What employees need when everything around them is changing

A brand-new employee might spend their first few days on the job trying to make sense of the avalanche of information in front of them. At the same company, an employee with years of tenure might wonder what AI is going to mean for their role. For both sets of people, employees and managers need to be front and center to give them information that’ll help make their employee experience better.

This task falls to communicators, ranging from the greenest coordinator to the chief communications officer. Ragan’s Employee Experience Conference, held in Nashville August 3-5, a variety of CCOs and other top comms leaders show how they’re tackling these issues.

Here’s a preview of how these critical topics are being handled from the top down.

Human skills matter even more in an AI-centric workplace

Amid the rise in AI usage in the workplace, it’s natural to wonder about the role of skills like good communication and person-to-person connection will play in the years ahead. Dr. Sidney M. Savion, vice chancellor for people, culture and belonging at Vanderbilt University, explores why the human response to workplace disruptions hasn’t changed all that much, even as the technologies have. She’ll also explore how leaders can help employees work through uncertainty and build the confidence to see where their skills still fit on the job.

Getting onboarding comms right from the start

When you step into a new job, the sheer amount of information you receive from your new organization can be overwhelming if it’s not communicated with intent.

Bonita Brodt, chief communications and brand officer at the University of Vermont Health, will speak about how communicators can design a 90-day onboarding journey to ensure incoming employees succeed in their roles from the first day. She’ll discuss:

• Identifying the key points in an onboarding journey where trust is built through clear communication.
• Translating company goals from leadership into actionable steps that employees understand through the lens of their team.
• Involving managers in the onboarding process and how to equip them with the tools they need to manage and guide new reports.

Turning data into storytelling

Employee experience can’t function in a vacuum. It needs to be tied to the business aims of the organization, and communicators need to be able to interpret employee experience data to help their leaders weave a narrative. Veronica Blankenship, chief people and communications officer at Talking Rain Beverage Company, will share how to ensure employee experience data makes sense within the lens of the business. Among the things she’s learned:

• How to put together an employee experience scorecard and decide which metrics belong on one.
• How one organization measured the right touchpoints along their employee experience journey.
• How to present an employee experience scorecard in a way that emphasizes the importance of data that reinforces trust and employee retention.

Making AI’s impacts resonate with your employees

Communicators need to know how to talk about AI adoption in a way that helps employees approach automation with an understanding of the technology and without fear. Samantha Stark, founder and chief strategist at Phuysion, and Ed Mayer, corporate vice president of corporate communications strategy at New York Life, will discuss how AI comms rollouts can fall flat when they’re not approached correctly. Among their strategies for success:

• Communicating about AI-related changes in a way that focuses on the changes at hand for employees.
• Figuring out where AI can help employee workflows and talk about them clearly.
• An in-depth exploration of real use cases of AI rollouts, including one at IBM, and a discussion about the lessons learned can help involve AI in employee support initiatives.

To register for Ragan’s Employee Experience Conference, click here.

Sean Devlin is an editor at Ragan Communications. You can connect with him on LinkedIn here.