What is meaningful employee engagement to you? And, what happens next? This session will look at people + purpose + platforms + content + connections to ask ourselves why we do internal communications the way we do and can we do better? In a time when change fatigue and change anxiety is through the roof, every communications challenge is an opportunity to break down silos, recognize awesome people who do awesome things every day, and improve employee morale and satisfaction.

During this session, we will talk about:

• Setting emotional internal communications goals
• Unearthing underlying assumptions that may help or hinder your aspirational internal communications vision
• Empowering leadership voices at every level
• Challenging yourself to experiment through an internal mini-campaign

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is the largest public transit system in North America, with more than 70,000 employees across its rail, subway, and bus network. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the train and bus operators, conductors, stations personnel, construction and maintenance teams have been essential to keeping the city running and getting essential first-responders, healthcare, and service workers to their jobs. Reaching the MTA’s remote workforce, who are dispersed across 5 boroughs in New York City and across the Metropolitan Region, is no small task even on a normal day. Grassroots communications played a critical role in ensuring employees were informed about COVID-19 health guidance, workplace safety precautions, and vaccine availability, in order to keep them safe on and off the job and to be able to continue providing essential transportation to New York.

This session will discuss tangible strategies for reaching remote employees, including:

• Making information and resources more accessible
• Leveraging data and science to inform
• Providing peer support to influence

Effective communications strategies begin with understanding your audience. Understanding your audience’s behaviors, needs and wants allows you to develop content that will resonate with employees, whether they are working from home, on the frontline or mobile.

During this session, you will learn:

• The ability to leverage demographic data
• How to conduct simple user persona interviews and create profiles for key job families
• How to create systems maps for key themes from the research and identify leverage points for success
• To use these tools to brief senior leaders and create an evidence-based internal communications strategy for your organization

Hear from a panel of government communications peers who will provide tips and practical advice to tackle your biggest challenges.