Involve Employees
Now is a critical time to begin or continue the conversation with your employees on the importance of bipartisan infrastructure legislation. There are many ways to educate your employees, including direct contact from senior leadership.
Below please find tools and resources for you to use when engaging employees in support of infrastructure legislation.
EDUCATION
To make the issue relevant to employees, begin by telling the story of how infrastructure investment would help support your company, both its growth and its employees. Keep the narrative focused, sufficiently high-level and avoid jargon. Describe the policy issue simply and connect the outcome, such as a congressional vote, to the impact on the company and its employees.
Education should lay the groundwork for activating employees. Make sure to include opportunities for interested employees to volunteer to get involved in the effort – from creating email sign-up lists to serving as a resource for colleagues on the topic.
CHANNELS TO REACH EMPLOYEES
To begin, companies should review existing channels available for communicating with employees to determine whether they can be leveraged for education efforts. Human resources and legal departments likely also have existing guidelines and requirements that must be met for internal communications.
We encourage you to consider the following vehicles to reach out to employees.
Company Newsletter
Short, regular blurbs about infrastructure investment, the relevance of the issue to the company and the latest status on the issue are good items for a company newsletter. These updates may be categorized under a “Spotlight on Policy” or an update from your Washington office / government relations team.
Intranet Site
Many companies utilize intranet sites to share information relevant to employees. If one does not already exist, you may consider creating a section on your intranet site dedicated to policy issues. The section can be a general, stand-alone policy site or it can be affiliated with your government relations department.
If you elect to create a policy-focused section of your website, either as part of your intranet or as a password-protected page, here are some items to include:
· An overview of how and why the company engages on public policy issues
· A list of the issues that the company is currently following, including infrastructure
· The ways in which the company engages on policy (Washington office, state and local advocacy, membership in associations, etc.)
· How employees can find more information
· How employees can engage on the issues
Lunch and Learn
Small lunches focused on a specific topic are a good opportunity to educate employees across your company’s various sites. An expert on the topic should lead the conversation – ideally someone in-house who can discuss the issue simply, explain the importance of it to the company and prepare participants for future action. Lunch and learn participants can serve as ambassadors and resources for their colleagues on the topic.
Communications from Company Leadership
Direct communications from your CEO, executives and plant managers provide an opportunity to educate employees on policy topics and signal their importance to the company. These communications may take the form of emails, town hall style meetings (virtual or in-person), conference calls, web chats, etc.
Emails to Employees
Emails to your employees are one of the most direct ways to communicate the need for bipartisan infrastructure investment. A sample email is included below.
Sample CEO Email to Employees
Dear Colleagues,
You have probably heard a great deal lately about plans to improve America’s infrastructure – our roads, bridges, airports, water systems and communications infrastructure.
[COMPANY] and thousands of businesses, big and small, rely on infrastructure not only to deliver goods and services, but also to connect with our employees, vendors, communities and suppliers.
Our ability to do so is at risk. America’s infrastructure is falling behind and is in desperate need of an upgrade.
The good news is that a bipartisan group of Members of Congress and President Biden recently agreed on a bipartisan framework for investing in America’s infrastructure. [COMPANY] is strongly supportive of this framework.
[COMPANY] is a part of a CEO organization in Washington, DC, Business Roundtable, which is urging Members of Congress to continue to work with their colleagues across the aisle to support bipartisan infrastructure legislation that can be signed into law as soon as possible. [COMPANY] will support these efforts. If you’d like to learn more or get involved, please contact [XXX]. You can learn more about the benefits of infrastructure investment to [STATE] here.