The ongoing attack on Ukraine weighs heavy on hearts and minds around the world, including ours. Many people we know have team members, business partners, or loved ones who have been impacted by this war, facing unprecedented challenges and difficult choices over the past few days.

While business continuity may be a priority for those who rely on products and services, each company, market, employee, and customer may be affected by the current conflict in varying ways, whether directly or indirectly. For communicators and leaders, we encourage empathy and thoughtful consideration across internal and external communications. To support you, we have provided some suggestions below:

• If you have not already, reach out to leaders and employees based in Ukraine and Russia to help ensure their health and well-being. Let them know of your support, ask for ways to help them during this crisis, and follow through. Remind employees of existing resources available to them, such as mental health counsel.
• Evaluate how your partners, vendors, customers, and others may be affected. Reach out to acknowledge the crisis and offer support in ways that make sense for your organization and constituents.
• Seek ways to keep communications open with appropriate channels and cadences to support your contacts in the affected regions.
• Communicate with and engage employees across your organization to acknowledge the conflict and the potential impact on health and well-being. Give people space for their feelings, remind them of well-being resources they can access, and provide specific information about how your organization is affected and what steps you are taking to support people and mitigate business impact. This can be a combination of written communications and/or virtual meetings.
• Evaluate your current internal communications content and cadences to ensure that they are sensitive, streamlined, and current in light of the rapidly evolving situation. While not every communication should be about the conflict, don’t ignore it.
• Holistically review and adjust your external communications plans, including social media posts, email campaigns and mailings, and advertising, to ensure they don’t appear tone deaf to current events. Consider updating campaigns or pausing.
• Review timing, targets, and content for media relations and news initiatives to be sensitive to the current landscape and world focus. Most news cycles and audience attention will be focused on the situation in Ukraine and Russia.

Communications during a crisis is vital. SPI Group stands ready to support our clients with thoughtful communications counsel and implementation. More importantly, we hope for a prompt resolution to the conflict and for peace in Ukraine, Russia, and around the world.

Please contact us if you have any questions or needs we can serve.