As a people leader, your relationships with team members and across your organization always are critical to fostering workplace culture, overcoming challenges, supporting employees and driving business continuity. More so during times of division.

And to do those things in what has been – and will continue to be – a disruptive 2024, you will benefit from not only taking a thoughtful and nuanced approach to sharing information but also listening.

As employees look to you for guidance, here are three recommendations to help ensure you harness the power of listening to navigate potential workplace division and maintain business continuity.

Also, check out our full guidance for people leaders, including actionable tips and real-life scenarios you may encounter, to help you effectively manage your teams throughout this divisive year.

#1: Sharpen Your Active Listening Skills

Right now, it’s essential that you work to understand what and how your team members are thinking and feeling by proactively checking in with them and asking what support they need.

Also, as a people leader, a worse offense than failing to check in with employees is failing to pay attention when you do, so be sure you show your people you care and are actively supporting them.  

#2: Be Prepared and Be Agile

While it’s important that you better understand how your team is thinking and feeling, it’s equally important you understand how to maintain control of conversations.

To help navigate difficult conversations, savvy communicators do the following:

Address the negative

Redirect the sensitive

Halt the inappropriate

While off-limits topics will depend on the organization’s policies, team culture, personal relationships and other factors, it’s generally safe to say people leaders should not engage in combative conversations about contentious political topics or allow those discussions to continue when observed.

#3: Look for the Best   

Being able to thoughtfully and appropriately respond to the situations described in our full guidance can drive business continuity and team cohesion throughout rocky periods. But you must not forget to also actively listen and search for opportunities to reinforce the things that are going well and the need for continued collaboration, respect and support among your team.

Most importantly, if you want to drive positive change among your team: walk the talk, lead by example and model the behaviors you want to see in others. View our guidance on how to best lead your team through a turbulent year, here.

FleishmanHillard’s Talent + Transformation team delivers business outcomes at the intersection of business and communications strategy. For more than three decades, we have helped industry-leading organizations align their employees behind their most essential business needs, including strategy, culture, transformation, and critical business and functional initiatives.

As the influencer marketing industry has more than doubled since 2019, influencer rates are increasing too, and new ways of monetizing influence continue to make it a lucrative business. While the influencer marketing industry is not immune to inflation, we must ask ourselves what value are we getting in return for higher rates? If demand is driving influencer rates up, is the investment proportionally driving higher business impact?

Here are three ways to determine an appropriate investment in influencer marketing. Start with data. Do the math. Incentivize performance.

1. Always start with the data

Utilize audience data and historical performance insights to evaluate the potential impact of an influencer partnership, rather than starting from vanity metrics or media kits.

There is no universal model for calculating influencer rates, which means rates shared in media kits are often based on what an influencer thinks a brand will pay. We know what one brand constitutes as value may differ to another. Therefore, there is no one-size-fits-all to sponsored rates.

What is most valuable to you? Is it the influencer’s reach or their audience’s propensity to hear your message? Is it the influencer’s likeness or their connection to their audience?

Think about your objective and evaluate potential impact based on universal KPIs. If your objective is consideration, utilize engagement rate and view-thru-rate KPIs to evaluate which influencers will provide the most value. Is their engagement rate above or below average? Do their Reel video views surpass their follow count? If an influencer exceeds your benchmarks, they will provide more value, which warrants a higher rate than those who do not. Conversely, if an influencer’s performance metrics are below benchmark, consider that when determining what rate is appropriate.

2) Do the math.

There is no single measure of impact. To fully assess the tangible return on your influencer investment, you must look at the full funnel and consider your objectives.

That means in addition to performance metrics like reach rate, view-thru-rate and engagement rate, evaluate impact by incorporating cost-pers (cost per thousand impressions, cost per video view and cost per engagement). When you pair performance metrics like engagement rate with impact metrics like cost-per-engagement it helps contextualize the campaign performance and tell a story that maps back to the business objective. Cost-pers help stakeholders understand the impact of influence within the full marketing mix.

However, influencer cost-per metrics shouldn’t be evaluated alone or compared directly to paid advertising cost-pers. The influencer’s reach is more valuable based on their trust and credibility with followers, so create unique influencer benchmarks rather than forcing their analysis against advertising cost-pers.

Beyond measuring campaign impact, these metrics are also helpful in identifying optimizations and opportunities to adjust your influencer marketing approach to drive impact effectively and efficiently.

3) Incentivize performance.

Don’t rely on sponsored rates alone to compensate your influencer partners. Affiliate marketing is a great way for brands to track and ensure ROI, while also ensuring influencer compensation is aligned with the business impact the influencer drives, not just their deliverables. However, affiliate is not the only answer.

Just as influencer rates are not one-size-fits-all, neither are compensation models. Each campaign and influencer partnership deserves a unique value exchange.

