#022 COVID-19 Workplace survey results: Flexibility, Communication, & Culture

The results are in! After our last crossover episode with Michelle and the Revela Group, we sent out a survey for employees' perspective on how they're handling work flexibility during COVID-19. We also asked their thoughts on how their employers are handling remote work, flexibility, and communication during COVID-19.

Beth Trejo, CEO of Chatterkick, and Michelle talk through the results, what they thought was interesting, and how businesses can use this information to better connect with their team during this crazy time.

Read the survey Results

Learn more about Revela

Learn more about Chatterkick

Biggest Takeaways From This Episode

Surprising Survey Takeaway #1: The most important thing to employees is feeling connected to their teammates. While we're working remotely, we miss the water cooler chats, the talks to and from meetings, those social minutes of the day.

Solution: Time to start listening! Have one-on-one conversations.

Connect with each team member over the phone. And have them pick up the phone and connect with their peers too.
Genuinely ask people how they are doing and listen to their answers. Don't try to solve their problems; just hear how they're feeling.
Everyone's circumstances are different. Know everyone has the best intentions; understanding is the first step.
Don't know what to say? Here are some questions you can ask: How are you? Where are you struggling? How can I help? What's one barrier you'd like me to remove? What's going well?

Surprising Survey Takeaway #2: 10% of submissions reported having to go through a massive process if they wanted to go remote before COVID-19. We know that this is going to be a huge shift for these organizations to commit to being innovative and adapt to this new work life.

Solution: Have an honest conversation with decision-makers on what the fears are. There are a ton of studies on the benefits of going remote, but one thing that is SO important is to define flexibility. A lot of the respondents didn't even need to be remote 100% of the time; they just wanted the option every once in a while.

Define flexibility for your organization. What is it, and what is it not?
Are we going to track it? How?
How are we going to communicate it and keep ourselves accountable?
Clarify the organization's perception of flexibility. We all personally perceive flexibility as something different. It's vital to get the organization's expectations clear.

Surprising Survey Takeaway #3: 15% of the respondents were just lonely. This has nothing to do with introverts and extroverts; most people are missing human connection. Call and check in with your team members individually and just chat. It doesn't even need to be about work, connect with them.

Solution: Respondents said that businesses could help make the remote game better by building in some culture time.

Remote happy hours
House Party app
Zoom games
Use Kahoot
Remote Trivia - Chatterkick partnered with a local coffee shop to do a remote team trivia, it was awesome!!
Be silly together - Chatterkick dressed up as Disney characters to brighten up a team member who was bummed about canceling her family Disney trip.

Surprising Survey Takeaway #4: 21% of submissions said they've seen ZERO communication and were totally in the dark on their businesses' stance on what's next for their work environment. Huge red flag!

Solution: It's time to start communicating regularly! Get a 30, 60, 90-day plan together and know that things are going to change. Your team needs to feel like they're in the loop, be transparent with them on what you know and what you don't. Be empathetic to everyone's circumstances.

This is what we're focusing on
This is how we'll help people prioritize
This is how we'll communicate
These are the things that we don't have all of the information on, but we'll share when we do

Transcript

This text below is a straight-up audio transcript of the episode. In our humble opinion, we think the audio podcast sounds much better in its original form. We have not edited the transcription below so there are indeed some grammar errors (some quite funny, in-fact).

So welcome to the show again Michelle.

Thank you Beth.

Yeah, so I'm really excited to go through the survey. If you haven't had a chance, listeners, please feel free to look at the charts and graphs. We have those published. But really if you had to kind of boil things down, Michelle, we asked people about remote working about distractions. What were some of your biggest takeaways?

You know, I would say with the biggest takeaways, the biggest takeaway, and it, it really isn't a surprise as we work with leaders every day, but it's that emotional connection, right? It's being connected with the people we work with. And I think at times we take for granted the, the water cooler chats, the little things, you know, those drive by's and we're coming in in the morning or we're leaving at night and how we are just naturally wired to, you know, to really thrive, to be social. Everyone, I've obviously at different levels of social, but that's something that we need. And the survey itself was, was shouting that, that, you know, people felt, a lot of the people felt that they were able to transition and, you know, go, you know, whether they were already remote or to go remote, wasn't too big of a deal.

