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A Failure to Communicate
Poor communication not only annoys employees, it hampers productivity and bottom-line results. More emphasis on the need for communication, especially face-to-face communication -- as well as better training of both senior and middle managers -- may help.
Employees may grumble about a lot of things, but what bugs them the most is when the boss doesn't tell them what's going on. Poor communication by senior management about the business was the No. 1 "Ouch Point" in a recent survey by the Opinion Research Corporation, based in Princeton, N.J. It was cited by 17 percent of 1,150 full-time and part-time workers interviewed nationwide. It was a close race. General office politics and lack of teamwork were also major concerns, at 16 percent and 15 percent, respectively, followed by the need to use "politically correct" language, at 9 percent. To the surprise of researchers, only 4 percent of the respondents said they were bothered by corporate monitoring of e-mails or telephone calls. And age makes a difference, says Terry Reilly, director of the U.S. Employee Research Practice at ORC. Poor communication by senior managers most bothered older employees -- those above the age of 45, while 26 percent of respondents aged 18 to 24 were more frustrated by lack of teamwork. That's not surprising, said Caroline Hawking of New York-based Harris, Rothenberg International. Younger workers, she says, were raised on team projects and team sports, whereas older workers, particularly baby boomers, were "raised in a world where our first job experience was where people gave us clear direction ... a real linear path. That's a different experience nowadays." Top managers don't make communication a "high priority," says Reilly. "They don't realize the impact [on employee] morale and productivity. If senior management realized the powerful linkage between the effect of communication and employee productivity, they would do it more often." Dianne Chase, senior partner with C4CS, a Charlotte, N.C.-based firm specializing in strategic communication and crisis management, agrees. "We do find a lot of managers, while absolutely stellar in their professions in terms of managing business and their field, lack communication skills that are critical," she says. "The worst thing that can happen is if the public and media find out something before the employees. Your employees are your lynch pin. You can't be successful if they feel you are not keeping them in the loop, or if they are the last to know." Chase advises HR executives to invest in communication training for senior managers, including the CEO level. One of the keys to corporate communication is tailoring your approach to the individual employee, she says. "It's very important to learn what works for the individual: Are they open to e-mail or to a phone call? ... Communication doesn't just involve words; it's also about the tone of the communication and, if in person, visual clues. Do your body language and voice tone match?" she asks. Indeed, one reason communication fails may be the widespread reliance on e-mail, says Reilly. "E-mails, though there's a lot that's positive, is very one-dimensional. It's one way, passive, and can't take the place of face-to-face communication," Reilly says. "A lot of management or supervisors have ... let it be a substitute for face-to-face communication. Because of that, people are not getting the full story." It may be misleading to lay the blame for poor communication on senior management, Hawking says. Senior managers' focus is on developing strategy for the company and the bottom line. Their message is communicated to the troops by middle management, and that's the difficulty, she says. "My experience has been the senior-management class indeed wants to educate every worker about how their job is reflected in the bottom line. However, because it is a complicated workplace, people have different needs. ... Our experience has been there can be a struggle for middle managers to communicate what senior managers are trying to convey," Hawking says. That's where HR comes in, she says. "Middle managers have a huge task. How do you convey a strategy to action? ... Middle management can work closely with HR to say, 'This is our strategy for the year; how do we convey it to the team?' "
November 19, 2007 Copyright 2007© LRP Publications |
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