Sharing Impact & Value: Strategic Communication for Government Workers

Strategically and clearly communicate the importance of your work to relevant audiences, without partisanship.

Government workers at all levels — local, state, and federal — provide important and necessary services that make our lives better.

Yet often those services go unnoticed or are misunderstood. Recent events have shown the need for greater awareness of the work done by professionals who have dedicated their careers to civil service.

This free 90-minute workshop is designed to provide an opportunity for you to build your skills around strategically communicating the importance and relevance of your work for the audience(s) you most need to reach, in ways that are nonpartisan, clear, and compelling.

We’ll share strategic communication principles, discuss how to identify your key audiences and what matters most to them, and practice using the Message Box, our tool for gathering and refining your thoughts. The workshop is intended for current or recent U.S. government workers in the civil service at any scale (local, state, federal) and any focus area. We are most experienced in supporting people in science roles, but our workshops can be helpful for anyone in a role where they need to communicate effectively and strategically about their work.

Please note: this workshop focuses on concepts and techniques individuals can use to help them share the importance of their work, especially around scientific topics, without partisanship. We are not qualified to provide legal or human resources advice.

Due to the progression of materials presented and the paired exercises, we cannot admit participants who are more than 15 minutes late.More information can be found in the FAQ page on our website.

Who could benefit from this workshop?

This workshop is open to government workers (current or former), at any level (federal, state, local) who would like to build their nonpartisan strategic communication skills.

Technology

The workshop will be held on the video conferencing platform Zoom. You will need a webcam, microphone, and stable internet connection. Recommended upload/download speed is 5Mbps/5Mbps. Test your internet speed here by clicking “run speed test.” This workshop will also incorporate the browser-based whiteboard program called MURAL.