Right. Technology not bad. I mean everyone seems pretty good on that. But where that biggest disconnect or that the biggest struggle is, I don't feel connected to people. And then I'd say that the other one is going to be your second one is really going to be, distractions. You know, how, how do I manage it because I'm not used to being here. And there's, you know, it's again, like we talked about last time, it's that wonderful experiment of blending personal and professional lives and getting things done and, and being okay with that flexibility. What does that look like? Because maybe it was eight to five before now, you know, maybe it needs to be a little different. Right? And, and that was, that was something that people were definitely reporting on. So, I would say those are the two, the two biggest takeaways that I noticed. What, what was your thoughts?

You know, I thought one of the things was and again, it wasn't a shock. These are things that make sense because I feel very similar to a lot of them. But I think, you know, the distractions, I have young kids at home, my employees have young kids, I see it every single day and I'm so proud of our team for being able to work through these distractions. But I think what was really interesting to me was that, I think distractions come in so many different forms and I think we need as leaders to empathize with everybody and say like, your distraction isn't necessarily greater than my distraction. Or you know, some people just can't work if their space is in the basement or they feel like they haven't got any fresh air or they haven't moved all day. I think that there's different degrees of that. And I think one of the ways that I've been trying to approach it to myself, cause that's the only thing we can really control, right? Is just trying to be empathetic and understand that everybody's scenarios are a little bit different. And you know, one person with young kids is not equal to the same distractions of the person with the same age of kids, you know, in a different environment. And so, I think that just trying to be understanding of that is the first step.

Yes, I would, I would agree 100%. You know, going back to those one-on-ones and you know, having the conversations about how's it going, what's going well, where are you struggling? Let's, you know, talk through it, you know, show compassion, right? And then show gratitude. Gratitude takes us so far and it really, you know, it's, it's that foundation of that building trust with our team members and showing that you appreciate them and you know, those are those little daily interactions. And unfortunately, if we were in an environment where we were once in a building or you know, in a situation where we're working with people, some of that gratitude just simply naturally occurred. You know, you're walking by, you pass each other, Oh, thanks for that. Or Hey, I really appreciate this. Or well now when we're working remote, we have to purposely like connect, right?

I have to say, Hey, are you available? Or you know, whether, however we're doing that through whatever instant message system we're using on our computer. Setting up the Zoom or calls or whatever and it takes more work. And the interesting component, because I've been a speaker presenter on a couple of recent public groups that I, they brought me in to present. And one of the things that has really been bubbling up in those groups is managers are actually have been more stressed, feel more work overload than the employees. And I know that was brought up right in the survey. And it's because the managers, what used to be really easy to collide, you know, you, it just happened. We had the conversations, we talked and so forth, that was really easy. Now they have to be purposeful. They have to plan for it.

And that stress and pressure and, and people I've been, you know, talking with are, like, I'm on Zoom all day. I don't even get to do my work till night because I'm connected with them. I connect with them on this project, I'm on this, you know, other team. And that's where it's, it's almost looking at, you know, having conversations with our managers in the organization. How are you doing, right? How can you take care of them. And helping them identify what that looks like and how they can be better at planning out, preparing to make sure they are connecting, but also still having realistic time to get some of the things that they have to get done. Because, and it showed in the study, some people said, you know, they just work, doesn't end. They're working way more. Right? And, and I believe I'm guilty. And I believe that it can happen and sometimes it can happen because we were passionate. We love it. Right? But then there are the, no, it's my checklist. It is all those things that I need to get done. And because I was having conversations, I was on Zoom for this, I was on zoom working different time zones. Another biggie.

Yes. Yeah. I definitely, we're very fortunate. We don't have a lot of time zones, but just that alone can add in a huge dynamic, especially if you're global or if you're working with teams across the globe because that's not just a couple hours here and there different. That's a whole disruption and can be very challenging. One thing I was really interested at, so I actually, and again we had a sample size of about 70 individuals, so it wasn't a massive pool but enough to give some really good data. And one of the questions was what was your workplace's stance on remote before COVID-19 only about 30% said that they had the freedom to work remotely when needed. No questions asked ahead of time. And that to me was pretty obvious. But I think the, the businesses that I worry about even worrying about going forward is the 10% that had to go through a massive process if they wanted to remote.

It was such a huge project and I think that they've had to innovate and adapt so quick that the ones that figured it out, even if their employees don't want to go remote, right. But yep. I still think that they want the option. And that's what the survey said is it's not just being remote. I don't think any that wasn't overwhelming of like everybody just wants to work in their pajamas and at home. It's not that, it's just they want that freedom and flexibility and the feeling of remote. So that, you know, they can kind of decide and plan their days. And I think that was something that was interesting to me.

