A word from our CEO on the Covid-19 crisis
Everyone needs reassurance in times of crisis. You included.
But I would urge you to put your stakeholders first. Because your internal and external stakeholders are the ones who will be supporting your organization throughout this crisis and in the months that follow.
Our world has changed almost overnight. Your organization will most likely have to adjust: To new needs, to an economy that has to be rebuilt, to new government policies, to new working conditions for employees, and who knows what else?
As governments announce new initiatives to help businesses, will these measures benefit your organization? Or will the eligibility criteria exclude you?
Those of you working in public affairs and government relations need to act now to maintain a beneficial influence for your organization. You cannot wait until the crisis has passed.
As new legislative measures are adopted to tackle the pandemic, will they work for or against your interests? How will they impact your activities? Can deadlines be negotiated to give you more time to make the necessary changes within your organization?
ROI is becoming a hot topic in public affairs. I believe this return will be felt in a very concrete way in the coming weeks and months. It could be the biggest challenge of your career.
And that’s where things get tricky. How can you increase communications with stakeholders while your team is working remotely or on reduced hours?
Because as we’re all finding out, working remotely is one thing. Doing it efficiently is quite another. Perhaps your team is passing around a spreadsheet containing all stakeholder data and planned engagement activities. But are you certain you’re working with the most recent version, or that you’re adequately protecting confidential information?
There are many reasons to stop using spreadsheets to manage stakeholders – and the current COVID-19 crisis is making these reasons painfully clear. It may be a good time to consider your options.
Your team may not be in its comfort zone. But with a more structured approach, you should be able to effectively target key stakeholders, facilitate collaborative work, manage everyone’s workflows and access information from anywhere so that you’re not suddenly blind-sided.
The goal is to ensure employees can eventually work almost as efficiently as if they were in the office. To get there, you’ll need to clearly define all of your processes – from the most simple and repetitive to the most complex – starting with your strategy and action plan right down to its implementation.
Having a tool to manage these processes will immediately make your team more efficient. At a minimum, you and your team will need software that centralizes your data and makes it accessible from anywhere so that everyone can work efficiently.
Communicating with stakeholders is now a critical function for any organization. A humanitarian crisis like the one we are currently experiencing can only strengthen solidarity; getting your organization involved in this movement is a major but unavoidable challenge.
To those of you who are the voice of your organization, I wish you the best of luck.
Do not hesitate to contact our experts. We’re here to help.
Patrick Gregoire, CEO and Founder, Borealis stakeholder engagement software.
About 15 years ago I decided to create a tool to make it easier for those who spend their days in the field to communicate with their stakeholders. Today, I am proud to support the thousands of stakeholder engagement professionals around the world who use our software – and even more proud to hear about their success in creating trusted relationships with their stakeholders!
