Ford team battles COVID-19 with virus-related communications
The company’s 12-member employee communications team reached out to hundreds of thousands of employees and retirees with a ‘hive’ approach, winning a Grand Prize for ‘Employee Communications Team of the Year’ in Ragan’s 2021 Employee Communications Awards.
Ford Motor Company’s 12-member employee communications team, responsible for all communications that reach Ford’s 187,000 employees globally, had to quickly pivot to address emerging employee and business needs resulting from the pandemic.
The team functions like a hive, holding regular communications, daily meetings, cross functional planning and calls to ensure alignment around priorities. They regularly juggle several strategic goals, including supporting the strategic objectives of the company, listening and responding to employee input and more. Regular “Think” sessions quickly engage cross-functional teams to tackle priority items throughout the year.
Employee engagement data continues to show that publishing “need to know” information has been crucial to delivering a positive employee experience at Ford. As COVID-19 created new challenges for delivering communications to employees—and created an opportunity to elevate trust with employees—Ford’s employee communications team emphasized listening and facilitated a two-way dialogue between executives delivering crucial updates and messages to employees who regularly voiced their needs and concerns.
Employees have recognized the efforts to provide them timely and critical information. 89% say virus-related communications from Ford have been helpful. Employees have also recognized the efforts by executives, with 77% satisfied with the information they receive regarding the state of the company by senior leaders.