Well. And to follow up on, on that, the one thing I noticed that you guys brought out in the blog was it was what was the biggest frustration when I go into my workspace and it's the commute and some of us, you know, and so when we think about commute, well sometimes you may go into your workspace and then you may need to go back home or back somewhere else because of appointment or whatever it is, and then go back to the workspace and then go back. You know, that driving and we all are thinking, you know, I could be spending my time being more productive versus in my car driving. And, and I know there are people in this Omaha, in the Omaha Metro area. There's people that come in from Lincoln that were coming in from Lincoln every day. We've got a client that drives from West Des Moines to 140th in Omaha every day.

And there is something about a decompress. You can wrap your thoughts, you know, and, and so forth. Because I drive about an hour. When I lived in CharlestonI had worked at Nucor Steel and it was about an hour for me to wrap around where I lived to get back to the mill. But, there was pros and cons, you know, in the sense of how you felt about it. And then once you start getting that freedom, I remember I had my daughter and so then I was at home on maternity leave, but then I was in a little bit of work from home as I gradually kind of came back. And that's when I started having, that was years ago. That's when I started having the, wow, I am losing so much time. There are so many things I could be doing as I'm sitting in this car for an hour. It's, you know, and that showed up as well, that, you know what people that one of the things that, why they liked working from home was because they didn't have to commute.

Right? Yeah. My husband and I were actually talking about this last night and we commute literally 15 minutes. So it's not a long drive and, but one of the things, and I was like, isn't that silly? Like that just seems silly to like, is that important to you? And then we started talking about it and I think the thing that I've noticed the most with that just 15 minutes a day, not so much in the morning, but mainly in the evening is, you know, it's the difference between getting the dinner on the table at six and seven. It's the difference between, you know, just like a little bit of time helps you really catapult the rest of your evening. And we really only have a handful of hours every evening. If you're like me and go to bed really early, it definitely does make difference, you know, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, like you said, it's not just the drive time, it's getting in the door, getting them, you know, it's that process that probably really does make a difference for a lot of people. And I always listen to podcasts drive. So I really always liked that. But I do see the value and the beauty in not having that every single day.

I agree. And I think that goes back to that what the majority of people wanted is a blend, right? I can, and I didn't think, you know, gosh, and you and I've talked about this flexibility and finding flex... What does flexibility in the workplace mean? Because everyone has so many different definitions of it, right? And how do we create a, that people understand that if we're going to be working, if we're going to start having this option, because that has been the interesting thing. As I've been talking to clients, I've got some that never thought they could work, their people could work outside of their office and they actually are having serious conversations. People are not going to have to return if they don't want to ever. Right? Okay, that's, I love that. But let's get a plan in place. What, what? What does it look like? Let's put some structure around it because we want to make sure that we are, you know, creating an environment that people can be successful and not failing. And most importantly, not failing in your eyes because you may think flexibility is one thing and they may think it's something else. And then now we're going to clash and it starts deteriorating that trust and as trust erodes, now other problems started bubbling up and both people probably have really good intentions,

right?

That misunderstanding of how I perceive flexibility versus you and putting that in place. And I know you've done that cause your group has had you know, that flexibility, you know, for awhile and it's what helps make your, helps make your team successful. Right? But,

and we had to just right before COVID. We had to do this or we didn't have to, but we decided to, really lean into that. Just what you were saying because what we were finding, cause we have had a flexibility. We've had a lot of flexibility over the last eight years, but that means something different to every single person. Right? Some people that may mean leaving five minutes early. Other people, that may mean taking a four hour lunch break and it just became a little bit muddy in our communication. We didn't really know what it meant. So we really tried to define and ask the deeper questions, like what does flexibility mean to you? And we didn't want to make it too complicated. We didn't want to overly process it. But I think we really boiled it down to two things and it was trust and accountability.

And if we could blend those two things and everybody understood what those two things meant, then we all, were all on the same page and you know, if we're having problems, we all agreed that we would directly address it head on. And if I felt like someone wasn't working hard enough or not getting the output I needed, I would tell that person. So it wasn't this story I was telling in my head. And those were just a couple of things that we did that I really do think made a big difference. Because half of it's communication, you know, half of flexibility is just telling people when you're available, when you're not, how you're going to be working, what is it?

What still needs to get done, right? Cause work still needs to get done. And that, that happened completely timing wise in a perfect scenario because it really allowed us to go remote quicker and just figure it out because we had all the tools and technologies in place probably faster than others.

