Megaphones Out, Smartphones In E-Book

Rozália Del Gáudio

• Herausgeber: Aberje Editorial
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 225

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

The authors wrote an essential handbook for good leadership by linking theories of communication with employees and communicators' testimonials from around the world to their practice of years of work in organizations. In addition, they convey the message that, in these new times, free, direct, open and multidirectional communication is the best way to humanize labor relations. It is this communication that transforms all leaders and employees into agents who move in the same direction, pursuing the same goals of success. This book inspires us to say that being strategic, today, is being dialogical.

Leseprobe

“Fabiane, Paula, Mateus, Lara, father, mother, brother, brothers and sisters in law, nephews and nieces... This book is for you, my family! I dedicated this book especially to all professionals and consultants with whom I was honored to work and learn with during all these many years of work. To my everlasting employees of Vale: you have been a source of inspiration for many years. You taught me and still teach the importance and complexity of making communication with employees. To God, my eternal gratitude.”

Paulo Henrique

“We cannot live without inspiration and dreams. Therefore, I dedicate this book especially to the two people who since early inspired me to dream and go beyond – my parents Edith and Francesco. Dreams are built upon achievements and for that reason, I dedicate this work also to Manuel Baptista, my companion of many achieved dreams and many others yet to come. Dreams and achievements are greater when you’re in good company, so, here it goes a special mention to all leaders, teams, teachers, consultants, and experts with whom I had and still have the privilege of being with.”

Rozália

Acknowledgements

A book is a book. It seems simple, a tiny word with four letters, an object that we handle since our childhood. At first, books are often colorful objects, full of images and figures. It has just a few words, but they are essential to form our taste for reading and our ability for writing. Then, books start getting bigger and thicker, and the images are replaced with complexity, depth and opportunity for reflection. Time passes, and we evolve our reading. Today, books are also getting out of their paper shape and getting into technological gadgets. Now, we are not careful when turning the pages, because we do not mind if they wrinkle. They are digitally in front of us, at anytime, anywhere. We no longer keep them on the shelf – now, we can read and access thousands and thousands of books available somewhere in heaven, in the clouds.

We start handling books when we are small, by the influence of our dear parents and teachers. We were encouraged to develop our taste for reading, for this fantastic object. From the taste for reading, we indulge in the world of writing and, one day, we decide to adventure ourselves further into the universe of writing. After many years of publications of academic papers, we decided to sit, pause, reflect, write, write and write… And this is true: we had no idea of the complexity of this art form. Writing a book – and one on communication with employees – demands a sort of organization of our thoughts on a naturally complex subject, which means to share such thoughts, make them public, and open them to collaboration. This has been a great challenge and a great responsibility.

We put some numbers together quickly and concluded that the two of us have already worked with more than 500,000 employees, which means that we already developed strategies and projects, we planned, made it right and wrong with more than half a million people. These employees taught a lot to us. They took us out of the dreams and thoughts and showed us how life is – as simple as that. We left theory and dived into practice. Each one of these employees with whom we interact in our careers has a history. Being able to hear it, live with it and mix it with our own history was important for us to improve, grow and learn how to do things differently and better. Additionally, it was especially important for us to become the people we are today. Hence, in the first place, we thank these people, the thousands of professionals that we have connected with our professionals and personal lives.

We also appreciate all the 84 professionals from 30 countries that contributed to this work by sending their reflections on the topic of communication with employees. Our special thanks to the entire team of Aberje, in particular to Paulo Nassar, Hamilton dos Santos, André Nakasone, Claudia Maximino, and Francisco Milhorança by their full support in the edition of this book. We also appreciate the efforts of Tato Carbonaro and Tatiana Bar Newell for their support of the Spanish translations; Olga Novoselova, director of the Institute of Public Administration and Entrepreneurship at the Ural Federal University, in Russia; Adrian Cropley, founder of Cropley Communication and the Centre for Strategic Communication Excellence in Australia, for offering his connections with other professionals from Oceania and South-East Asia; António Rapoula, president of the European Association of Internal Communication, for the contacts in Europe; and Vicky Yao (Yao Ying), for the contacts in China.

Thanks also to our families and friends, who always encouraged us, and especially to the professor, consultant, strategist, colleague and friend Maria Aparecida “Cida” de Paula, for her contribution in the previous reading of the book and for the many suggested notes and improvements. Yes, Cida, it became clear, very clear! Our sincere “thank you” and appreciation.

