Employee Communications 101 Virtual Conference

The way that the workplace operates and communicates changes year after year. Hear the five trends that most impact employees and internal comms, gleaned from Ragan’s 2026 Benchmark Report. Plus, actionable strategies to fold these trends into your organization.

The modern digital workplace is fragmented, yet information must be shared. From Intranets to Slack or Teams, newsletters to Town Halls: all compete for attention. Here’s how you can shift channel management to intentional ecosystem design. Learn about:

• Auditing and Rationalizing Your Channel Mix: How to assess your existing tech stack and how best to determine when one needs to be added.
• Channel Selection for Remote, Deskless, Dispersed and In-Office: What works best for each, and how to build a strategy for multiple personas.
• Newsletter Launches (and When to Sunset): Why email still reigns, and best practices to make sure it’s being read, every time.
• Intranets Designed Around Behavior: How to put employees at the center of your intranet design with detailed journey maps and personas, so you can dramatically improve relevance and engagement.
• Town Halls to Reinforce, not Deliver News: Best practices for live events, including how to use them as a cross-departmental strategy that bridges internal and external storylines.  
• Measuring Message Retention: How to calculate the effectiveness of your unified communication strategy through employee feedback and engagement metrics.

This rapid-fire session, brought to you by a Ragan Training advisor, looks at the KPIs that moves internal comms from nice to have to business driver.

Managers remain the most trusted voice in the organization, but most are undertrained and overwhelmed. Today’s workforce is shifting: employees are being asked to work alongside AI, adapt to constant change and make faster decisions than ever before. This session explores how to build manager comms that work whether you’re hybrid, global, deskless, or fully remote. Learn about: 

• Manager Toolkits: Designing data-informed cascade models, including quick reference guides and talking point templates. 
• Use AI to Share Their Voice: How custom GPTs can take executive talking points and adapt to a manager’s own tone before continuing the cascade.  
• Training New and Skip-Level Managers: How to outline practical steps and timelines for improving managerial performance and achieve measurable outcomes.
• Guiding Upskilling: How to work with managers to identify skill gaps with their direct reports, and the learning and development programs that actually work.  
• Measuring Cascade Effectiveness: KPIs that matter, including message penetration and employee comprehension rates. 

Join a Ragan Training advisor with this quick look at two simple internal AI agents that can prep leaders and streamline content workflows.

Layoffs. AI affecting roles. RTO mandates. Economic uncertainty. The modern communicator must manage complexity in real time. This session provides a blueprint for internal crisis and change messaging in emotionally charged environments. Learn about: 

• Disruption Management: Techniques for communicating transparently, consistently, and at the correct times during the initial phase of change to minimize uncertainty and anxiety.
• Exploration Strategies: Approaches to engage employees, including implementation of surveys, interactive workshops, town halls and discussion panels. 
• Rebuilding Processes: Steps to restore trust and cohesion within the organization post-disruption, starting with reaffirming the company's mission and core values to realign and motivate employees.
• Rapid-Response Templates: Internal holding statements that work, and why it’s important to respond quickly, even if it is just to say details are not yet finalized.  
• Storytelling Through Change: How to communicate the organization's vision and how each employee will play a role, including highlighting training programs and career development paths that arise from the change.

Today’s internal comms leaders shape culture, steer decisions and turn ambiguity into action. Join a senior employee communications leader in this compelling fireside as they unpack how the function can earn respect from executives, and what the next few years demand from teams and talent. 

• Earning (and Keeping) C-suite Trust: How to tie business priorities to P&L realities, develop a strategy to share counterfactuals (“what if we don’t”), and deliver outcomes leaders can cite. 
• Managing Up During Uncertainty: How to coach leadership for tone and stance in half-known situations, set decision thresholds, and create update cadences that reduce rumors. 
• Why Building Trust Is Critical: Learn how to be in the room early to shape decisions and secure resources, and how you can build on c-suite trust to create employee trust in them.  
• New Skills You Need: It’s not just AI, it’s Human Intelligence. Learn how to balance bots with briefs, and the soft skills you need to cultivate on your team.