4 ways Airstream turns employee questions into engaging internal content

When Airstream pushed to get a new product to market faster than it usually would, the team hit its deadline. But while leadership knew the situation was a one-off, employees saw it differently, fearing it was a sign of things to come.

Brittany Fullenkamp, internal brand manager at Airstream, told Ragan that these moments can raise questions that can be inspiration for internal content.

“There was a concern that this was going to be the new norm, and that wasn’t the intent,” she said. “That’s where we realized we needed to step in and provide more clarity.”

Fullenkamp said the experience changed how she approaches employee questions. Instead of treating them as one-off inquiries, she now sees them as signals for what internal comms should address next.

“We really try to look at employee questions as an opportunity for communication, not just something to answer individually,” she said. “If multiple people are asking it or trying to make sense of it, that’s usually something we should be addressing more broadly.”

Here’s how Fullenkamp and Airstream turn those questions into internal content campaigns:

1. Build out a repeatable system for listening

Employee questions aren’t content in and of themselves. They’re raw data. But at Airstream, that data is assessed and structured back into the comms ecosystem, aligned with business priorities. That starts with keen employee listening tactics.

“We run an annual engagement survey, but that’s really just the starting point,” Fullenkamp said. “We go through the comments, identify what matters most and then require our directors to choose one to three opportunities to focus on. From there, they build goals around it so it becomes something actionable and not just feedback that sits in a report.”

Fullenkamp’s system forces accountability and creates a steady stream of insight into employee sentiment. Feedback ceases to be a one-time snapshot and instead becomes a pipeline that communicators can act on as new questions come in. When you’re able to string questions together into a cohesive narrative, you’ve got the groundwork for an internal campaign based on employee queries.

“We want to make sure it’s not just, ‘Here’s what we heard,’” Fullenkamp said. “It’s, ‘Here’s what we’re doing about it,’ and that’s tied to specific people and timelines.”

2. Give employees a comfortable avenue to ask questions

Fullenkamp discovered that some of the most enlightening conversations weren’t between employees and communicators. They were between employees and their teammates. That meant Fullenkamp had to change who was doing the listening.

“We ran peer-to-peer sessions led by our associate council, not HR or not leadership,” she said. “It was their peers asking the questions and taking notes. That changed the dynamic completely. People were more open, and we got a much clearer picture of what was actually on their minds.”

That shift unlocked what kind of comms content was possible.

“It gave us insight into what people were actually concerned about, not just what they were comfortable saying in a formal setting,” she added.

3. Focus on what employees need clarified

When questions start to repeat, Fullenkamp focuses on what employees are trying to understand—and what needs clarification. That includes determining how change affects their work.

“We focused on topics that were either very timely, creating the most frustration or affecting the most people,” she said. “There’s always going to be a lot of feedback, but not everything needs the same level of attention. When you start to see the same questions come up across different groups, or you hear that people don’t know what’s happening with something, that’s usually where we step in and say, ‘This needs more communication around it.’”

This filtering process can prove helpful when you’re putting together your messaging priorities.

“Some of the most helpful feedback happens when people say, ‘I don’t know what’s happening with this,’’ Fullenkamp said. “That tells us there’s a gap. It’s not necessarily in the work itself, but in how we’re communicating it. And that’s something we can act on pretty quickly.”

When they’re looking to turn questions into content campaigns, Fullenkamp suggested that communicators can:

• Identify repeat questions that surface in multiple departments
• Flag topics that are sources of confusion in feedback
• Prioritize high-volume issues and topics tied directly to the business for messaging quickly
• Create a list of priorities found in questions when building out your editorial calendar

4. Create and circulate the content that closes the feedback loop

With all the questions and context in hand, Fullenkamp then works to build and share internal content that shows them how their feedback is addressed.

“A lot of what we do is give employees updates on the things they’ve asked about,” Fullenkamp told Ragan. “We want them to be able to see that connection between what they shared and what’s actually happening. Otherwise, it can feel like feedback just goes into a black box.”

Connecting those updates back to employee questions helps people see how their feedback is being used and what’s happening as a result. Over time, this kind of content helps build trust and can even help with talent retention — all with the bonus of engagement with messaging material.

Fullenkamp recommended a few specific kinds of content that can address employee questions:

• “You said, we did” pieces on an intranet platform
• Project status storytelling with videos from leaders
• Ongoing updates that show project progress over time with visuals
• Newsletter updates that feature employee reminders and highlights, including questions of the week alongside answers

“If the employees said in the last survey that they wanted these things, we can then update them via the content on what we’ve done,” she said. “And if something isn’t finished yet, we can still show progress or explain where it stands. That transparency is important because it keeps people engaged in the process.”

Fullenkamp said that employee questions shouldn’t be viewed as a problem, but as a roadmap for content.

“If multiple people are asking for something or trying to make sense of a certain topic, that’s usually something we need to address more broadly,” she told Ragan.

Sean Devlin is an editor at Ragan Communications.