Red Havas’ CEO: ‘Optimism needs to be felt’

It’s crucial for organizations to have a detailed and realistic plan for how they will recover from this current crisis.

It is unlikely that health authorities and financial institutions will be able to flip a switch sometime this summer and everything will go back to normal. Instead, we may be looking a t a long process of incremental improvement as consumers feel more comfortable leaving their houses and businesses slowly come back to life.

In the meantime, employees need to hear from you. They need to know you’ve made their health and safety your top priority and they need to have some optimism about the future.

We spoke with James Wright, CEO of Red Havas, to get his insights on the messages you should be sharing with your stakeholders right now and how you can plan your recovery.

Here’s what he had to say:

PR Daily: What’s a message that every employee needs to hear during the current crisis? Are there messages they are getting that they don’t need?

Wright: Communicating regularly, clearly, openly and reassuringly is important.

Right now, difficult decisions need to be made, and in the future harder decisions may need to be made. Whatever they are, your people need to feel respected and dealt with honestly, transparently and with compassion.