Paulo Henrique Leal Soares and Rozália Del Gáudio

Summary

COVER

TITLE PAGE

DEDICATION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

FOREWORD

Dialogue as a flag, by Paulo Nassar

INTRODUCTION

1.

WHY “COMMUNICATION WITH EMPLOYEES”?

2.

COMMUNICATION PRACTICES WITH EMPLOYEES

2.1

Understanding the relations: governance

2.2

Planning with flexibility: the strategy

2.3

The communicator’s role: a strategic craftsman

2.4

Having a leveler: a model of Communication Management with Employees

2.5

Validating practices: the measurement of results

2.6

Perspectives of communication with employees worldwide

3.

CHALLENGES IN THE PRACTICE OF COMMUNICATION WITH EMPLOYEES

3.1

Interaction and management of expectations

3.2

Digital Social Networks

3.3

Reputation and communication with employees

3.4

Leadership and communication

3.5

Communication with employees and crisis management

4.

ADDITIONAL REFLECTIONS

5.

COMMUNICATION WITH EMPLOYEES UNDER DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES: THE TESTIMONIALS THAT SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES

REFERENCES

AFTERWORD

, by Cees B. M. van Riel

ABOUT US

COPYRIGHT

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Landmarks

Cover

Title Page

Table of Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Dialogue as a flag

Just over three years ago, since he took the top job at Microsoft, the Indian Satya Nadella has instituted a monthly ritual: online videoconferences with the company’s 124,000 employees. In those conferences, Mr. Nadella talks about the company’s projects and reinforces the importance of innovating, taking risks, and making mistakes. More relevant than the message these videoconferences convey, however, is the fact that everyone can send questions to the boss, who answers them live and receives feedback in real time. In this dialogic environment, the company has grown consistently.

Just a little time ago, companies – even those of the Information Society, like Microsoft – used to run their communication with employees top-down, with their messages always departing from the organization, without real channels to employees express themselves. However, today Microsoft is a living example of the importance of listening to the people who work in a company or an institution.

It is cliché, of course, but times have changed. Today, with smartphones in hand, giving access to social networks and instant texting applications, everyone has become active communicators. Frequently one is confronting their own stories with the stories of the company. These changes, as expected, brought news for the communication process with the employees. Jargons like “the office grapevine,” “factory floor” are at risk. Everyone wants and have the right to be heard on a wide variety of subjects. The incredible side of this change is to realize that the employee can bring a real contribution to conduct processes, troubleshoot and deploy innovations – much more than just talk about injustices and wages or complain of a leadership that is not performing accordingly. After all, they are immersed in a territory which no longer accepts departmentalization among people, especially in communication.

In these days, the digital world – along with greater freedom and the quest for equal opportunities – has destroyed borders, transforming each person into a producer and a receiver of content. Therefore, us, as the ones responsible for communication, we need to relearn to relate to employees and, primarily, listen to them. More than that, we have to transform ourselves into qualified mediators of relationships.

This is what the book is all about. Among other things, we discover in its pages how to recognize the wishes and fears of those who work with us, how to build a strategy to ensure that information flows in all directions, and how to increase the confidence and the sense of community of employees. In this book, we also learn the best way to reduce the feeling of uncertainty and lack of control, which may impair the outcome of any organization, especially in times of crisis. Last but not least, we also figure out how to monitor and measure the results of our work.

The authors wrote an essential handbook for good leadership by linking theories of communication with employees and communicators’ testimonials from around the world to their practice of years of work in organizations. In addition, they convey the message that, in these new times, free, direct, open and multidirectional communication is the best way to humanize labor relations. It is this communication that transforms all leaders and employees into agents who move in the same direction, pursuing the same goals of success. This book inspires us to say that being strategic, today, is being dialogical.

Paulo Nassar, president of Aberje and Full Professor at the ECA-USP

Introduction

After more than two decades – and twice, since we are a pair – of work in corporate communication, with the opportunity to experience transformation movements within organizations in various situations – privatization, expansion, retraction, layoffs, merger, acquisition, bankruptcy, technological and management innovations, internationalization –, we decided to gather stories, concepts and experiences related to communication with employees1. Our proposal is to share what we have lived daily in organizations, our successes and shortcomings, what we have discussed in the academia and what we learned so far in our journey.

