5 tips to creating a Societal Response Framework

According to the 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer Report, there is a decline in trust in traditional institutions like the media and government, and businesses are increasingly expected to take a stand on societal issues. The issues can vary immensely, ranging from global natural disasters like the Turkey-Syria earthquake that claimed more than 50,000 lives, to societal unrest like the Black Lives Matter Movement and climate change impacting local communities. 

When an incident happens, for those who feel responsible in an organization, it can feel daunting. If one takes a position, then it can’t be taken back once it's public, and taking the wrong position can damage one’s reputation with stakeholders, including employees, customers, partners and investors. Other times it feels positive and empowering to take a stand. 

That’s where a framework can help - it takes the emotion out of decision-making when tensions are running high, and it can ensure all points of views have been considered. Here are my five tips for building your own response framework:  

1. Start with your Brand and Purpose

2. Design a framework with tiered responses

3. Curate a response panel and encourage employee feedback

4. Develop a core response team  

5. Track, report, solicit feedback and iterate (a lot)

Tip #1 - Start with your Brand and Purpose

It’s impossible for any business to respond to every societal event that arises due to the sheer volume, and everyone has a personal bias for what constitutes an important issue. The way your organization can be authentic is by creating a framework that reflects your core brand and purpose - the reason you exist. For example, Splunk’s purpose is, “to build a safer and more resilient digital world.” This means when an issue arises, we ask many critical questions including, “Can we help make a material difference on this issue given our purpose?” It may be helpful to ask yourself what issues your organization would be expected to take a position on with authority, versus taking sides on an issue.

Tip #2 -  Design a framework with tiered responses

In the time that we’ve been developing our Splunk framework, I learned that issues have different levels of urgency and relevance and each level merits an appropriate communications response. This is not too dissimilar to how PR teams may operate for crisis communications. I suggest you review different options for what your tiers might be and what the criteria is for each. Responses might include a company wide email, an intranet microsite, a regional spokesperson making a Slack announcement, or addressing the incident at an all-hands meeting. Having a framework helps create discussion and consistency rather than guesswork. 

To get a feel for the framework in action, you can watch a presentation on the framework in this recent panel discussion on "Corporate Activism: How + When Companies Take a Stand" with Pledge 1% from August 2022 (I discuss Splunk’s approach at 27:11).

Tip #3 - Curate a response panel and encourage employee feedback 

Having a panel can be key to operationalizing the framework, gaining executive buy-in and making sound decisions. When pulling your panel together, consider senior leaders who bring genuinely diverse perspectives with a commitment to mitigating bias. Panel members can include the following leadership roles: HR, Diversity Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB), Legal, Corporate Social Responsibility, Customer, Communications, and regional voices across multiple geographies. 

Agree who will take single-threaded ownership of running the panel and managing the process and this will vary in every organization. Panel members can debate and discuss questions like, “How will responding or not responding impact our employees, customers, investors, suppliers and communities?”, “Are our actions consistent with our viewpoints?” and so on. 

Importantly, encourage employee feedback and actively listen at all levels of the organization to build openness and trust. Consider feedback loops like listening groups or slack channels, welcome dissenting perspectives, leverage employee resource groups and share an early version of your framework with them. Personally, when an employee raises a new concern, I set up a zoom call to understand what’s going on. While this may seem resource intensive, it often sheds light on nuances that are invaluable in building a response. 

Tip #4  - Develop a core response team

The role of the core response team is to be the first point of response when an incident happens. This team helps gather facts, discuss issues and potential responses, so that they can devise recommendations for the panel to consider. Representatives might include Safety and Security, Global and Regional Communications Leads, Social Impact, and Diversity, Equity Inclusion and Belonging.

Tip #5 - Track, report, solicit feedback and iterate (a lot)

Tip five is about keeping an open mind and flexing as needed on the tiered framework. If this is a new process for you, it may feel clunky, but with time you will soon have best practices, you’ll know the personalities on the panel, key issues to the company and you’ll be able to expedite responses at speed. As a best practice while you are forming a team, bring the panel and core team together a few times a year to share learnings and get feedback so that it’s always in line with leadership priorities and direction. 

Closing thoughts

These tips and an approach to a framework are not meant to be perfect or one-size-fits-all, but rather a starting point for you to tailor your response to your own organization. I hope that it will reduce the fear factor for readers and make the “response moment” more manageable. And I’m certain that many reading this article have their own best practices and frameworks, so I hope to hear from you all too so we can create our own societal crowdsourced wisdom.   

With gratitude, Humeera

Further reading resources:

• Edelman’s Trust Barometer Report 2023 - #1 is “Business is expected to act”
• HBR’s article by Latia Curry on How brands can follow through on the value they are selling
• HBR’s article on Are you leading through a crisis or managing the response
• LinkedIn’s World wants companies take a stand and 4 steps process