Laurie Stretch

For many Canadian public relations and communications professionals, 2020 will prove to be career-defining. Crisis communications used to be viewed as a sub-discipline of public relations. But since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic nearly two months ago, it’s been trial by fire for all PR people, whether we have formal ICS training or not. We have learned and persevered. Even so, the toughest work in this crisis from a communication perspective is likely yet to come.   

Public health officials are cautiously optimistic that the physical distancing measures are flattening the curve. Provinces including Alberta are beginning to ease the lockdown rules, allowing recreation, school and work life to resume in stages.

The strategic communication challenge of the acute lockdown phase was straightforward. There was one key message (“stay home”) and copy for collateral pieces could be easily templated with standard phrases (“in these difficult times”). A widely circulated video pokes fun at the similarity of the TV ads from big brands. As the death toll mounted in the hardest-hit countries, fear motivated unusually compliant behaviour among most people, even in western democracies where personal freedom is celebrated as a human right.

This gradual reopening, however, is uncharted territory for leaders and communicators. There is little room for error. Warren Buffett famously said, "It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it." If not done well, the COVID-19 recovery risks being your organization’s five minutes. Cargill is one example of a company that has taken costly reputation hits, and Bauer is the counterexample of a company that managed to turn the crisis to its reputational advantage.*

The communications strategies and materials for the reopening phase will not be easily templated, because the situation is so volatile. The right recovery phase communications strategy for your organization will depend on the scenarios and context specific to your organization and its sector.

Below are three strategic considerations to keep in mind as you build and steer the plan for your own organization. For a much deeper dive on this subject, including lots of practical ideas for communicators to implement immediately, I highly recommend the outputs of the Back to the Office project led by Shelly Nowroski. It is particularly applicable to communicators in larger organizations. I like Shelly's approach of convening a diverse group of people so that we can learn from other perspectives and counter our cognitive biases as we work through the next few weeks.  

1. Human safety really IS the priority

“Safety is our top priority” is such a corporate truism that it has become almost a cliché. In a pandemic, though, we have seen human safety become the overriding priority in a new way. Any organization perceived as putting profit ahead of physical and mental wellness risks catastrophic reputation damage. 

From a communication perspective, this means building the true and detailed account demonstrating that your organization is doing more than paying lip-service to safety. Is physical distancing possible in your workplace? If not, can risk be mitigated with masks, gloves, new cleaning protocols, etc.? It also means planning your response in the event of a COVID-19 breakout in your workplace, ensuring that you can truthfully say everything possible was done to avoid transmission.

Other important principles may compete with the paramount safety priority. Privacy, for example, may be difficult to maintain. If someone in your workplace tests positive for the virus, the need to notify others may override the sick person’s right to privacy. The federal Privacy Commissioner has provided guidance on how to reconcile COVID-19 and privacy laws.

Similarly, while progressive organizations try to treat generations equally, COVID-19 proves to be an ageist virus. Recognizing that fact, Quebec's plan to reopen schools states that teachers over 60 years old will be permitted to work from home. Organizations will need to decide whether to ask their younger and healthier employees to carry the load to reduce the greater risk of exposure that faces older employees and those with health conditions.   

Communication and human resources professionals will need to work constructively together to adapt the organization’s policies and protocols to this unique situation. Again, the typical templates do not apply.

2. Build trust and respect emotion

This public health crisis has reinforced the critical role of trust and reputation in strategic communications. Research has exposed feelings of vulnerability in Canadians not seen since wartime. An Angus Reid study in late April showed 66% of Canadians struggling mentally, physically or both. People are fearful for their families, their friends and their finances. They do not feel in control.

The mixed reactions to announcements of reopening show the importance of trust in public institutions as we move forward. Trust in Canada’s mainly female chief public health officers has sparked a new shoe shoe in honour of B.C.’s Dr. Bonnie Henry and demand for a dress featuring the periodic table worn by Alberta’s Dr. Deena Hinshaw. Political commentators are observing that confidence in provincial premiers, high in the early days of the pandemic, is dropping as fear creates doubt about the safety of the reopening strategies. One Alberta poll, from Y Station, states that Premier Jason Kenney's approval rating has dropped to 9% below that of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a highly unusual situation in Alberta politics.

For organizational communications, there are two seemingly contradictory lessons from what we have seen in public trust. First, unless your business is staffed by epidemiologists, defer to the public health officials in all direction to employees, customers and other audiences. Seek out direction relevant to your sector and become a transparent conduit of that direction to your audiences. Avoid cherry-picking only the information that aligns with your personal point of view. Second (here is the contradiction), don’t wait for the precise direction you think you need. The reopening is proving to be far different than the closing. The closing in March was like a light switch. Reopening is more like a dimmer switch. It will be slow, imprecise and uneven. There will be significant discretion given to business in some areas, and none in others. To maintain the trust of your stakeholders, err on the side of caution and use detailed talking points as to the rationale for your organization’s decisions on how to proceed. 

Decisions made for the most rational and sensible reasons can still fall apart when they bump up against a strong emotion such as fear. Fear may not always be rational, but it is always real. In Canada, fear that someone in one’s own household will be infected by COVID-19 peaked at 79% in early April. The discipline of risk communication studies how to respond to emotional audiences. Don’t make the mistake of responding to emotion exclusively with facts, assuming that people with hear the correct information and feel reassured. First, the emotion must be validated. Only then can simple, empathetic messages be heard. To motivate employees or customers to change behaviour as public health officials ease lockdown rules, organizations will first have to make those people feel safe. 

3. Over-communicate

Anxious, nervous people do not listen well, and they cannot retain more than three simple key messages at a time. The U.S. Center for Disease Control has an excellent publication on the psychology of a crisis. The first message heard about a situation will be the most believed, and the credibility of the source is essential. Messages must be repeated many times to sink in.

We can see the impact of simple, repeated messages from public health officials in our daily lives now. Most people have adapted to physical distancing, instinctively stepping away from others on sidewalks and waiting in queues with large gaps outside essential retailers. We are even donning face masks in large numbers. 

Communications material must be plain, simple, free of jargon and platitudes, and repeated through every available medium. The tone should be warm and earnest, with humour used not at all or very judiciously. Your goal is to build confidence that you have a plan and disciplined execution, while retaining flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances. Leaders must be visible, empathetic, and trustworthy, including admitting when they do not have answers and apologizing for mistakes. At the risk of stereotyping, evidence suggests that female leadership styles may be more effective than male in this situation, based on a Forbes magazine analysis which notes that the most successful jurisdictions in battling COVID-19 have women as their top political leaders. 

Forward thinking executives will recognize that effective communication, internally and externally, is as important as the operational decisions. How well decisions are communicated will make all the difference in re-engaging employees in the organization’s brand and purpose. Many companies are struggling financially due to the economic collapse triggered by the pandemic, and public sector organizations may be starved of funding as government dollars are redirected. An effective communications strategy, well executed, will not only make employees feel safe and valued, it will also engage them constructively in getting the organization back on track or pivoting operations as required in the pandemic recovery phase.

Regardless how many months or years it takes to find a cure or vaccine and remove all restrictions on physical interaction, COVID-19 will be transformational for society and workplaces. Leaders of every organization should be asking themselves how they can not only survive COVID-19 but learn from the experience to strengthen what is good, change what has failed, or pivot entirely to adapt to an emerging new world.

*I have no relationship to brands named in this post, and my comments are based only on personal observation, not on data.