Crisis communications has never before been more important. This year has proven the value of crisis preparedness and effective communications in challenging circumstances. Reflecting on that, agency Halston Marketing published a whitepaper investigating the Covid-19 crisis to uncover the strategies comms professionals across the UK have implemented in response to the crisis.

The paper, which was created in association with one of the leading association for business communicators IABC UK & Ireland, includes 10 separate accounts from comms professionals working in multinational organisations like PPG, John Lewis & Partners and Axa. Each narrative follows a month-by-month timeline in which experts discuss the strategy they implemented within their business, from the style of messaging to the challenges they faced.

Looking back on the events that began unravelling in early January, global communications lead at Tier One Bank Ann-Marie Blake remembers that as travel restrictions became stricter in January, the comms moved away from business continuity and focus on instructional messaging, such as topics around travel restrictions, wellbeing guidance and where to find information.

In the March timeline Jeremy Albert, operations manager at Tour Operator, says “It was a mixture of trying to keep staff as informed as possible whilst looking after their welfare,” when describing the businesses’ comms messaging. “On the welfare side, it was letting them know the managers were there to support them. It isn’t nice dealing with customers shouting at you and around 40/50 calls waiting in line, so when they are dealing with a problematic call, they can assign it to their manager, helping to take the sting out of those difficult conversations,” he adds.

The whitepaper also explores the mediums that different businesses used to communicate to employees in time of crisis. John Lewis & Partners, for instance, developed a wide range of them, from the hub, which was hosted on the intranet and designed to give all Covid-19 related information to the 80,000 employees, to the feedback form, used to understand how people were interacting with the hub and what features they liked and disliked. A central space, which included virtual exercise classes and partnership awards, was also created, allowing everyone to feel connected while working from home, which

The research also includes a comparative look between the various contributions and how their strategies differed, understanding how reactive they were and when they experienced their peak in output. The contributors also predicted what they expect to see in their future comms stories and messaging over the coming months.