From the three Bs to the high Cs - history of employee communication

Since its beginning, the employee communication function has evolved through three major stages of development. Unfortunately, the evolutionary process has been neither consistent nor universal, and many communicators are still operating in the first or second stage. These communicators are not providing all the value they are capable of delivering to their organizations, and are therefore at risk of extinction. Ironically, the disappearance of this "species" would be an even greater loss for the organization than for the individuals affected, because organizations need effective employee communication today more than ever.

The first generation of employee communication was an offshoot of industrial relations practices. In an effort to improve employee morale, companies started newsletters to create another means of employee recognition. Thus it is not surprising that the pages of many early company communications were filled with announcements of births and birthdays, reports on company-sponsored sports teams, employee profiles and the occasional goodwill letter from the company president.

As today's communicators know, such newsletters contribute little, if any, significant value to the organization. Moreover, although surveys invariably showed that employees read and enjoyed such publications, few attached much credibility to them. In short, those first-generation newsletters were nice but not necessary, and it didn't take management long to realize it.

Second Stage

Faced with a significant investment paying few dividends, many organizations began casting about for ways to make their employee publications more valuable. Not surprisingly, they often turned to former journalists to take on the responsibility, because the similarities between publishing a daily paper and an employee newspaper seemed obvious. This transition marked the beginning of the second stage in the evolution of employee communication.

As journalists took on the assignment to raise the quality of in-house publications, they inevitably brought with them journalistic values. These values, particularly the focus on reporting news, quickly, but subtly, began to shift the mission of company publications.

The new communicators disdained the old goal of improving morale. They referred to such coverage contemptuously as the three B's - birthdays, babies and ball scores. They saw their calling as a higher one: to provide employees with information about their organizations. In keeping with trends sweeping journalism in the '60s and '70s, they aspired to the "tell it like it is" school, urging management to give employees all the news, good and bad alike.

Whereas its original mission was to increase employee morale, the new mission of employee communication became to inform employees about company "news." Employing the styles and techniques taught in schools of journalism, this new generation of employee communicators shifted the focus to reporting company events, activities and announcements. The folksy informality of the industrial relations expert was quickly replaced by the objectivity and distance of the journalist.

A look at the internal information programs of most organizations today would reveal a series of communications patterned after "the news." Many newsletters have been upgraded to newspapers and news magazines; video programs usually mimic the six o'clock news; the company web site follows the lead of its online journalistic peers.

Nothing is wrong with using journalistic techniques to provide clear, accurate information to employees. The problem comes with applying a journalist's mindset to the requirements of employee communicators. To be effective, journalists cultivate objectivity; maintain a degree of distance from the subjects of their reporting. They need to be skeptical, sometimes even adversarial in their dealings. Yet this very distance that is so important in journalism is the opposite of what is required in employee communication today. Moreover, journalists tend to report on events - fires, elections, crime, etc. - because their readers want to find out what has happened. But focusing on events is not what people in today's business environment need the most.

The nature of the work place has changed dramatically in recent years. Increased competition, global markets, the advent of information technology - these and other changes have created new challenges for management and a new role for employee communicators.

In such an environment, the challenge is to develop effective strategies and coordinate the efforts of far-flung organizations in support of those strategies. Both executives and employee communicators have, in many instances, failed to comprehend the extent to which this changing environment has complicated the task of directing a global organization. The challenge to senior management is to implement its strategy; the only function that can help do that effectively is employee communication.

Communicating Equals Implementing

A group of mid-level managers attending a training course was asked to assume that they were the executive leadership of a business and that they had just spent the day coming to the reluctant decision to close a manufacturing plant. The group was then asked to list all the actions that would need to be taken to implement this decision. After lengthy discussion, two conclusions emerged: First, every action required to implement the plant-closing decision was some form of communication; and, second, the process of communicating to all the "audiences" that needed to know would require much more time than the process of making the decision.

Although the challenge these managers undertook in this exercise was hypothetical, the conclusions they reached are not. The importance of communication to the implementation of strategy is bolstered by research done on how executives spend their time. In general, the higher a manager goes in the organization, the more time he or she spends communicating with others. Chief executives estimate that they spend 80 percent of their working day communicating to others.

But the act of communication in today's organization is far more complicated than in the past. Downsizing has broadened spans of command, requiring that executives communicate with more employees than ever before. Increased competition has thinned out layers of management, requiring the remaining executives to communicate to employees at lower levels of the organization. Increasingly decentralized organizations push decision-making down to lower levels, each of which needs to understand the corporate direction.

At the same time, competition for global markets often means that executives must deal with employees who are many miles and time zones away. Work-at-home arrangements make meetings more difficult to arrange. As more and more highly educated employees are hired to apply the new technology that businesses are employing, it is no longer sufficient to communicate only objectives. Understanding strategic intent is just as important for employees who are expected to deal with ambiguity rather than simply follow orders blindly.

