Bridging Leadership disconnect in a remote-first workforce.

  • At a glace

    Empowered senior leadership communication establishing new leader’s voice, values, style and character during an incredibly turbulent time in the organisation and globally.

    Streamlined leadership connection between divisions and employees across the EMEA geography resulting in engagement, connection and relationship building increasing leadership visibility overall.

  • The Challenge

    Converse was going through a period of change and transformation, including Organisational and Leadership changes at the highest level.

    At this time, employee survey results highlighted increasing levels of disconnect and a lack of engagement with colleagues, leadership, culture and values across the board.

    All this, whilst the world was closing down globally due to a world pandemic, Covid.

    Our new GM joined the organisation during this time of crisis, fear, disconnect and disengagement.

    The GM and his Leadership Team required a new strategic direction and approach to communications; including company-wide communications and engagement, as well as, ways of working and delivering communications overall.

    Leading through this tumultuous period, building trust, strengthening relationships and connections, and engaging the workforce with our values was essential if culture and health was to be restored.

    Lastly, the company went through a virtual re-organisation and transformation globally, with EMEA led by our GM and Leadership Team.

  • The approach

    The voice and style of any new CEO/GM is crucial to establish during the first 90 Days, “On-boarding” phase & even more paramount during the global pandemic where our GM was unable physically to meet leaders and employees of the organisation.

    I worked incredibly closely with our GM, establishing our relationship, built on trust, to counsel and empower his communication at every moment during his time as GM through many highly sensitive, transformative moments in the company’s evolution.

    It was essential to build our comms around his values to ensure authenticity. How would he consistently communicate his values without them just being words, and how could we communicate his values through his actions and behaviour at every touchpoint?

    Transparency was key, and showing up as a human and a leader was our strategy for success.

    We focused on the psychology of transparency and how this would be communicated verbally and non verbally at all times, ensuring a natural and consistent trickle-down affect through the organisation and his leadership team.

    Our approach was to build trust and ensure employees felt a real connection with him virtually.

    During his first year (global “lockdown”), we virtually established his leadership of the organisation; onboarding him successfully, establishing and communicating his authentic leadership style, TOV and character.

    We articulated his unique leadership language, determining the most impactful way for him to engage with colleagues and other leadership members, planning and articulating his narrative and key messages across internal comms platforms, moments and communications.

  • The results

    A single, unified voice was communicated during this time, where leadership values resonated through the organisation with a PEOPLE FIRST strategy.

    Leadership accountability: monthly leadership agenda shift to include employee-driven priorities every month. The leadership team had to action, report back and then update status every month at the end of the Town Hall meeting to all employees to ensure transparency, leading to an increased attendance to join leadership workshops, seminars, fireside chats, etc.

    Leadership visibility: Survey results highlighted that employees felt connected to the values, felt heard, listened to & connected, for the first time in years, to their teams and the Leadership Team.

    Strategic communication and engaging moments, on an ongoing basis, instilled trust, ensured transparency and delivered consistency and clarity in a compassionate way at every touchpoint.