And why are we interested in this? The employees are a living and active part of organizations. Even in the high technology and automation sectors, organizations do not exist without their people. Employees, in turn, are not as such without the organizations, in which they establish their ties of work and emotions, which can vary from love to hate. In this symbiotic relationship established by daily work and by affiliation, communication plays a fundamental role, since there is no way to camouflage, circumvent, hide, or try to create a fantasy for those who know closely and deeply the reality of organizations as their employees do. On the other hand, it is not possible to build and maintain a strong corporate reputation without a deep alignment between the brand purpose and the goals of the employees.

We can state that, of all the groups that relate to the organizations, employees are those with the highest level of complexity to communicators. In fact, employees are the only ones to pass through two complimentary universes – the inner and outer parts of the organization, as they experience its dilemmas, contradictions, decisions, silences, and verbosity. As in almost any long-term relationship, employees know the qualities and they can identify the weaknesses of the organization in which they work. They are also continuously looking for mechanisms to deal with their relationship with the organization and their permanence in it. They build links, create and share senses, and generate perceptions. Quietly, along with the workflow, or occupying spaces of expression, they cause increasing impacts on the image and reputation of the organizations.

“The articulation of professional experience with the theoretical-conceptual thought is essential to understand the communication in the internal environment of organizations. This perspective has reinforced the reflections developed from the conclusion that the organizational web is built with speeches interspersed with rationality and permanent negotiation. As a space of interaction, the organization faces divergences and convergences of perspectives of the subjects to which it relates, as well as contradictions inherent in the system. The communication initiatives of the organization live with initiatives of inner actors, which demands other conceptions about the internal communication.”

Ivone de Oliveira (Brazil) – Professor at the Postgraduate Program in Social Communication of the PUC-Minas University

Motivated by these daily challenges, we gather in this book theoretical foundations that guide the practice of communication with employees. Using a multidisciplinary approach, we identify the main contributions to the field of Business Management, Sociology and Anthropology, areas with references to our practice and academic training. Additionally, we start questioning the importance of leadership for communication, and whereas we consider the practical aspect of this process, we also share some evidence of paths and alternatives that are more effective for the daily activity. By considering the revolution brought by digital social networks and their extreme ability to give voice and time to differences – both social and corporate – we also dedicate ourselves to examine their reflections in the inner context of organizations. In this journey, we also insert our vision of the new organizational world that emerges from this confluence of transformations.

Throughout our professional path, we had the privilege of working with thousands of media professionals who have taught, inspired and helped us to reflect on the challenges of the communicational act within organizations. We talked with some of these professionals during the production of this book, asking them to share their views on the challenging aspects of communication with employees. In this process, we contacted people from both academic and corporative world, in Brazil and abroad, with different points of view and sectoral experiences. What brings them together? The curiosity and the passion for communication with employees. The result of this incredible compilation of testimonials expresses concerns about the concept, governance, purpose, practices, and challenges of communication with employees; it also brings a special color to our ideas, which confirms some postulates and confronts others and shows our purpose that this book is open to dialogue and joint construction.

In fact, as the way this book is structured, we come to understand that this study is designed to professionals, researchers, students, and those who are interested in the subject, as well as the curious readers. It is not about an exhaustive and finished product. After all, no knowledge is definitive, exempt from criticism or unchangeable. Knowledge must be increasingly shared – as it happens with communication –, by means of smartphones, which here symbolize the process of joint construction and connection, instead of megaphones with unidirectional messages.

1 We chose to use this term in the book, as well as in scholarly articles previously published by us, to indicate the processes of interaction and exchange between the company and employees in the domestic context of organizations. It is important to highlight that the boundaries between the internal and external environments of organizations are increasingly less static and determined.

1

Why “communication with employees”?

INTERNAL COMMUNICATION, administrative communication, endo-marketing, communication with employees. There is a wide nomenclature related to the process of communication in the internal environment of the organizations – between them and their employees; leaders and employees; and employees and employees. Even the way one names the workforce there is a variety of options: employees, officers, contributors, and associated, among others terms. Thus, a researcher who wants to establish a taxonomy for the process, for example, will find several options. Indeed, this multiplicity of options may create confusion in the conceptual and practical fields, as well as effects on the perception of other professionals who work in organizations and relate to the communication actions. In this book, we chose to refer to workers as “employees” and the structured and directed communication of organizations to their employees as “communication with employees.”