Yeah. Well, and after going through, you know, having that conversation and setting some of those systems in place, what would you say you know, as, as the business owner, what would you say was your, their greatest peace of mind that you just, what was that after how you felt after working through all that with your team?

So to me, I really do believe that like, people want, like when they work their best is when they're the happiest, right? Because they're going to care more about your business and they're going to give more effort if they just feel safe and supported. And I first, I think the first step was I really do believe that I had a team of high performers and I didn't have anybody that was like gonna push the barriers. And I think that alone, just gave me a peace of mind because it's like, okay, these people have good intentions. I know that they're just naturally hard workers. So that took away those fears. But I mean I had others, right? Like what ifs or all the things that could go wrong or, how would we know if, I think that question came up a lot, but I do, I think that it has made a difference now we didn't know as an organization that working remote now would look like having family and kids and stress and all of that in the mix.

That is what has been the hardest for my team. And I'm sure so many other people, whether you have older kids or younger kids or your spouse is, you know, trying to do things at the same time and you have a small apartment and you're both trying to be on webinars. I think there's so many barriers that people are just trying to figure out. But I do think that the world in general has just been more forgiving. And I love that. Like if a kid walks in the back of my video screen, I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid that someone else is going to see that I have children home, you know? And I think that just connection relate-ability of just, Hey, I'm trying my best. You're trying your best and you know, we're not going to fake a professional atmosphere. I think that is a huge change from what I've noticed in many different industries.

Yes, I would, I would agree 100% different conversations. You know, with people that, that same, that fear of my kid or my dog or whatever it may be. And people are just becoming more compassionate about, about everyone's scenario. And I think that's one of the things to continue to drive forward and really push is our compassion, how we show we care and those, those individual conversations. And I think we also need to make sure that our, you know, our managers who we're looking at to make sure that they take care of our people, right. That we're taking care of them and that we are, cause one of the things that I had just had this discussion about was it's not just about you taking care of your people, but let's take care of each other. You know, as a, as a team, as a group of leaders in this organization.

How good are we at coming together and checking in on each other because that's, that's where I've noticed people are dropping the ball where that's not happening. And so then you get a little bit silos and it goes back to, you know, when we were all working together, a lot of times we ended up going to lunch or we're in meetings and we're having those, those little conversations before or on the way to a meeting that provides support to each other as peers and helping us work through some of our challenges or some of those difficult conversations. Or how about, you know, how am I going to approach this that we don't have any longer, you know, that the managers don't have. So who's their support because that right now they're taking care of the people and the things and we can get better at it.

Creating some systems, creating some ways that they can connect and making sure that they're prioritizing their health because that emotional stress, when we think about taking care of other people, that is, that is so it could strain you. I mean, just if that emotional piece of it and looking at, okay, how are we taking care of, of that audience? Because they need, they need, they need a little love as well. And that's probably one thing that, that's I would say that's bubbled up that I've noticed in conversations is they're focused on their people, but it's not, it's not cross departments. It's just their team.

And interesting that15% of the barrier people answered. The barriers talked about being lonely. Yes. And I don't think that we think about that all the time. And I mean, other distractions were long days, never stopping working. Distractions. We've talked about staying motivated and energized all day, you know, wifi and other barriers. But I thought that that was interesting of 15%, which I felt like was a lot more than I thought. That were just genuinely lonesome. And I can definitely relate. I am a people person. I love to be around people. And they enter in. I get energized by that. And so sitting in front of a computer all day is like my nightmare. Luckily, we can still have communication, but that's not where I normally spend my time.

I know like the, the all day on Zooms and my husband, I were just talking about this. He's like, because he's in sales, he's out and about. He drives a lot and he's in front of customers taking them out and doing everything. And we both are so in front of people and to be in front of a computer, I mean, it's like, I'll do anything else, do not make me sit in front of a computer. You know, even though we're, we're still kind of, we're still meeting that need of that social connection by using, using Zoom that's still there. And it's, it's definitely one of those things that we have to, we have to look at how are we taking care of people so they can connect. And so they, you know, we don't assume either the individual who maybe you might have defined as, Oh, we've, you know, you can split your team into introverts and extroverts. Your introverts, they want people to, they want, you know, it's just, it's a little different than what maybe the extroverts look like some of those behaviors.

