Life after lockdown

We’re all soon going to be on a path out of lockdown, but things will look remarkably different to how they were before. 44 Communications is here to help as you adapt to the new normal and embark upon ‘Life After Lockdown’.

What happens now? That’s the question on everyone’s minds as lockdown restrictions are eased.

As businesses emerge from an enforced hibernation and begin to bring furloughed functions and employees back online, it’s not enough to go back to BAU and hope to wait it out until things can back to the way they were. We are living in the new normal.

The new normal

Following the Prime Minister’s announcement on Sunday 10 May and the subsequent guidance document, businesses are being encouraged to bring employees (where possible to do so while following social distancing) safely back to work.

It’s left some feeling confused, trying to determine what is and isn’t allowed at any given point on the new COVID-19 alert scale.

It’s also meant that people who may have been isolating or working from home could be returning to offices and workplaces that look similar but different to those which they left nearly two months ago.

Life After Lockdown

We have heard a lot of people asking what falls between crisis communications and business as usual? For us, that’s ‘Life After Lockdown’.

It’s a world where communications between business and its employees becomes even more important. It’s the point where the lessons learned from our crisis communications have to be heeded and developed to fulfil vital functions in this strange hinterland post-crisis and pre-recovery.

If we consider lockdown to be the (relatively) short, sharp shock to the system that knocked BAU out of the window, ‘Life After Lockdown’ is the rehabilitation period where we need to synthesise what we learned and deliver a new, bespoke strategy that ensures our clients’ internal communications become an invaluable resource to navigate their employees through this unprecedented period.

Resources to help you through

At 44 Communications, we’ve been helping our clients to keep their people informed and engaged during the lockdown. For example, that’s meant moving quickly to create a suite of effective communication materials for both office and production work areas.

We’ve also pulled together some vital resources on our website that could help spark ideas. These have been created by our own team and other thought-leaders in the industry.

Tom has extensive experience of working on crisis communications strategy, here he looks at what lessons he and our clients have learned so far.

Amie, one of our content experts, has been exploring the relationship between language and wellbeing, and what role internal communications has in helping us cope with the current situation.

Many businesses will be faced with the decision to either bring people back to the office, or keep them working from home. 44’s Senior Editor Bryan has put together a fabulous guide to staying productive and healthy when WFH, which he’s produced in collaboration with a number of our clients’ employees.

We’ve also been closely following the IoIC’s Coronavirus Advice Centre, which is proving to be a vital resource during this period. The curated content is well worth your time, but we think this selection is a great jumping-off point if you’re wondering where to start:

Get in touch if you have any questions about how we can help you navigate post-lockdown life and adapt your internal communications strategy to reflect the new normal.