Wellness programs are expensive and don’t always move the needle. All the more reason why communicating using the language of your business isn’t just a nice upskilling perk to offer — it’s also a way to align your business and wellness strategies across functions. In this session, Ragan’s editorial team will share our research on how organizations are implementing wellness, learning and development and other employee experience initiatives — and offer tips on how to make these cases stronger by framing them around the needs of the business.

Building a sound employee experience strategy requires comms, HR and marketing to work closely together. How can you narrow the gaps in reporting, communication and resource sharing to strengthen these partnerships? In this panel, a trio of Communications, HR and Marketing leaders will share strategies to strengthen cross-departmental ties — and how to develop and deliver on shared goals through collaboration.

You’ll learn:

• Goal setting and alignment: how to think through the lens of other business functions by setting strategic goals and deliverables to consider how they intersect — and diverge — with those of colleagues in HR, marketing and more.
• Polishing process: Workflow and interpersonal communication approaches that minimize the obstacles to effective collaboration.
• Un-siloed team tech: Tried-and-true tips for sharing employee engagement insights across the enterprise.
• Speaking from one voice: Successful approaches for aligning cross-functional goals with your employer brand that acknowledge and communicate your purpose commitments consistently across channels.
• Perfect timing: Content calendar considerations for managing the cadence of campaign and message delivery that allow room for each function’s big push to breathe.
• Bonus - charm offensive: How to make the case to a co-worker or leader who doesn’t understand the value of a holistic, cross-functional employee experience initiative.

Fostering a sense of belonging and inclusion among employees with different working arrangements – whether they are remote, hybrid, dispersed or deskless – often goes smoother in theory than in practice. This interactive session will explore digital strategies for fostering community between coworkers that unites all employees around a shared, people-first culture. In the second half of this interactive session, we’ll construct customized culture charters that set expectations for the employees with their experience at the forefront.

We’ll discuss:

• Everything, everywhere: How to assess and evaluate employee segments and personas to decide what accessibility features should be included in your intranet and employee app to ensure everyone is empowered to communicate and contribute.
• Mindful management: Inclusive approaches for managers to address distance bias, feelings of employee isolation and mental health.
• Exceptional experiences: Innovative virtual event ideas that bring visibility to workers in less recognized roles.
• Culture ‘classics’: The merits of embracing ‘outdated’ tools like snail mail and physical signage to reach frontline workers.
• Interactive - Restarting RTO: Workshopping a culture charter that sets return-to-office expectations while prioritizing morale and culture.

Delicate and personal messages build trust when they are delivered with sensitivity and tact. It’s crucial to train managers in the right way to message their reports during onboarding and benefits elections. In this panel, you’ll discover how comms can help ensure onboarding goes smoothly by preparing managers with the right prompts, talking points and intranet resources, giving them everything they need to build new relationships on a strong foundation.

We’ll explore:

• Resource hubs: How to design a manager-exclusive portal on your intranet with talking points and strategies to ensure a smooth onboarding experience.
• Keeping it consistent: Tips for standardizing onboarding communications to ensure managers provide incoming employees with the necessary training and support to maximize productivity.
• Staying accountable: Strategies for ensuring managers prioritize benefits education and communicate the importance of making timely elections.
• Minding the journey: Approaches to facilitating the right introductions to new coworkers, platforms and projects to avoid meeting fatigue and premature burnout.
• Boosting benefits: Ways to entrust managers with boosting employee engagement by refining the talking points around the hard and soft benefits that make up your Total Rewards.

While Gallup found that 65% of workers consider upskilling a very important factor when looking for a new job, many organizations still struggle to launch learning and development programs that are sustainable and successful. Amid the accelerated need for training around emerging AI tools, communicators can help. In this session, we’ll hear from those who have launched successful upskilling programs by convincing the C-suite of their importance and standardizing rollout strategies across the org chart.

We’ll learn:

• Making the budget case: How to position upskilling as part of your employer brand by highlighting the long-term benefits to growth, productivity and retention.
• Illuminating pathways: Strategies for finding the right lessons, modules and mentors to upskill for each role and career pathway.
• Making time: Approaches that enable managers to help records allocate time for mandatory training.
• Shared experiences: Teaching tips that make group learning and shared development experiences worthwhile.
• AI upskilling: How to train employees on using generative AI and other automation tools that streamline and complement their workflows while empowering them to focus on creativity and strategy.

The 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer found that most people (74%) trust peers and scientists to drive innovation over businesses, CEOs and government leaders. This creates a tremendous opportunity for managers who can build a player-coach relationship with their direct reports to empower their teams to become high-performers. We’ll close out the first day with a look at how communicators can ensure they’re meeting performance expectations and nurturing an innovative, inclusive team at the same time.

We’ll explore:

• High hallmarks: The core elements of high-performance coaching, including cross-functional collaboration and leadership buy-in, and how they reshape management techniques for better employee wellbeing.
• Defining dynamics: Active listening strategies for building a communication foundation with direct reports based on respect and clear workflow collaboration expectations.
• Bringing Balance: How to balance productivity expectations with wellness coaching to create an experiential value add.
• Pushing back: Productive tactics for challenging the assumptions of a manager’s leader with a positive mindset

Developing a successful Town Hall requires a delicate balance between executive messaging and employee engagement. In this session, you’ll learn how one communication leader teased out a compelling narrative to transform dry town halls into dynamic, dialogue-driven experiences that shared stories from teams across the organization – and brought engagement to record highs.

You’ll become an expert at:

• Managing the narrative: Tips for balancing company updates and corporate news alongside stories of under-acknowledged cultural contributions from passionate employees and leaders from across the business.
• Choreographing the event: Distinct presentation styles for different forums and mediums – whether virtual, in-person or hybrid.
• Tuning in: Tech, tools, translation and timing considerations that make your broadcasts accessible to dispersed, global and frontline workers.
• Keeping it natural: Body language best practices for presenting in an open, inviting and approachable manner.
• Quality Q&A: Best practices for determining whether employee questions should be asked live, pre-submitted and anonymous – including how best answer the tricky ones.
• Bonus: AI accessibility hacks for automated translations, captions and recaps.

It’s often said that no internal crisis stays internal for long — but when social or political news opinions threaten to divide your workforce, cross-functional measures can ensure Comms, HR, Legal and leaders alike all minimize the likelihood of negative sentiment, activist employees and attrition. In this session, we’ll look at how one organization worked across functions to coordinate its response, take control of the narrative and speak from a position of solidarity with employees.

You’ll learn:

• Decision-making frameworks: A protocol for evaluating internal and external stakeholder considerations before deciding when and how to take a stand on issues pertaining to the 2024 elections, global conflicts and societal concerns.
• Relevant voices: How to identify and empower the appropriate leader to address the crisis at hand.
• Calming the fire: Strategies for setting expectations of activist employees that minimize risk and lean show your organization’s mission, vision and values aren’t just written on the wall.
• Consulting counsel: Legal considerations for addressing unionization efforts and responding to those who organize.

We’ll wrap up the conference with the top takeaways and wisdom gleaned from the week, with a focus on how you can fortify your employee experience during a time of rapid change.