How to communicate about a holiday or history month

Our clients often ask us for help drafting their all-staff emails (or public facing statements or posts) for various holidays or history months. These are really tricky to write. It’s so easy for them to come across as performative; an attempt to seem inclusive while employees feel a painful dissonance in their daily experiences at work.

Here are the questions we talk clients through when helping them decide whether to send an email to their staff or make a public-facing statement about an upcoming holiday and/or history month.

1. Who are you tasking with writing this communication?

Are they a paid member(s) of your team for whom writing these kinds of communications is clearly within the scope of their job description? Great. Are they a member of the group that observes this holiday or is being celebrated/honored with this history month? Great. If not, are they working with a paid consultant or relying on resources to gain subject matter expertise about those groups and/or the holiday? Great. If not, do not pass go! Using volunteers from marginalized groups to write these communications for you – and the word “volunteers” includes people who you employ but whose job scope does not include writing comms for you – causes direct harm and contributes to harmful organizational culture.

2. What is the action that your organization is taking around this?

If it’s a holiday, are you closing down the organization that day so people can observe? If not, are you offering staff paid time off so they can observe? If it’s a history or affinity month, what policies, benefits, and other systems does your organization have in place to support folks who belong to this group? How does your product or offering support people who belong to this group?

3. For internal comms: What guidance are you giving to make it feasible for staff to observe this day/month?

If a holiday takes place during the work week and you’re not closing the entire organization, how do you want managers to support people in taking meaningful time off? Do you want to ask that no important meetings be scheduled for this day? Do you want people to adjust deadlines so that nothing is due that day or in the days immediately surrounding it? Is there information you want to share with staff who don’t observe the holiday about what the holiday is and how it’s often observed so they have the knowledge they need to be more supportive?

4. How is the holiday/month relevant to your organization?

Do you have staff who observe this holiday or have the identity celebrated this month? How about clients/customers? How does your work impact them in this part of their identity? What are you committed to organizationally in terms of operationalizing your support for these groups in your day-to-day work and offerings?

If you can answer “yes” to the first question, and you have substantive things to say in response to questions 2, 3, and/or 4, go forth and write that email/post/statement! Sounds like it’ll have a positive impact. Otherwise, don’t. It’ll be performative.

Let’s apply this to a timely example. If you want to write an all-staff email or public post to celebrate LGBTQ+ Pride month (coming up in June), here are the topics we might suggest you include in it.

1. Historical and cultural context that’s relevant to your organization

A note about the historical importance of Pride month, and how its origins as a protest/riot demanding better human rights for LGBTQ+ people align with your organizational values or mission.

2. The relevant action your organization is taking or has taken

A reminder about the policies, benefits, and other systems your organization has in place to support your LGBTQ+ staff. (Or the systems you’re working on implementing based on staff feedback.) This might include things like healthcare coverage for gender affirming medical treatment, paid parental leave for all new parents regardless of gender or how the new child came into the family, a code of conduct that requires all staff and clients to use correct pronouns when referring to others, paid bereavement leave extended to staff mourning a member of their chosen family even if they are not a blood relative or legally married, etc.

3. Clear, actionable guidance

Guidance for staff who want to join your organization at your local Pride Parade, and an explanation of what your organization is doing to support organizations that are directly involved in LGBTQ+ issues if you’re not. (Otherwise, it’s time to put a strategy in place to make sure you’re not marching in the Pride Parade as a performative show of allyship.)

If you can’t honestly say any of the above, and/or you’re not writing this note with paid subject matter expertise from an LBGTQ+ person, we suggest you don’t send an email or make a statement/post about Pride month at all. It would be performative.

Want help? We’re always happy to partner with you (or your Marketing or Communications teams) to help with these emails or statements/posts. It's often a core piece of our strategy work with clients.