These new conditions create a greater need for communication at the same time that they complicate the communication process. In such an environment, senior management needs the assistance of its communication professionals to help deliver and reinforce its messages. Equally clearly, this new business environment requires more than just "feel good" communication or reports on what already has happened. In short, both the industrial relations and journalistic stages of employee communications have become outmoded and are no longer sufficient.

Making the Transition

The new role of employee communication is no longer to try to lift employee morale, nor merely to report current events within the organization. Today's environment necessitates that employee communication evolve into an extension of the management process, helping an organization's executive leadership implement strategy more effectively.

Unfortunately, the evolution to this third stage is often difficult. To be effective, communicators must gain the respect and trust of their executives. Yet, respect is hard to come by when the communication your predecessor distributed was limited to birthdays and ball scores. Likewise, winning an executive's trust won't be easy when the communicators they have dealt with in the past have been distant and skeptical.

Making this transition requires a new way of thinking for many communicators. For example, the communicator with an industrial relations orientation tends to regard events in personal terms: Who will be affected and how? The former journalist is likely to report those same events promptly and then forget them to go on to the next story. The business executive, in contrast, sees company events in the context of corporate strategy: Milestones of progress toward objectives, evidence that strategies are working.

Moving to the third stage doesn't mean ignoring the company's employees or ceasing to report on major events. But, if communicators want to be effective in the new environment, they must shift their primary focus to the goals of the organization. They must see themselves not as distant observers but as fully engaged participants, helping the organization's management implement its strategies.

How can a communicator translate this new way of thinking into communication to employees? A logical starting place for communicators to begin this evolution is to focus on the organization's annual operating plan. An interview with the senior executive on the plan is a natural point of departure. By getting the executive to outline the organization's objectives in his or her own words, the communicator is providing a valuable contribution to the organization.

Once the initial plans have been defined, the next step is to report on progress toward their achievement. When employees learn what the executive considers "hits and misses," they will better understand the overall objectives, as well as how much farther they have to go.

Equally important, the communicator should highlight any changes in direction. It is common for plans to change during the year, but less common for those changes to be communicated thoroughly. Yet employees need to know about any course corrections as much as the initial direction.

A focus on plans and progress automatically creates a golden opportunity for employee communicators to demonstrate their value to management. Once such communication has begun, the communicator can survey employees to determine what they know about the company's plans and how they learned about them. Even if the results are negative, they create an opportunity for additional communication.

In addition to quantitative measurements, which senior management always appreciates, the process of testing the success of such communication will provide the communicator with a unique qualitative insight into the work force. What is the mood of employees? How well have they understood the company's direction, and how confident of success are they? Is there any disruption in communication between executives and employees, and, if so, what is its source? This kind of feedback can be extremely helpful to management and communicator alike moreover, it is seldom available to senior executives. feedback is a valuable' service that employee communication can and should provide to management.

As the employee communication function begins to demonstrate its value in helping to communicate operating plans, it is likely to be asked to participate in the planning of some organizational initiative or program for employees. This affords the communicator an opportunity to add even more value, similar to that which the marketing function adds to the new product introduction process.

As business school students learn, marketing is far more than just selling a product. Marketing can include everything from package design to pricing, from distribution strategy to product design. By learning about the customer, a good marketer can enhance the value of a product or service. Similarly, the effective employee communicator will have developed a better understanding of the employee audience than anyone else in management. This knowledge puts the communicator in a position to advise not only on the implementation of the initiative, but also how it is designed, what elements it includes, and how and when it should be delivered.

Does evolving to the third stage mean that employee communicators should not try to increase employee satisfaction? Absolutely not - satisfied employees are more effective employees. But when jobs are on the line, the bowling league scores do nothing to improve the chances of keeping the factory open. Is there a place for company newsletters and other such communications? Absolutely - employees need to know what is happening in their organizations. Moreover, such communication vehicles represent a channel to deliver management information. But, their full value is not realized if they are used only to report what has already happened and fail to deliver insight into future directions.

In short, today's environment has created an opportunity for employee communication to evolve into the marketer of management strategy to employees. In an era when the traditional management chain of command is stretched farther and less able to deliver information to a widespread employee audience, the employee communication function has the ability to shape the messages to make them more effective, and the means to deliver them so they underscore and reinforce management's efforts to direct the organization.

The question is not whether the employee communication function can adapt successfully but if it will do so. Those who do will create for themselves a new and important niche in the organizational ecosystem.

Michael C. Brandon, director of Global Employee Communication Platforms for Nortel (Northern Telecom), Nashville, Tenn., can be reached at [email protected]

COPYRIGHT 1997 International Association of Business Communicators
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group