Employee Communications & Culture Conference

In this hands-on workshop, you'll explore the AI-powered tools that can streamline your internal messaging, boost engagement, and improve workflow efficiency. With help from an expert instructor, we will learn how to tailor AI-generated content to your organization's voice, optimize performance, and ensure ethical AI usage in the workplace — all while meeting the expectations and objectives of your managers and executive teams. You’ll learn:

• Leading, not following: What AI-driven skillsets are considered table stakes at this point—and what will position you as a leader in your organization.
• AI tools for internal comms: Get tactical, practical instruction in top AI platforms, and discover features that can enhance internal messaging and streamline workflows.
• Tailored AI outputs: Learn prompt strategies that shape AI-generated content to reflect your organization’s voice and culture.
• Next-gen generation: What emerging tools and integrations can revolutionize the way you and your teams work.
• Ethical AI practices: Establish guidelines for ethical AI use in internal communications and address concerns around transparency and policy-making, and learn how to talk about AI ethics to your organization’s leadership.
• Measurable results: Apply AI to track engagement and success in your employee communications, ensuring continuous improvement.

Traditional metrics like open rates and click-through rates no longer suffice to demonstrate the true value of internal communications—you need to speak in ways that MBA’s can understand. This workshop will focus on the new KPIs, why they are critical, and the tools and techniques you can use to effectively measure them. You’ll leave with practical takeaways for creating a metrics-driven comms approach. You’ll discover:

• Identifying key metrics: Learn which KPIs are most significant—such as retention rates, employee engagement scores, and productivity metrics—and how they correlate to business outcomes.
• Behavioral tools for tracking: Explore software and platforms that can help you measure the success of your employee engagement initiatives.
• Demonstrating value to leadership: Strategies to translate complex data into meaningful insights that resonate, highlighting how effective communication contributes to organizational success.
• Linking data to ROI: Methods to quantify the financial impact of your communications initiatives, showing links between improved communication, turnover, and productivity.
• Talk the Talk: How to speak in the language of the C-suite.
• Interactive analysis: Participate in hands-on exercises to build your own measurement framework tailored to your organization’s unique needs.

Communication isn't just a skill—it's a superpower that can help steer organizations through uncharted waters. The most influential internal leaders know how to adapt their messaging to resonate in a shifting landscape. This keynote will uncover how to harness the power of transformative communication to guide both your organization and your career to new heights. By understanding and applying these principles, you'll enhance your ability to influence, inspire, and drive meaningful change. You’ll learn:

• Embrace change: Recognize emerging trends and shifts that impact communication strategies, enabling you to stay ahead in a dynamic environment.
• Transformative messaging: Develop techniques for crafting messages that not only inform but also inspire and mobilize your audience toward collective goals.
• Adaptive communication styles: Learn how to adjust your communication approach to suit different situations and audiences, ensuring your message is effective and impactful.
• Empower through uncertainty: Discover ways to support and motivate your teams during times of change, fostering resilience and a forward-thinking culture.

Growth is good but it can also be a danger to what made your organization special in the first place. This case study focuses on a workplace that has faced a 40% increase in workforce over six years, and the innovative strategies that this company incorporated to maintain their core values and employee culture. You’ll learn how they balanced the human touch in a transforming environment, including:

• Personal touchpoints: Discover how CEO-hosted lunches with small groups fostered intimate connections, encouraged open dialogue, and reinforced company culture.
• Engaging experiences: Get inspired by creative event ideas like cultural festivals, innovation days, and wellness retreats that brought employees together across departments – and how ERGs made them happen. Plus: how event feedback was collected and analyzed to continuously improve initiatives.
• Open dialogues: Why a clear, practical, consistently scheduled town hall strategy was critical to transparency, addressing concerns promptly, and helps to keep employees aligned with organizational goals – plus, how interactive and live Q&As and polls increased employee participation and engagement.
• Hybrid, deskless, and remote harmony: How to tailor messages across platforms like email, instant messaging, and mobile apps to reach different employee groups effectively, incorporate flexible scheduling strategies for events and meetings, and the importance of in-person touchpoints.

Understanding your organization's unique cultural DNA is essential for fostering a thriving work environment and guiding its evolution. By examining your mission, vision, values, and purpose, you can uncover the core elements that make your workplace unique and determine how your organization can evolve over time. In this highly interactive workshop, you'll work in teams to delve deep into your organization's "cultural thumbprint" and explore the tools and levers you can use to influence and improve your company's culture.

