Heyman Associates - Positioning

As told to Marian Woodworth by
Frank J. Vaccaro
Vice President, Business Unit Communications
American Express Company

After September 11, things at American Express Company would be markedly different for almost nine months. The collapse of the Twin Towers showered debris partially onto the American Express Tower, damaging the façade of the building below the 26^th floor. The damage left their global headquarters building structurally sound but requiring months of repairs, cleaning and temporary office relocation. More devastating to the company, however, were the lives lost: 11 employees who had worked on-site at a World Trade Center (WTC) client’s office died in the attack. Several employees who had been on the street outside the American Express Tower were hospitalized, and the toll of lost family and friends was widespread.

A core group of senior leaders made immediate business continuation decisions, and gathered and shared information with nearly 5,000 displaced employees. CEO Ken Chenault was in constant contact with his direct reports, worldwide business heads and the core business continuation team consisting of leaders from corporate communications, human resources, real estate, security and technology.

In communications and indeed throughout the company, the first priority was to focus on employees and determine their well-being. Employees were displaced from headquarters, and without offices, and phone service in Manhattan and the surrounding area was extremely limited. A communications avenue unique to American Express was their network of customer service representatives. The company set up a special unit, in fact, based in North Carolina, to act as a communications channel with New York employees. The representatives called all employees’ home phone numbers to perform a roll call, asking if employees and family members were safe. The representatives also told each household how to get information and reminded them to call regularly into the emergency employee hotline that had been established. Lastly, the representatives invited New York staff to an all-employee town hall meeting just nine days later at Madison Square Garden, hosted by Chenault and organized by the communications team. The emotional, cathartic meeting was a chance for employees to gather strength from coming together, sharing expressions of loss and remembrance and learning about how the company was helping its affected employees, customers and the New York community to recover.

When American Express leased five temporary locations and started to deposit employees in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York in October, reaching employees became easier, but the communications challenges remained significant. There was a steady stream of communications through e-mail announcements and town hall meetings in each new location, plus frequent business renewal updates from Chenault. The company released a special edition of its internal magazine, focused on September 11, and published it online along with the regular print version. The communications team focused on the nuts and bolts of business continuation, plus the company’s response to the crisis and challenges given the impact of the aftermath of 9/11 on American Express’ business.

The November announcement that American Express would be returning to its corporate headquarters building in Lower Manhattan brought a new set of communications challenges. Most employees were happy to return, feeling it was the right thing to do, and pleased to be part of the area’s renewal. All employees needed to be kept abreast of construction and security issues, plus transportation access and environmental quality. The communications team delivered regular updates by e-mail on the wide range of issues pertaining to the return to corporate headquarters, including news about the World Financial Center (WFC) neighborhood.

Constant, comprehensive communications led to the creation of an intranet site, “On the Move,” which was the central source of information concerning the move. With sections devoted to Q&A, accessible to all employees worldwide, and photographs, the site fostered a clear understanding of the status of repairs, building restoration and the renewal of the WFC neighborhood. The photos were among the highest clicked items and were updated to show progress over time.

A move schedule, introduced by e-mail, became part of another section of the site, “Moving Back.” The section provided information so the first day back wouldn’t feel like the first day on the job. As each group of 400 employees consulted their moving day schedule, they could access information on WFC recovery, pedestrian routes to American Express Tower and amenities inside the building and out, and links to neighborhood services and employee assistance programs and resources.

American Express gathered a panel of top functional leaders, encompassing real estate, security, health & safety, medical, technology, human resources and communications, and held multiple employee information sessions at each metro area site. The panel provided an overview and answered employees’ questions.

Because the environmental impact of the WTC collapse was of concern to many people, the company also set up additional information sessions for employees with independent experts who had conducted extensive testing and clean-up work in and around corporate headquarters. The experts described the work they performed and the test results, which surpassed the most stringent safety guidelines.

With human resources, the communications staff coordinated pre-move visits to ease the transition for the groups of 400 employees just as they were about to move back so employees could see what they had been hearing about—damaged floors were repaired and cleaned, and undamaged floors had been refurbished; most offices and workspaces felt like home. On each move-in day, begun in the spring and now more than halfway completed, senior leaders welcomed employees and the company held orientation sessions in the auditorium.

American Express is proud to be back in Lower Manhattan.

I. Steven Goldstein
Vice President/Chief Communications Officer
Dow Jones & Company

(Editor’s note: Special thanks to Steve for participating in this issue as one of his last official Dow Jones duties.)

So vividly, I remember my trip to work on September 11. I had just finished a spinning class and started my day early at our World Financial Center (WFC) office. It was a beautiful morning and business as usual, but only for a moment.

Once the second plane hit the World Trade Center, and people realized that we were most likely being attacked by terrorists, the security guards at WFC made the decision to play it safe and evacuate the building, which is located just across the street from where the Twin Towers once stood. Luckily, some of our staff had not yet arrived, but a few reporters who had did not want to leave the scene of what would become one of the biggest stories in American history.

The phone circuits were jammed, but Dow Jones senior staff, and the Journal’s top editors, led by Managing Editor Paul Steiger, pulled together using BlackBerry mobile e-mail devices. Within minutes, they had come up with a place to meet to coordinate their efforts. Meanwhile, several other employees made their way Southwest to the Dow Jones campus in South Brunswick, New Jersey—which would become the company’s temporary headquarters for nearly a year.

The internal communications team posted critical information to the Dow Jones public Web site because the intranet was not available to workers that were unable to access the corporate network. Our strategy was to provide as much information as possible to our employees, and this was an effective means of interim communication. We let them know that everyone was safe and accounted for, and where they could work and how to reach colleagues. Within hours, a temporary newsroom was constructed in the South Brunswick facility, and reporters and editors were creating what would be the September 12 Wall Street Journal.

Late that afternoon and the next day we were deluged with media calls from hundreds of media outlets that wanted to hear the story of how The Journal was able to publish after having to evacuate its headquarters. This was especially relevant because it turned out that we were the closest news organization to the site. We told the story of how reporters around the world worked together to coordinate newsgathering and reporting, which gave us a chance to emphasize the global efforts of the company.

Everyone at Dow Jones realized that the most important thing they could do was provide news to the people of the world in a time of crisis and great loss. Looking back, our strategy–which was developed as events unfolded–was three-fold: make sure our employees were safe and find a way to effectively communicate with them; let the public know that we would publish on September 12 and every weekday thereafter; and to emphasize that Dow Jones is a global company with a global newsgathering operation.

The internal communications effort, led by Patti Walsh, was critical because most employees now had to commute more than ninety minutes to work each way. We also provided on-site counseling. In addition, Dow Jones and its brands, including The Journal, Barron’s, Newswires and the Online Journal, went from covering the news to being the news and that took some getting used to. We had to ratchet up the external communications effort in the U.S. and overseas, and our international communications efforts played a large part in getting our message out.

Recently, Dow Jones moved back to the World Financial Center. But most gratifying is the Pulitzer Prize that was awarded to The Journal for the September 12 paper.