Halloween

44’s newest recruit Georgia Cooksey is passionate about bats. This Halloween, she thinks it’s time we gave them a voice and help the truth about these mammals come out…

With Halloween around the corner, I’m here to speak up on behalf of one unfairly maligned symbol of the holiday. No, I’m not going to be defending the ethics of Dr Frankenstein, who I’m sure had been an excellent, controversy-free scientist for many years before his most famous experiment.

Instead, I want to talk about bats. And to explore what they can teach us about ensuring we create space in internal comms for authentic stories to be told.

Bats: Halloween’s scary vampire devil birds, or cute, fruit-eating cuddle friends?

Bats are often assumed to be scary, vampiric creatures – depicted with large fangs and associated with evil spirits that many people wish to ward off on 31 October.

In reality, most bats in the UK are actually tiny, mostly eating fruit and insects with no intention of sucking human blood. In fact, this week was Bat Week, an internationally recognised event that raises awareness about the critical role of bats in our environment. So not only fascinating and important creatures, but also, slightly subjectively, incredibly cute. So why do we fear them?

Putting absurdity to one side for a moment, consider the notion of individual bats having a voice, speaking up to share their own stories – and having a platform to do just that. Now you’re probably thinking about bat blogs, podcasts, videos, two-way communication channels, in-person and virtual bat-themed events, which all sound great to me. The outcome: shared knowledge, increased visibility, greater empowerment for bats to be bats.

No fear of change

Now, obviously this wouldn’t be an internal comms blog if we didn’t relate it to a comms challenge. So let’s now apply this to the context of business transformation, or a change programme. The bats could be new colleagues merging with an existing business, or those moving to new departments following a restructure. Without space to share, listen and feed back, falsehoods, perpetuated by fear, can fill that void. Without a voice, these poor cute bats, we mean colleagues, have been wrongly linked to behaviours that are not representative of who they really are!

But it also works the other way. It’s just as important to use your comms channels to create open forums where those with concerns can ask questions without fear of being vilified for saying the wrong thing. It’s about creating a culture of open communication – where no misconception is held unchecked. Good internal comms helps companies reach individual employees in the best way possible, breaking down any barriers between senior management and employees, as well as peers.

In the context of change programmes or business transformation, explaining clearly what is happening, as well as the ‘when’ and ‘why’, helps those affected better understand the company they work for, the employers that run the company and who they’re working with.

And if you take nothing else away from this, just remember that bats are cute and harmless, and we’re lucky to have them!

If you’re looking for a better way of getting to know your employees, and/or want your employees to know you better, our team of internal comms specialists can help – get in touch via our Contact page.

And from all of us at 44, we wish you a very happy Halloween – as long as you remember not to demonise bats!