I love my job. As part of my role at Intactic, I have the luxury of presenting at and facilitating big conferences and events all over the world. Last week, I ran a conference with my fellow internal strategic communications and HR folks from some really cool companies including Lyft, Popeye’s, Levi Strauss & Co., Williams-Sonoma, AbbVie and many others. The focus of the conference was Strategic Internal Communications and Employee Engagement and the agenda was packed full of great content.
But considering that we were within the first two weeks of our new U.S. president taking office, and the dramatic political dialogue happening outside our conference room walls, I felt a strong professional duty to have a conversation that was not on the original agenda.
How do we, as professional communicators, provide guidance to our leaders about how the current political climate is creating a distraction for employees and impacting current levels of performance, productivity and employee engagement?