Enjoy complimentary coffee, tea and continental breakfast as you meet your fellow attendees. Sign-in, pick up your materials and enjoy a continental breakfast before we start the day.

Be sure to stop by and visit your sponsors!

Welcome to Strategic Corporate Communications West!

In this fast-paced forum, you'll get to know your fellow peers, their biggest corporate communications challenges, and a few fun facts.

Organizational success, productivity, morale, and retention are all deeply connected to the wellbeing of our workforce. In today's, often remote work environment, effective communication plays a key role in engaging with our staff to foster purpose and belonging. This presentation tells the story of how our communications team uses engagement, leverages communication channels, and delivers inspiration to foster a culture of wellbeing with our 1,000+ staff.

Our Approach:
We connect with our why, our core values and mission and integrate these principles into every communication effort. By emphasizing the importance of employee wellbeing, we foster a sense of connection, purpose and belonging among our employees. This alignment of communication with our overarching goals not only inspires and engages employees, but also helps them connect to the mission and actively participate in creating a culture of wellbeing for themselves and their peers.

Regular and authentic communication is a powerful tool to provide resources and support for employees’ overall health needs. With transparent and accessible communication channels, our team empower employees to seek assistance, access wellness programs, ask questions and have open conversations about their wellbeing concerns.

Our Strategies:

• Engagement: Regular meetings with leaders and experts, storytelling, wellness-focused events and responding to every employee question.
• Multiple Channels: Reaching staff through preferred internal channels like virtual All Hands, intranet, digital signage, events, daily emails and follow up phone calls.
• Inspiration: Crafting messages that inspire, motivate, and recognize staff efforts and collaboration.

The Impact:
Promoting employee wellbeing through regular and clear communication leads to a more engaged, purposeful, and supported workforce.

Communicators yield significant influence to help build transparency and trust within the organization when a leadership change or organizational shift occurs Join Katie Gillespie, Internal Communications Manager at Burns & McDonnell, as she shares effective change management communication strategies, tools and tactics for navigating these changes. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear behind-the-scenes lessons learned from working with C-suite leaders.

Enjoy complimentary coffee, tea, and other refreshments as you network with your peers.

Be sure to stop by and visit your sponsors and be sure to fill out your evaluation forms

We know employee engagement is paramount to a company's success, and that data drives decisions at the top. But what can you do to move the needle *before* you have the metrics to justify the resources? At RailPros, we've seen measurable success leveraging existing tools in creative ways and adding the right tools (at the right times) to scale our program. From working with internal stakeholders to utilizing external visibility, learn how we've increased engagement and improved our comms program.

Key Takeaways:

• Learn how to produce actionable data using disparate sources
• Gain insights on partnering with IT and People Operations to create an internal comms machine
• See how early results and scaling small can impact overall internal and external results

Branding isn’t just for external audience, learn how the importance of internal branding and visual communications can help create more engagement with your internal teams. I would be sharing some of the best practices we’ve put in place internally for strategic communications and how visual communication is vital for creating impactful and compelling messaging with internal teams.

Reservations have been made at several local restaurants.
Don't miss this opportunity to have lunch with your peers at a local San Diego hot spot!

**Everyone is financially responsible for their own lunch.

Diversity, Equity, and Belonging (DEB) is more than just a checklist. It's about fostering a workplace where everyone feels valued, respected, and heard. This interactive workshop goes beyond buzzwords and explores practical strategies to cultivate a genuine sense of belonging through inclusive communication.

Get ready to participate in group discussions, role-playing exercises, and brainstorm strategies for creating inclusive communication practices. This workshop will equip you with the tools to build a more welcoming and representative workplace culture.

Key Takeaways:

• Learn how to identify and address unconscious bias in your communication, ensuring your messages are inclusive and respectful.
• Explore strategies for making your communication channels accessible to a diverse workforce, utilizing tools like text-to-speech, closed captions, and alternative text descriptions.
• Discover methods to amplify diverse voices within your communication, fostering a sense of connection and belonging for everyone.

