Abstract
The focal point of this qualitative study is corporate executives’ employee-oriented communication involvement, communication practices, and communication plan outcomes during the lived experiences of the COVID-19 crisis. The study’s research setting is a global Fortune 500 organization domiciled in the United States. Literature covering the definitional frameworks for crisis and change-related concepts, leadership philosophies, leadership characteristics, crisis response strategies, and crisis communication practices form a foundational basis to compare to the study’s ultimate findings. The study’s phenomenological research design centered primarily on interviews with the company’s executives. Four major themes emerged from the study’s findings: Executives increased crisis involvement levels and described specific practices when communicating with employees during COVID-19; executives identified five primary categories of tone qualities believed to have been essential for shaping employee communications during crisis periods; establishing the proper channels for executives to reach employees during crisis periods effectively raised crucial communication planning and execution considerations; and finally, employee communication needs varied between early, middle, and later crisis stages. Proposed solutions for operationalizing this research entail consulting with the targeted organization to determine how the study’s findings might more broadly contribute to best practices benefitting organizational employee-oriented crisis communication and leadership development programs, including an extension to independent third-party platforms, such as LinkedIn Learning.