What you missed at Ragan’s Employee Communications & Culture Conference 2025

Lessons shared and lessons learned.

By Allison Carter
@allisonlcarter
April 14, 2025

Hundreds of communicators took time out of their hectic schedules to come together in Chicago to share, learn and grow. Ragan’s annual Employee Communications & Culture Conference tackled some of the most challenging topics of the day, from change management to rapid political change to information overload.

There were hundreds of learnings from the dozens of speakers. But here are a handful of the top takeaways.

From First 100 Days in your communications role, we learned that you need to be a businessperson in communications, not a communicator in business.
From Clarissa Ilyas with GE Vernova: Keep guiding principles in mind during times of change: trust, modeling behaviors, consistency and feedback.
Similarly, Chick-fil-A and Zeno Group introduced the CARE model of change management: collaborate, ask, recognize and elevate.
We learned from our fireside chat with DeLonzo Rhodes with Dotdash Meredith that learning and development is a business investment and as communicators, we can help champion and measure this investment.
From Kim Olson with Land O’Lakes we learned that if you want to be brought into conversations early, reciprocate by bringing others in. Notice who’s not at the table and call them in and you’ll find the favor returned.
From the culture track, BJ Talley at Gladius Communications taught us that M&A comms are a marathon of sprints to help transition employees and gain leadership buy-in.
When it comes to measurement, Liz Fiorino with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society taught us that sometimes how you present data is as important as the data itself in winning allies.
Regine Nelson with Couchbase told us that with DEI and ESG under fire, we can tweak the terms we use while still ensuring everyone feels welcome and accepted at work.
Mary Beth McCloy, The Goddard School, recommended communicators introduce friendly competitions to drive interest in newsletters. Prizes can be as small as a $10 gift card, but they get audiences interested.
When you have a crisis, understand where you are on that risk continuum. That will speed up decision making and comms, said Pam Goldstein with McDonald’s.
Finally, Jenina Nuñez, chief of staff, Intercontinental at AbbVie, taught us how powerful communications skills are. They can be dimensionalized beyond even the realm of communications and help us to act as powerful advisors to the C-suite.