Paid Amplification Pay Out: Make compensation for paid usage rights dependent on content performance and use. In lieu of paying upfront for paid usage, wait until the content is live to determine if it should be leveraged in paid or not based on organic performance and content quality. Only if the content is utilized in paid will the influencer be paid the incremental usage fee.

Earned Media Pay Out: Similar to above, in lieu of paying the influencer upfront for name and likeness use, negotiate an incremental dollar amount the influencer will receive based on the number of interviews completed to support earned media.

Product Collaboration: When working with a brand ambassador on a product collaboration, ensure the compensation model is hybrid and partially dependent on the collaboration’s success. A partial amount of the influencer’s payment can be determined based on sales or conversion.

KPI Affiliate Model: Don’t limit affiliate to e-commerce. Consider using an affiliate model to pay influencers based on a range of KPIs including, but not limited to, website visitors, lead generation or other measurable actions.

The influencer landscape will continue to evolve, and rates will likely continue to increase. While industry growth provides more opportunities for brands and influencers alike, it also requires brands to be more intentional with their investments. Ensure your investment generates impact with audience-first, data-driven strategy and intelligence. Always start with data. Do the math. Incentivize performance.

In today’s fast-paced business environment, crises are no longer exceptional events but a constant reality that organizations must prepare to face. As a strategic communication expert with over 25 years of experience, I developed a comprehensive framework for crisis response alongside my colleagues at FleishmanHillard Korea: the 4 x 20 Strategy. This approach categorizes crises into four main types and offers 20 specific response strategies for each type.

Understanding the Four Types of Crises

Legal Responsibility: These situations likely involve the organization bearing legal responsibility for the incident in question, such as accidents caused by employee negligence, product defects or secondary incidents occurring while addressing the initial problem.

Moral Responsibility: Here, although there may not be legal responsibilities, there is a moral obligation to respond, influenced by cultural values or local business customs. This is particularly important in many Asian cultures, where the social responsibility of a business is highly valued.

Internal Mistakes: These crises stem from internal errors that do not necessarily lead to legal or moral responsibilities but can result in financial losses and damage to the organization’s reputation. Examples include failed investments, production delays due to mismanagement or loss of competitiveness due to outdated technology.

External Threat Crises: These situations arise where the organization bears no legal or moral responsibility and there are no significant internal mistakes. Examples include malicious rumors, fake news or unjustified regulatory actions that threaten the organization’s normal economic activities.

Key Principles of the 4 x 20 Strategy

Rapid Identification: The strategy provides a framework for quickly identifying the type of crisis, enabling quicker responses.

Stakeholder Perspective: Effective communication and engagement with relevant stakeholders are crucial, along with understanding multi-stakeholder dynamics.

Tailored Response: With 20 specific strategies for each crisis type, organizations can select the most appropriate response based on the specific situation.

Flexibility: The 4 x 20 Strategy is not a rigid set of rules but a flexible framework that can be adapted to various industries and organizational structures.

Proactive Preparation: While we cannot predict every crisis, we can always prepare in advance for various crisis scenarios. The 4 x 20 Strategy emphasizes the importance of having response plans ready for each crisis type.

Precision Communication: Data-driven precision communication can guide organizations more effectively, with the right timing and tone.

Continuous Learning: Each crisis provides an opportunity to refine and enhance the strategy. The 4 x 20 approach encourages post-crisis analysis and strategy updates, as needed.

Implementing the 4 x20 Strategy

Implementing the 4 x 20 Strategy requires a shift in how organizations view crisis management. Here are some key steps to take:

Crisis as a Constant: Recognize that crises are not isolated events but rather a regular aspect of business operations.

Cultural Shift: Cultivate a culture where every employee understands their role in crisis prevention and response.

Training and Simulation: Conduct regular crisis simulations based on the four crisis types to familiarize teams with the 20 response strategies.

Integration with Daily Operations: Incorporate crisis management principles into daily business activities rather than treating it as a separate function.

Leadership Commitment: Ensure that top leadership is committed to, and involved in, crisis preparedness and response.

The Future of Crisis Management: Integrating Enterprise Risk Management and the 4 x 20 Strategy

In today’s complex and interconnected business environment, the importance of effective crisis management is increasingly recognized. While Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) focuses on identifying and mitigating potential risks, the 4 x 20 strategy provides action plans for crises that have actually occurred.

By combining ERM’s preventive approach with the 4 x 20 strategy’s responsive approach, organizations can more effectively deal with crises across the board. This integrated approach allows organizations to prevent crises, respond quickly to those that do occur, and ultimately transform crises into opportunities.

For organizations facing new and evolving challenges in today’s fast-changing business environment, the combination of ERM and the 4 x 20 strategy can be an essential tool in building a resilient and future-oriented crisis management framework.

James Choi is a svp and partner at FleishmanHillard in Korea and wrote “The Principles of Crisis Response,” published in Korean on August 30, 2024.