• Defining Cultural DNA: Learn how each of the core components (mission, vision, values, and purpose) help inform the beliefs and behaviors of employees, and how it contributes to a unique identity that differentiates your organization from its competitors – plus, a case study on how companies have changed and adapted over time.
• Going global: Discover how a geographically dispersed team can introduce new perspectives, traditions, and communication styles that enrich your organization’s cultural tapestry – plus, best practices for integrating remote voices into decision-making and how to use your tech stack to foster cohesion and unity.
• Building connections: Identify the narrative that connects all stakeholders to your purpose, who belongs to your organizational system and what it takes to belong. 
• Assessment Techniques: Surveys, focus groups, polls, oh my: Methods to assess how well your organization aligns with its cultural DNA, the role of effective communication in transmitting and reinforcing cultural values, and the success factors of a strategic launch.
• Stakeholder Engagement: How to include employees, customers, and partners in the cultural narrative, how collective experiences and rituals strengthen organizational culture, and growth strategies to enhance vitality, foster continuous improvement, and drive evolution and growth.
• Let's get interactive: Working in teams, you will create a cultural map of a fictional organization’s DNA, pinpoint areas to influence and improve, and develop an action plan to enhancing cultural alignment, vitality, and stakeholder connections. You’ll share your findings and plans with the larger group for feedback, inspiration, and collective learning. 

What does it take to foster genuine enjoyment, purpose, and satisfaction in your workplace? This panel brings together communications professionals from companies recognized as the Best Places to Work to share their winning strategies. We'll dive into the metrics they use to measure employee satisfaction and explore actionable insights that can transform your organization's culture and productivity. Learn about: 

• Measuring happiness: Learn about the key metrics and tools these top companies use to assess employee enjoyment, purpose, and satisfaction effectively – and why it’s critical to never rest on your success.
• Cultivating purpose: Discover how aligning individual roles with the company's mission can enhance fulfillment and drive higher performance among employees.
• Engagement initiatives: Real-world examples of successful programs and activities that have boosted employee morale and created a vibrant, engaging workplace culture.
• Communication's role: Why internal communications are critical in promoting transparency, recognition, and a sense of community within the organization.

VMA Group’s latest research reveals a stark reality: 63% of internal communicators say measuring and demonstrating ROI is their biggest challenge. But those who master measurement are transforming this hurdle into leadership opp. Break free from being “just a messenger” and discover how to turn employee comms data into strategic influence. Join us as seasoned internal comms leaders share their battle-tested measurement frameworks and ROI tactics that earned them a seat at the table, equipping you with tools to showcase your value and accelerate your leadership journey. You’ll learn:

• Measurement mastery: How to build a framework based on AMEC’s Barcelona Principles—plus, the exact KPIs our panelists use to demonstrate employee comms ROI to leadership.
• Content that converts: What others are doing to conduct content audits that identify engagement gaps and optimize employee comms cascades with measurable results
• Data that delivers: Proven methods for connecting comms metrics to business outcomes, from productivity gains to retention rates, with real case examples.
• Business intelligence: Tips to help you transform your comms data into business insights that matter to the C-suite, featuring actual examples of metrics that secured bigger budgets
• Dashboard design: How to create executive-ready data visualizations that consistently win leadership support—based on tested templates and calculation methods.

Exclusive insights from the 2025 Ragan Communications Leadership Council’s Benchmark Report will be shared, paint a picture of communicators at the center of some of the most important conversations shaping the future of their organizations.

Join us for an illuminating fireside chat between a CEO and their Chief Communications Officer as they explore the pivotal synergy between leadership and communication. They'll share firsthand insights on how their partnership navigates challenges, drives organizational vision, and shapes the company culture from the top down.

According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, employees are more than reputation spectators—they’re shaping employer brands for better or worse every day. Yet most organizations struggle to harness these authentic voices effectively. In this PR-meets-Internal Comms session, you’ll learn how Coca-Cola Southwest Beverages puts their employees first in advertising and by doing so shares their company culture in an organic and authentic way. You’ll leave inspired by a discussion on how to tap into your number one resource—employees—and transform them into brand champions who help attract top talent. What you’ll experience:

• Under the Cap case study: How promoting employees in a behind-the-scenes series of humorous, heartwarming and inspiring videos helped increase applications to the bottling facility.
• Program architecture: The four pillars of successful advocacy programs—from ambassador selection and training to content creation and measurement.
• Content strategy: How to blend employer brand messaging with employee-generated content across platforms, including specific guidelines for LinkedIn.
• Ambassador activation: How to recruit, train and motivate ambassadors using recognition programs, content calendars and engagement metrics to sustain momentum.
• Measurement frameworks: Specific KPIs for tracking advocacy impact, from social reach and engagement to recruitment cost savings and offer acceptance rates.

Our final facilitated peer-to-peer session will have you work in teams to create a hands-on town hall makeover. You’ll transform a lackluster town hall agenda into a dynamic plan with guidance from our facilitator on the four-part framework (examining format and flow, speaker selection, features for digital blinders and interactivity, and more) for town hall success. You’ll leave with practical strategies to revolutionize your next company-wide gathering.