Well this week has been one where I’ve saturated my mind in thought so here’s some of the amazing stuff that’s captured my attention this week.

Marketing and Communications

Airbnb strategy change & layoff communications

Hats off to the CEO and comms team at Airbnb for their masterclass in how to communicate bad news but still be supportive and thoughtful to all. Like any business they’ve had to refocus their core strategy and really strip it back to basics.

To achieve this that they’re shelving a number of business units and letting 25% of their global workforce go. To announce their changes they circulated ‘A Message from Co-Founder and CEO Brian Chesky’ internally and externally. This open statement just knocked it out of the park. The standouts for me were:

Airbnb’s statement was a very well written piece of communications with empathy, openness and compassion. That was then supported by a range of well thought through actions to support the key strategic changes being made.
Airbnb was open in how they reached their decisions about who would be leaving and shared it openly.
Airbnb had thought through how they will support those who are being made redundant / laid off including using their talent team to coach them and help those leaving find new jobs.
Airbnb is offering an amazing support package to those leaving including 12 months healthcare – something that is so important in the crazy US.
Airbnb has set up an alumni network so that people leaving still feel valued as part of their family.
Plus they’re offering sizeable payouts too.

Get ready to move forward -CIPR East Anglia

I worked with Trudy Lewis who wrote this many moons ago at Mace and not only was she a genuinely lovely to be around but she also knows her communications onions! Anyway, she’s written a piece about now being the time for communications professionals to look forward and focus on what’s to come and being in the front line to help shape what form it might take. Many of the things she says – are applicable to all facets of marketing and communications be they internal/external, business development or bids.

Construction & the Built Environment

Lockdown sees construction lose £300m a day as subcontractors run out of money

Very sad piece in Building Magazine on the back of research by Irwin Mitchell and the Centre for Economic and Business Research. As well as the colossal daily losses that subbies are making each day the research also highlights how construction gross value added has fallen from £462.1m per day before the 23 March lockdown to £160.6 m a day – a decline of 65%.

Cast publishes new post Covid-19 Market Overview

Great piece of thought leadership from Mark Farmer and the team at Cast Consultancy. Lots of analysis on what’s happening on live projects now and future projections about what will happen to projects in the pipeline going forward. The report is obviously heavily weighted towards the industry moving towards a modern methods of construction (MMC) future as it’s from the authors of the Modernise or Die report.

Freelance

Freelance LinkedIn Live webinar

Anna Whitehouse aka ‘Mother Pukka’ and Emma Gannon are two formidable people who came together this week for a LinkedIn live session where they answered all things freelance. They’ve both had freelance careers and championed the whole multi-hyphenated, flexible way of working so loads of hints and tips to be had about how to stay ahead. This was a well spent hour of my Wednesday.

Content I’ve read - May 08