We see national observances in many facets of our life – from Hispanic Heritage Month to Adopt a Shelter Dog Month to Breast Cancer Awareness Month, organizations have created observances to raise awareness for a variety of causes. Companies are also being creative, think Amazon Prime Day. This session will describe how corporate communicators can take the lead to elevate their brand while addressing industry challenges and celebrating milestones. Using the example of ABBYY’s Intelligent Automation Month, attendees will learn the steps needed to identify a meaningful initiative and how to leverage all areas of the organization – from demand generation to partners to digital marketing – to meet corporate KPIs.

Enjoy complimentary coffee, tea, and other refreshments as you network with your peers.

Be sure to stop by and visit your sponsors!

Employees are increasingly powerful brand ambassadors. This panel discussion will explore how companies can empower their workforce to become advocates for the brand, fostering a culture of authenticity and trust. This panel discussion will equip you with the knowledge and strategies to tap into the power of employee advocacy and amplify your brand message through a trusted network of voices.

Key Takeaways:

• Gather new strategies for fostering a sense of belonging and encouraging employees to become brand champions.
• Explore how to provide employees with the tools and resources they need to authentically communicate the brand message on their own terms.
• Ascertain how to track and measure the success of employee advocacy programs, demonstrating the positive impact on brand reputation and reach.

Don't stop the conversation!
Join us at the lobby bar as you network with your peers and sponsors in the adjacent at the #ALIcomms
Participate in raffles & sign-up for dinner with your peers!

Want to keep the conversation going? Join a group of attendees for dinner at a local San Diego hot spot.

Sign-up at the registration desk or during the networking reception to join a group at tonight's dine-around. Reservations have been made.


**Dutch treat.

Enjoy complimentary coffee, tea and continental breakfast as you network with fellow attendees on this final day.

Together we will recap yesterday's top takeaways and set the stage for this final day of learning.

This session explores how to sustain a company’s commitment to Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility (IDEA) through strategic and business imperatives. The journey toward IDEA begins within—regardless of your industry, these values must resonate internally before they can authentically influence your external work. Staying committed to IDEA requires persistence. However, over the past year, we've seen numerous companies, brands, and executives who once boldly advocated for equality begin to backtrack or fall silent in the face of fear. You may be encountering similar challenges within your own organization. To stand up for what's right, it’s crucial to transform a moral imperative into a business one, reminding stakeholders of the purchasing power of diverse audiences and the cultural richness that defines the U.S.

From this session, attendees will learn:

• The moral and business imperatives for committing to Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility (IDEA)
• Strategies to prioritize IDEA with stakeholders throughout the organization
• Case study examples of companies that have prioritized IDEA through campaigns

To boost engagement with your internal communications, leverage strategies like gamification, recognition, interactive activities, and rewards. These tactics can motivate employees to frequently visit your Intranet site, read your posts, listen to your podcasts, and watch your videos. Additionally, harnessing the power of FOMO (fear of missing out) can be a compelling force to drive participation and interest.

Enjoy complimentary coffee, tea, and other refreshments as you network with your peers.
Be sure to stop by and visit your sponsors and be sure to fill out your evaluation forms.

Dive into a compelling real-world case study and interactive workshop that reveals the secret to driving engagement and brand success through the alignment of communication strategies with core values.

• Lessons learned: leverage the key takeaways from what other brands are doing in this space
• Core value assessment: identify your core values and witness the unlimited storytelling opportunities driven through values
• Tools of the trade: receive tools and tips on how you can implement these session strategies into your communication strategies

As technology continues to advance, so too does the way we communicate. This panel will explore the latest trends and best practices for effective communication in the digital age. From social media to emerging technologies like the Metaverse, we'll discuss how businesses can navigate this evolving landscape and connect with their audiences.

Key Takeaways:

• Understand the latest trends in digital communication.
• Learn effective strategies for reaching and engaging audiences online.
• Explore the challenges and opportunities of communicating in the digital age.