DAY 1
Join us at 9am for fresh coffee and a chance to catch up with colleagues and make new friends. MORNING (9.30AM-12.50PM): Making the most of good news & managing the bad: communications and crisis planning
Whether you are looking to make the most of good news opportunities or manage a threat to your reputation, great planning is key. In this half-day workshop, you’ll learn how to create an effective communications plan in a format that can be applied to your organisation, a brand or product launch, good news opportunity or a looming crisis. By the end of the session we’ll have covered: - The basics of strategic planning, why it matters and where it fits
- Tips and tricks to make your plans faster to put together and more effective
- The connection between an organisational strategy, business plan, marketing plan, communications plan and a crisis plan
- Keeping it real - making sure your plan fits your organisation’s resources, budget and priorities
- The steps you need to cover for your plan to work
- Getting other people on board
- Keeping your plan alive and useful
- Updates, refreshes and reviews
LUNCH BREAK (12.50-1.30PM) AFTERNOON (1.30-5.30PM): Crisis Management Communications Training
A great plan can make the difference between a crisis…and a CRISIS!
It can help you put in place the steps needed to limit the damage to the reputation of your organisation, brand or product.
However, the real test is how you and your team handle things on the day. As the saying goes, it’s usually not the crisis itself that’s an organisation’s biggest risk - it’s how they handle it.
In this half-day workshop you’ll learn how to spot a crisis, what you need to consider in deciding how to respond, the five things you media statement MUST cover, and the basics of putting together and running a crisis team. By the end of the session we’ll have covered:
- What defines a crisis and how you know you have one
- What to think about when you’re deciding how you’ll respond
- How to get senior managers and leaders on side
- Working with lawyers - balancing the view
- Your five-point crisis response
- Working with stakeholders, staff and partner organisations
- Crisis recovery
- The top ten ways people make things worse
END (4.50PM-5.30PM): Q&A discussion period to end the day.
DAY 2
Join us at 9am for fresh coffee and a chance to catch up with colleagues and make new friends. MORNING (10.00AM-12.50PM): Organisational values - the what, the why and the how
Culture and values are the hottest thing in the world of communications... and for good reason. Smart organisations not only use their brand to shape culture and values, but increasingly, use them to build an authentic brand. Communicators have a great deal to contribute in this area, from finding better ways to articulate and build culture and values, to making sure messaging and action reflect one another.
In this session you’ll learn about the basics of organisational culture and values, why they are so important today, what drives and supports them, and how communicators can play a key role as culture and values champions.
We’ll cover
:
- Why culture and values are so important in business today
- The link between culture, values, staff engagement and productivity
- How to build a great culture and values set
- Getting - and keeping - buy-in at all levels
- Employer and internal communications brands and campaigns - when, how and why?
- Keeping organisational culture alive
- Mergers, acquisitions and other threats to culture
- Some great examples of companies who are killing it, culture-wise
LUNCH BREAK (12.50-1.30PM) AFTERNOON (1.30-5.30PM): Becoming a better internal communicator
All too often, internal communications activity gets left behind in the marketing and PR mix. Sometimes it’s just not seen as our department. At other times, it is relegated to HR, and becomes fragmented and disconnected from the rest of the brand story.
A competitive employment marketplace, the constant need for change management and the recognition of the value of an engaged workforce means strong internal communicators are more in demand than ever.
In this workshop we’ll look at the common systems and processes that sit behind organisations that are successful in this area. We’ll look at why communication with staff matters more than ever, and what the best strategies have in common.
By the end of the day you will have learned:
- what goes into a solid internal communications plan
- how the internal function sits with PR, brand and marketing
- why capturing the employee voice matters so much, and how to do it well
- how to use internal story-telling to connect people with new ideas, show them new ways of doing things, and motivate and champion the behaviour your organisation values
- how to support your managers and leaders with good materials and effective tool kits
- about some of the more exciting and creative ways that companies are using video, social media and the power of people to better connect and engage staff.
END (4.50PM-5.30PM): Q&A discussion period to end the day.
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