Becca Bycott’s Post

Huge thanks to Hasbro's CCO Roberta Thomson for sharing some great insights on internal and crisis communications during this conversation with Axios HQ. Some key takeaways I especially appreciated: • Brand isn't just a message or tagline; it's at the heart of your company and how employees experience and express its values and culture. • Internal comms should not be an afterthought, especially as companies navigate employee experience and corporate activism, and the best leaders understand this and know how to use their voice as a critical tool in moving the company forward. • Good KPIs for internal comms tend to be a mix of data and anecdotes, and it's helpful to work in partnership with your HR/People teams to understand how employees receive information. • As companies navigate addressing complex issues like DEI, the channels where they choose to have these conversations matter. Finding the right spaces and times to discuss them with honesty, sensitivity, and integrity is key. Not everyone wants to join a company-wide meeting and suddenly be expected to talk about and address emotionally charged issues in the middle of their work day. • Whatever platform you use for internal communications, opting for two-way dialogue is best and most effective, so employees can have a real conversation with leaders and managers. • It's helpful to take a "situation-dependent" approach to corporate activism: would your silence be noticeably absent if you didn't take a public stance on something? Is what you're saying truly reflective of your company's values? #internalcomms #strategiccommunications #CCO