Chances are, the age of “once this is over” is over. Political, economic and social disruptions pile up, and bleed into each other – and, more often than not, we are left with too many scenarios for when and how they might end. How a company navigates endless crises depends, in no small part, on whether its people still want to show up for the one after this – and the one after that. Employee engagement, in other words, is not a fair-weather priority.
Internal communication is a recognised driver of employee engagement – and keeping people engaged through crisis is our challenge. The more prepared we are, the better placed we are to meet it.
I won’t claim to have a ready-made plan for sustaining engagement through prolonged, open-ended disruption. That said, leading communications at a Ukrainian company throughout the full-scale war has given me lessons – and I am ready to share them.
Meaningful leadership
Leadership, one of the core drivers of employee engagement, becomes even more sought during a crisis: people look to their leaders for guidance and reassurance. To resonate, a leader’s narrative must respond to what employees actually need in that moment. And a leader who starts where people actually are earns their attention – and their trust.
Unlike emails or messages on social media, face-to-face or video communication carries non-verbal signals: voice intonation, eye contact, body language that builds emotional connection and trust. The CEO of a Ukrainian company I observed had always communicated with his team directly, including through regular video messages. When the full-scale war began, he did not change that – if anything he intensified it, recording updates daily during the first months of the invasion; speaking candidly about what was happening in the company and in the country; acknowledging the difficulty; sustaining morale through it all. Some videos were recorded from his office, others from production sites – a deliberate signal that he was present wherever his people were.
A leader who shows up – consistently, in person or on screen – sends a signal that goes beyond words: I am here, I am with you. In uncertainty, how a leader shows up matters as much as what they say.
The discipline of listening
Crises do not suspend the need for listening. If anything, they make it more urgent. The ‘Who’s Listening? From Measurement to Meaning’ report by Krais, Pounsford and Ruck – based on a survey of more than 500 communication managers – found that effective listening has a positive impact on employees’ feelings towards their organisation and their willingness to contribute. In times of uncertainty and danger, that impact is precisely what we cannot afford to lose.
In extreme crises, however, familiar listening tools simply may not be available. People are not just working remotely; employees may go without electricity or internet for many hours. Organisations have no choice but to adapt, looking beyond focus groups or large-scale surveys and finding new ways to keep listening alive.
The CEO of a Ukrainian company had always made direct conversations with employees a priority – and when the war started, he did not abandon that practice. Every time an air raid alert sounded, he went to the shelter alongside his people. He used that time to talk with people – and, more importantly, to listen to them. What emerged from those conversations was often surprising: the concerns on employees’ minds were frequently different from what the communications team had assumed. A crisis had closed the usual channels. But it had opened something else.
Listening, even imperfect and improvised, tells people they still matter – and keeps them connected to the organisation when everything else is falling apart.
The management of care
While leaders set the tone, it is managers who are closest to people when it matters most. They have direct, regular contact with their employees, and in a crisis, the human connection this allows – empathy, care, presence – becomes invaluable. Research by The Workforce Institute at UKG found that 69 per cent of employees say their manager influences their mental health more than their doctor or therapist – and as much as their spouse or partner.
In challenging times, when employee mental health becomes more vulnerable, the need and expectation for support from line managers is likely to grow. That means line managers will need additional skills – to provide that support in a way that is safe for themselves and genuinely helpful for their teams.
During the early days of the war, when mobile and internet connections were unreliable, managers from a Ukrainian company visited their employees at home. They spent hours travelling from neighbourhood to neighbourhood, checking that their colleagues were safe and delivering essential information in person. These visits were not about work performance or deadlines. They were about making sure that people were accounted for, cared for and not left to navigate uncertainty alone.
That is what managing through a crisis demands: supporting others while under the same pressure, and staying human when everything around you is moving too fast to feel anything.
The power of consistency
Employees are sensitive to whether their organisation’s actions match its words – and that directly shapes their engagement. According to a Qualtrics survey, employees whose organisation truly lives its values are 27 per cent more likely to be highly engaged.
When safety and stability are at stake, employees’ expectations of their employer grow – and their need for tangible support becomes urgent. I witnessed this first hand. In the first weeks of the full-scale invasion, some of our colleagues lost their homes entirely. Others were left in desperately difficult circumstances. The CEO announced that the company would open an employee support fund – and it did, promptly and with genuine commitment. An employee survey conducted afterwards showed that the company’s reliability was one of the main reasons people stayed – and recommended it as a place to work.
Engagement is built on consistency – between what an organisation says it stands for and what it actually does when it counts.
Crises demand more – of leaders, of managers, of organisations as a whole. What four years of full-scale war have shown me is this: engagement cannot be built under pressure – it grows from what was planted long before.
Oksana Stefanova is a communications and public relations professional specialising in reputation management, internal communications and crisis communication.