Even in this time of the Corona crisis, employees are the most important asset of a brand or organization. You better cherish them and keep them close to you. Employees play a dual role in crisis management: they are the eyes and ears of the brand or the organization and they are also a credible source of information for the environment. Especially in these times when company directors are no longer trusted.

With these six tips you ensure that you keep employees connected and actively used for the brand or organization:

1. Make employees aware of the detection and communication role they fulfill for the organization.
2. Keep employees well connected. Inform them very actively about all developments and measures. Do that before communicating with the outside world. It is they who in practice receive the questions from the environment and they must therefore know what is going on.
3. Make sure employees have the right information to communicate. In practice, they do that anyway, whether they are allowed to or not. So internally distribute the press statements and the social media posts that the organization uses in communication. Then, in addition to providing personal information, they can also share this content with their environment.
4. Have an active conversation with the (middle) managers and your own employees and ask them what their feelings and emotions are and find out what information they lack internally in order to fulfill their communication role properly.
5. Agree an early warning system with employees to pass on signals that they receive from the environment, such as from customers, suppliers and partners. Make sure they know what to do with this and to whom they can pass it on, so that questions and / or complaints are followed up. And use the knowledge available among employees to create solutions.
6. Pay attention to the uncertainty among employees now. They may have questions about the continuity of the organization and their own future. And of course taking care of your own health. Give a lot of personal attention to the people and offer a perspective for action. Especially when they now work from home. Schedule periodic updates to inform and listen to employees.

In short, work on internal communication. Especially now in times of crisis this is indispensable.