And it's, it's important that we're checking in because again, this isn't just a normal, you know, situation of working from home. There's a lot of other things you know, that are going on that are creating those still stresses that we can't, we have no control over. And they are, you know, we have a large group of people that it's, maybe it's just them possibly too, and it's them and maybe a younger kid. Well, you know, you can only be a quote unquote teacher. A parent for how many hours. I mean we all need some adult interaction. I always said I will never stay home because I need adults. I need adult interaction. I cannot adult all day with children. Looking at that, that, that piece, it's, it's true, it's real. And I know we're seeing it a lot in the media and I think, I think a little bit, it goes back to as we, and I, you and I believe talked about this, the things that we're noticing in commercials.

So for example, whether it was Walmart, Hy-Vee, thanking our nurses, showing gratitude, right? Thanking our employees for the frontline employees coming in. We never saw those commercials until now and we didn't recognize them as heroes in our community. And you know, it's, it goes back to they, you know, they are doing so many positive things and maybe the people that we work with or maybe people on our team, maybe there are people, maybe their family is one of those individuals and maybe they're not living at home right now. Yeah. Cause there's so many different scenarios, especially, you know, you go to some of the hotspots and so forth. They are not coming home because they don't want to cause any possible fear at home. So now they're in maybe in a hotel or whatever by themselves. So, and I know our numbers, people that were doing our survey did not come from many of those environments.

But there's still, there's so many things that create that loneliness and how do we get better at connecting? And that was a question and maybe we hold that for the next, the next time we come back. But you know, kind of thinking about with social media, how do business owners, how do leaders in the organization, how do they utilize social media to help people stay connected and, and better relate to one another. And also it's kind of a marketing as well, right? People can see what's it like to work there even though even during difficult times, right? Because I think our behaviors, how we take care of our people today, shows people, you know, who are we really, right? When it's, it's down, it's stressed, it's, there's a lot of things goin on, a lot of unknown, uncertainty. How are you taking care of your people today and do I want to be a part of your team? And so I've been curious on ideas you have on that and that probably will take us longer to talk about. That one for the next episode. Yeah, definitely think though that you know, one of the questions was talking about how could business leaders help make that remote game better

and the things that are the most important and the things that are probably going to be held under a microscope for your employees is how you make them feel. Right. We talked about that. So as a manager, as a boss, as a, you know, maybe you don't manage anybody, maybe you're just starting your career, pick up the phone and call your coworkers and don't ask them for the latest data reports, ask them how they're doing and then stop. Ask them like, it is something that I don't think we do enough of and I'm guilty of it. I'm sure so many people are guilty of like communicating for needs instead of like, I need this or I need to tell you this, I need this information instead of communicating because you genuinely want to know. And, you know, I think it's easy and it needs to be a phone call.

I really think that phone calls are so important. Shouldn't be a text, shouldn't be a chat, just pick up the phone and call your team. And especially those people that, you know, may be struggling. A couple other tactics I think that came out of this. Most people want culture breaks and they want to connect with people. So simple things I've seen virtual happy hours are fun. There's an app called house party. You can kind of do this game together with your friends and you can use it for work too. Or you can use Zoom or any of the other teleconference items. You know, there's fun like different categories you could have. I we're going to do this for one of our team members. This'll be coming out after we actually do it, but we, she had to cancel her family's trip to Disney, was really bummed.

This is a big thing for her. And so on our next call, we're all gonna dress up just top up of course as Disney characters and just for fun, we're going to use what we have here. It's not going to be anything overly produced. But just to show her that we noticed and you know, I'm sure a lot of businesses, we've had employees had to cancel their weddings and their honeymoons and all these major life events that just really, you know, it bums you out a little bit. So, taking care and showing a little bit of love and something simple like that could make a big difference.

It can 100%. And I think, you know, just looking at the results and that key thing, the whole helping people connect. So, you know, as, as a leader, a couple of things that I think, and I know we've talked about it, but, you know, just a revisit real quick, a couple of things for us to really evaluate. So people feel part of the team and we're meeting, those are basic needs of belonging and so forth. You know, looking at our business and kind of taking a look at why do we exist and how do we do business? How did we do business, right? How are we doing business today, right? And what's different and what were the things that made us successful before? And we, you know, what do we need to do different? So kind of looking at it's your culture, how do we get things done together?

