Welcome to the first COVID-19 communications newsletter from The Workshop team.
Each week we will focus on one aspect of communicating during COVID-19. Tell us about your particular challenges, and we’ll try to address them in future newsletters.
In each newsletter, we will:
Cover a bit of theory from our guide (which will be available on our website soon),
give you some practical ‘how to’ advice,
talk through examples of good communications in practice (please send us links to communications you see which you’d like us to discuss).
We will also invite people with specific expertise to share with you their insights on how to best communicate on various issues.
This week we look at how to talk about staying at home
In New Zealand, and increasingly across the world, we need to stay home to try and break the chain of the COVID-19 virus.
This kind of large scale government mandated shift in people’s behaviour has not happened in generations in New Zealand. Let's acknowledge the amazing collective action that is taking place all around us right now, as we all do the work needed to keep everyone well.
Most people are following the new rules, however some are not. How do we talk about this in ways that encourage good decision-making and people to stay at home?
The thinking we want to avoid and the thinking we want to encourage
Research shows some common ways of thinking about COVID-19 are unhelpful and we should avoid surfacing them.
AVOID: When we talk about staying at home and physically distancing we want to avoid surfacing the following ways of thinking:
Blame for COVID-19 lies with individuals who are reckless and irresponsible who don’t self-isolate.
Responsibility for limiting spread lies with individuals, and individual behaviour such as keeping apart. If people don’t, it is their fault the virus is spreading.
COVID-19 is bringing out the worst in people and just shows that human nature is selfish and bad. E.g. Look at all the people panic buying toilet paper, or refusing to self-isolate. This way of thinking is fed by cognitive shortcuts we all take, including normalcy and negativity bias.
ENCOURAGE: When we talk about staying at home and physically distancing we want to encourage the following ways of thinking:
How we can best support people to keep physical distance. What support do people need?
All of us are responsible. When we wash hands and stay apart we keep everyone well in our community. Importantly, some people’s actions have a very big impact on helping us cope. People in business, in government, landlords can all do their bit to look after people. Employers can help people feel supported in work, people in government can make sure those on low incomes have enough, landlords can offer flexibility in rent.
This is bringing out the best in people and shows how well people can pull together and look after each other in a crisis. Look at all the people who have given their time to the response effort, people who have come back into health jobs, and people organising with their neighbours and communities.
We’ll send out another email tomorrow with more advice on how to talk about staying home. We have a lot of material on this topic, and it’s obviously timely, but we don’t want to overload you. Also, if you’ve seen examples of good communications about staying at home, send them our way to share.
Further resources
There is more guidance on communicating about COVID-19 in our message guide.
You can get a copy of our guide, and emails with practical communications advice like this post by signing up using the form on this page.
This week our Co-Director Marianne Elliott did a Facebook live session on the basics of good communicating during COVID-19. You can watch the video here
Follow the twitter hashtag #Covid19CommsTips and our Linkedin page
Get in touch with Rachel@theworkshop.org.nz if you would like to talk to us about how we can help you with specific advice