Learning is shifting but are your learning comms shifting?

Currently the messaging is: hands, face, space.

Previously it was: Stay alert, control the virus, save lives and Stay home, protect the NHS, save lives.

Whatever you think of the government’s messaging around the Covid-19 pandemic, it has tried to update it in line with how the virus is impacting on the country and what that means for how we conduct ourselves.

These are extraordinary times in which so much has happened, and continues to happen, very quickly. And that sets the context for communications, as we discussed in a previous piece on Communicating the changing role of corporate learning.

So, if as a learning vendor or in-house learning team, you were to take a look at how your messaging has changed over the last eight months, what would you see?

Much of it would have been crisis communications – helping and guiding people to what they needed as work shifted to home and the challenges of home work and Covid became apparent (serving well being resources, for example).

Beyond the crisis communications, what have you communicated to reflect how what you do for customers and employees/stakeholders has changed? There is much to talk about if what you provide has changed as a result of working from home.

But this isn’t only about communicating what you do – e.g. new products and services. It is about communicating your vision and value (the why, how and who for) because everything else you communicate relates to this.

Your vision and value must reflect the customer and employee experience of what you do and provide for them. Ask them to tell you in their own words what you do for them, why it is useful, what difference it makes and the impact it has. These insights will help you create cut-through communications that connect you with your customers and employees.

And don’t see this as a one-off exercise. It isn’t. Ensure you have regular dialogue with customers and employees so that your communications remain relevant and useful.