And because this is so extreme, whether it's, some people are still there, some people are not. Or they're all away, you know, whatever that may be. Identify what is our new culture right now because we have this and then there's going to be, who knows how long this will be. And then we've got a new new, right? So, and some people are looking at completely changing design, redesigning their business model for lots of reasons. We also need to design how we get it done, how we get stuff done together. So really looking at the behaviors and which brings in how do we provide that social support for our team members, that connectivity, whether they're here or there and then prioritizing, you know, what are the top three things on how we get things done. And then creating a group, I know some, some companies will call it the center of excellence group, but where you get a group of individuals that really have a connection with your people and they start demonstrating and, and really driving those, those behaviors demonstrating and then pushing them out.

So people start feeling those new behaviors and we start having some accountability, you know, where we point shout outs and in the sense of, Hey I noticed, you know, I noticed about doing this and that really supports, you know, kind of some of the things that we're doing new. So, so people can really wrap their head around what is this new look like and how we're going to behave. Let's be intentional about it versus let's just see what happens. Because as you know, we're noticing people are lonely and we're noticing that people want that connectivity, which is not a surprise at all, but it really stands out more now than it probably ever did as a business. We've got to reevaluate that and put us, put some, a new design in place on how we're going to do business.

Right. And I think communication is so critical to that. So the last kind of point I want to touch on is what workplaces will look like going forward. Like we asked people, what do you think your employer will do and what they're stance on remote work will be like, and about 50% 47% so that they're going to lean in, they think their employees will be leaning into it and figure out how to integrate this into their business in a reasonable way, which I think definitely makes sense. But one of the biggest surprises here, 21% said that there had been zero communication and I'm totally in the dark on if this will change anything and that is a major red flag. If you have not addressed this as a business owner, even if you don't know, I don't think people are looking to try to always have the information accurate.

People know things are changing and it's all about writing the right copy, using the right words, write it down if you don't feel like you can do that in a way verbally, but just let people see the transparency that you are going through and understand there's millions of factors as a business owner, you're trying to weigh on what the future will look like and so it's okay not to know, but you need to tell that I don't know this today, but here is what I know. I know that we're operating remotely. I know I'm considering it. I know that we may consider a portion of the business, but I don't know XYZ. And I think that's really okay. Really important part because transparency and empathy, we've said it before, but it, the businesses that do it well are going to not have problems with recruitment. They're not going to have problems with productions and efficiencies and they're going to trample over their competitors. And it's, it was important in the past. Let's not deny that, but I think this has just showed and exposed businesses that maybe were still operating at a high level but they kind of had that as a mess.

Yeah, no, and it is totally exposing the businesses that really didn't focus on it before. Businesses that did focus on the, on the importance of communication, have been I think adapting it and doing pretty good. But the ones that really didn't prioritize it are, you're really seeing the struggles. And one of the key things in that transparency is it's communication. Communicate ahead of time and often. Town hall meetings get on Zoom, have it recorded for people to have access to it. What is the state of our business? And again, it is that, like you said, this is what I know. This is what I don't know and this is some things we're looking at or we're considering. It's okay that it's gray that it's, you know, it's not totally certain yet, right? Because there's a lot of that going on everywhere. But what do we know and what are we looking at and what it might look different.

And that goes back to that going back to let's look at a 30, 60, 90 day plan. This is what we're focusing on and help people prioritize. Cause the one thing that bubbled up a little bit was motivation. And you know, prioritizing and you have distractions. Well, if you understand what your most important, top three things are that you're working on to get accomplished and by when and how you're communicating and holding yourself accountable, it's easier to have that internal drive and motivation, right? That you're going to get it done. And versus I'm chasing five or six or 12 different things. I think I should do this. I think I should do that. That starts, you know, we're, we're unsure. We start kind of going down that path of our brain starts to go into a threat mode and, and we, we start having to feel like we, we're a little bit of chaos and it actually makes it worse. And that self-talk, it just ripples effects. So communication, hands down, how do we get better at it and, and improve, improve that top down top across however you want to look at it. Yes, most definitely.

Well I think those are some really good takeaways. We talked about the connection of your employees, the transparency, the empathy. These are very core topics for a lot of different businesses. So I would highly recommend taking a look at that survey. Hope you listeners have found a couple of good tips and ideas here and if you're looking for more information about the industries that these respondents were in and the level of seniority, there's a lot more information on our blog. We'll link it up and stay tuned. We're going to do a couple more episodes with Michelle, so thank you. Thank you everybody for tuning in. And Michelle, thank you so much. It was a great conversation.

Thank you. Enjoy the rest of your day.

Social MediaChatterkickMay 19, 2020social media tip, crisis communication, covid19