Navigating Current Events at Work for Health Tech Companies

Over recent years, employees - especially those earlier in their careers - have shifted their expectations of their employers. When current events impact different communities - from Supreme Court rulings and natural disasters to hate crimes, international violence, and upcoming elections -  employees have begun to expect their employers to ‘take a stand.’ 

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Employers have struggled with how to balance their comms strategy, their brand reputation, vocal employees, and staying focused on achieving company goals.

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It’s not just your company, this is normal

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With so much going on in the world, it's common for employees to have strong emotional or political reactions they feel compelled to bring to work. While some companies have taken the Coinbase approach to internal discussion, this might be harder to do at healthcare companies. By definition, healthcare companies are mission-driven and tend to attract more mission-driven people. Having a thoughtful communications approach will not only help protect your business, it will help reduce distractions for employees.

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Establishing (or resetting) your comms strategy

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You may be wondering when or how your company needs to engage in the issues of the day, or your company may have a history of addressing issues and you’re looking to reset your strategy. Either way, we recommend thinking about your approach to comms in advance and having a plan, so when the next event happens that captures the attention of your team, you can handle it objectively and consistently.  Start by aligning your strategy around a few principles:

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• Ground your decision-making in your mission, values, and commercial interests

• Move fast, and with care

• Be consistent in your approach across similar types of incidents

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Create a framework

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Consider creating a custom framework that asks you to think through whether/how much a current event impacts your company, employees, and industry. This will help your small group of decision makers (Founder/CEO, Sales leader, Marketing leader, HR leader, for example) to make sure that different audiences and stakeholders are represented well in these decisions. Here's an example of a framework to start, but make sure to adjust your own framework as it best suits your business.

If your company has historically addressed many issues and you are looking to switch course, it can feel tricky to reset expectations with your team. That's another reason why having an established framework can be beneficial to reorient your company around your new direction. Be clear about all the factors your business must consider, who the decision makers are that will use this framework, and ensure the team that the issues that most affect your business won’t be ignored.

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Acknowledgement goes a long way

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When deciding whether to wade into a topic, there are always several factors for a company to consider, not least of which is your own team. As employee interest in a current event increases, we have found that simple acknowledgement tends to go a long way in reducing noise and distraction. For example, during the outbreak of the crisis in the Middle East, we recommended to our partner companies that many of their employees may be feeling complex emotions and it could be valuable to send a message to their teams — either from the CEO or Head of People — emphasizing to their teams to lead with empathy in conversations and to be sensitive to other points of view.

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Some topics should only need one message to your entire team. Other topics might require more clinical nuance, and you’ll want to consider whether your clinical team and your corporate team get slightly different variations of your message. Examples might include headlines related to clinical science, access to health care, or a pandemic.

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Reach out for support 

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This is challenging work, always. That's why we provide our partner companies with the support they need to navigate current events, even if it's another pair of eyes before hitting send. Ideally your investors can provide this same level of guidance, but it can also be valuable to build relationships with peers so you can reach out for support when you need it.

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