CASE STUDY: Ford’s 12-Member Team Engages Staff with Multi-pronged Approach
The employee communications team at Ford reached out to hundreds of thousands of employees and retirees with a ‘hive’ approach.
John Cowan, Editor, Ragan Communications
The COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine fundamentally transformed how businesses communicate with employees.
Ford Motor Company’s 12-member employee communications team, responsible for all communications that reach Ford’s 187,000 employees globally, had to quickly pivot to address emerging employee and business needs resulting from the pandemic.
A hive approach
The team functions like a hive, holding regular communications, daily meetings, cross-functional planning and calls to ensure alignment around priorities.
They regularly juggle several strategic goals:
- Supporting the strategic objectives of the company.
- Listening and responding to employee input through Q&As, online chats, pulse surveys and data
analysis. - Addressing unexpected needs as they arise.
- Evolving the overall employee experience working at Ford.
- Building a coalition of brand ambassadors.