The Communicators Have Spoken: How Companies are Approaching Communications for the 2024 Election
Spoiler alert: It’s messy – and half the crowd hasn’t started planning
The countdown to the 2024 election is here. Even while many of us still have a hangover from the seemingly never-ending 2020 cycle.
At Shallot, election cycles are ingrained in our work. Many of us came of age during a contested 2000 presidential election, worked on a historic 2008 election, and held in-house communications roles during tumultuous 2016 and 2020 elections. And now, we’re helping to advise organizations on how to communicate internally and externally around this one – which almost certainly will be close and divisive.
So, what have we as comms professionals and recovering politicos learned about communicating around elections? Is it best to be out front or fly under the radar? Be vocal about your values and political preferences or keep it super high level and generic? We have our own views, but wanted to get a pulse check on how others are approaching this. That’s why we recently surveyed three dozen communications leaders to understand how they’re thinking about communicating – both internally and externally – around the 2024 election.
A snapshot of who we heard from: Of the three dozen surveyed, 70% represent private companies, 30% public. More than half (57%) have a global workforce, and 43% are just U.S. based. More than half have at least 1,000 employees and span industries. And only 16% of those surveyed have company Political Action Committees (PACs).
Notable findings (and some recommendations)
Decreased internal communication about elections. In the 2020 election, 43% of respondents communicated internally about the election – with most messages encouraging voting and/or respect for differing views. Several leaders noted that they reminded employees that political activity/volunteering needed to happen on personal time and a handful shared details about mental health resources and benefits. Only 24% of respondents did the same in 2022. These messages were all about reminding people to vote.
Overwhelmingly, companies want their communication to come across as nonpartisan. And this makes sense given the constant news coverage about how divided the country is. One respondent explained their approach to communicating about voting and the election: “We'll follow our established precedent. Bi-partisan, reminders about respect and team cohesion.” Another respondent shared that in previous communications, their CEO included messaging about “respect for the democratic process.”
Shared concerns about the aftermath of the election – and what communicating might look like. Several leaders noted concern about what 2024’s outcome might be (or that there might not be a clear outcome). One respondent wrote: “I'm much more concerned about communicating in the aftermath -- what do communications and operating rhythms look like if the environment becomes even more politically unstable, there's regular domestic unrest, incendiary language & polarizing policies, etc.”
Most companies (57%) gave time off to vote but 25% didn’t communicate about it. We’re big proponents of giving employees paid time off to vote, so long as it’s given to all employees (and not just those in corporate roles). But we were surprised that a quarter of companies that gave time off didn’t actually tell employees about this benefit. If you have this as an offering, tell your people!
Half of companies have started planning their election comms approach … and half haven’t. With less than six months until the election, the planners in the group have gotten ahead on this one. Of those who are planning, the core people involved are the heads of legal, comms, HR, and a representative from the CEO’s office. One-fifth of companies (21.6%) are planning content and partnership related to the election – finding election-related news hooks, surveys on policy topics, and looking for ways to plug in one of their employees as an election-related expert.
After January 6th, one-third of companies communicated internally about what happened – only 13% made statements externally. One respondent explained: “The leadership team spoke to the importance of democratic values and fairness. They also used it as an opportunity to share insights on how companies and brands should engage.” This leads us to believe that the link between democratic norms and business hasn’t been made.
The need for clear social policies … but unclear what that looks like. We heard from a dozen respondents that they want to create clear social media policies around posting about politics … but they don’t know what those policies are going to be. Several respondents talked about wanting to create guidelines for employees to post about politics on social media – creating policies to guide broad groups of employees. One company was much more focused on “providing super clear guidelines to execs.”
Companies are concerned about employee activity. Several respondents shared concerns about how much they need to keep an eye on employee groups and/or give guidance on acceptable communication, including a reminder “similar to the general population, we have employees that span the political spectrum.” Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) were mentioned by multiple respondents as areas of focus and concern for them, including “not wanting to cause harm to ERGs or create issues or pain within those groups” and a desire to “bring these groups along.” Separately, one respondent noted that internally, leaders had to assess how to handle an employee who participated in January 6th.
A clear interest in ‘running with the pack.’ Most respondents didn’t want to be leaders – or laggards – in communicating about the election or voting. This topic is especially fraught – with ample opportunity to upset employees, customers, regulators, and more with a misstep. So it makes sense that communications leaders feel most comfortable not standing out by being too loud or too quiet.
So what’s next?
We don’t need to tell you that the election is coming fast. In our conversations with clients and colleagues in the field, here’s where we’re landing on how to approach the fast-moving 2024 electoral train:
Start the conversation now. Convene your tiger teams, run through scenarios, and get clear on how/when/if your leaders will communicate about voting, potential outcomes, and the regulatory landscape. Generally this is best done with a communications, HR, legal, and government relations leader in the room. And we recommend pulling this group together sooner – when decisions can be made soberly, and not influenced by emotions or heated political rhetoric.
Communications should be in the driver’s seat. Yes, you read that right. Communications plays an outsized role in preparing CEOs to carry the message both internally and externally – and model behavior for employees. Comms also has a unique lens into the diverse audiences and stakeholders that organizations may need to engage around the election. And they have enough battle scars to know the risks to communicating too much or too little.
Determine if the election matters to the business and why. Businesses need to first decide whether and why the election is important to them, and then be able to articulate that from the perspective of the business. For example, is sustaining democratic norms critical to the health and predictability of the business environment? Get specific about why the election matters to the business (or not) before you start communicating about it.
Playbooks are your friend. There are only a handful of potential outcomes for the election. Game out each of those scenarios and think about how your company might handle them. The conversation surrounding these playbooks will help form trust and collaboration among teams, and put the organization in a better position to respond (and deal with any unanticipated scenarios, god help us!).
Learn from the past – especially around company policies. There are likely employees around who saw what worked and didn’t work for your company around the election in 2020 – find out those learnings. Similarly, if you offered time off to vote in 2020, do the same in 2024. This is one of those benefits that is hard to claw back – there’s risk of losing employee trust – and only requires giving your employees a couple of hours off to exercise your civic duty. If you decide to provide time off, though, make sure you explain the ins and outs of this benefit. No point in having this as an employee perk, and having it go unused (and not get any credit for it!).
Start internal and work external. If your organization has something to say about the election, tell your people first. This is our thesis on most everything in communications – you don’t want your employees learning your stance on an election or a topic from an outside news source. Instead, start by sharing your perspective on voting, policy positions, etc., with employees. Plus, it’s a good way to pressure test whether a message is landing.