Three employee comms nightmares to avoid this spooky season

As the leaves change colors and the days get shorter, the signs are all around us that the Halloween season is approaching. While this is always a fun time to put on your favorite scary movie or wear a spooky costume, internal communications pros, would do well to avoid the following comms nightmares. Thankfully, three brands offer timely examples of internal comms nightmares that can be easily avoided.

Don’t concoct a poisonous channel mix for your message

No one wants to be the bringer of bad news, especially when that news involves people losing their jobs. However, in today’s tough economic climate, layoffs are unfortunately sometimes a reality of business. It should go without saying that there’s a right and a wrong way to deliver undesirable news, but it seems there are still some lessons to be learned about doing things with compassion and grace in messaging.

One especially scary round of layoffs and office closures was undertaken by the membership platform Patreon. In September, the company laid off 17% of its workers. However, the company turned a hairy situation scary when it told employees that if they got a calendar invite after the CEO emailed employees about job cuts, they were affected.