Understood as such, the communication with employees brings together the relationship and positioning processes that happen within the organizational space, between the company and its employees. It is a broad concept, which covers the multiple forms of strategic scheduling and dialogue that occur in the inner context of organizations, aiming to map and influence them. Based on several sources, arising from Business Management to Psychology, and using more elaborate strategies or more instrumental tactics, this process emerged in the 1990s as a critical aspect for companies. According to Verčič, Verčič, and Sriramesh (2012), factors such as the globalization and repeated financial and credibility crises have reduced the employee’s trust in organizations. With less trust in organizations, the bonds became more fluid, which has a direct impact on the levels of engagement and even in the range of the businesses’ results.

This period coincided with the development of intense flows of communication and exchange of information among multiple actors – workflows enabled by digital social networks, which have affected in a unique way the communication processes inside and outside the organizations (SOARES; DEL GÁUDIO, 2013). In this context, the process of expressing oneself and connecting properly in the inner environment has become as important in the communication realm of an organization as other processes traditionally regarded as more noble and strategic, such as advertising and press office. Since internal audiences have gained greater credibility potential, their speech has a direct impact on generating positive or negative perceptions of an organization.

In addition to its unquestionable relevance, communication with employees – from a theoretical point of view – is a territory of many conceptual opportunities and with a direct impact in practice. Kalla (2005) observes that there are four possibilities of approaches to the process, which are crucial to the structure, strategy and focus of the area:

• Business: When the process aims to develop skills of communication with employees.

• Management: When actions are directed to expand the ability and the communication skills of managers.

• Corporate: When the activities are established in order to provide formal information.

• Organization: When the actions seek to translate organizational purposes.

“Healthy organizations, which consider the quality of life of employees and worry responsibly with the consequences of their communication, are certainly the most creative, productive and admired by their audiences.”

Margarida Maria Krohling Kunsch (Brazil) – Full Professor at the School of Communications and Arts of the University of São Paulo (ECA-USP)

In order to contribute to the evolution of the process, Kalla (2005) proposes a systemic and integrated approach, noting that this is, however, one of the major challenges to the communication professionals. Without a unified and contextualized vision of the relations between organizations and employees, the solutions presented may be summarized to two points: first, the issue of information and second, a very superficial vision of communication understood only as a set of previously determined tools that arise solely to support management guidelines.

Moving on the idea proposed by Kalla (2005), we tried to analyze the multiple facets and challenges of communication with employees in this book. Our interest is justified by the observation that, in specific literature about the topic, the theoretical studies are a promising field of debate. In fact, it is especially true if we consider the analysis of the relations established in the context of organizations and its asymmetrical dimension and conflict. We believe that, rather than organizing processes, activities, studies, and research, the next frontier for the evolution of this process is to understand the imbalances and conflicts that permeate the routine in organizations. This happens even if, in their speeches and attempts to practice, they tend to eliminate these distances and differences (SOARES, 2014). In our view, when this asymmetry is not taken into account – either in its conceptual or practical field –, crucial elements of the relation company-employees are ignored, distorting realities, bypassing imperfections and leading to erroneous approaches for us, the professionals in the area. It is important, then, that the internal communication in the context of organizations is understood as a practice marked by different perceptions and visions of the world, mediated by the interplay of interests, the dispute of the senses and the power relations that characterize the relationships among people (BALDISSERA, 2008).

“Communication can be understood as a collective process of construction of meanings, which highlights its symbolic nature. The meanings are constructed in the process of interaction that takes place in the organizations. It is crucial to widen the view to the socio-historical contexts in which subjects dialogue and conceive value for the world in which they live. Thus, the senses emerge in the communicational experiences that lead subjects to understand themselves and learn to live in communities of practice.”

Marlene Marchiori (Brazil) – Ph.D. in Organizational Communication, writer and professor in postgraduate courses in Brazil

As for the goals of the communication with employees, the most successful processes take into consideration, generally: the needs of the organization (of communicate, translating and spreading the strategies, goals, policies, processes, and ambiance); the expectations of people (of understanding the direction of the organization and the role expected of each one, also considering the expectations of the self-realizations, expression and recognition); and the context in which the relationship establishes itself.

Therefore, it is not possible to institute a mathematical sentence of where or how communication should happen. It is important that we look for the development of a model of thought and systemic action. This action must consider the tripod: needs, expectations, and context, and address the specific challenges of each fact or situation and each social group that endures in the organizational environment. To understand these challenges and connect them with the proposal of appreciate the organization, the communication professionals tend to reach a territory of strategic actions and results-oriented. By doing so, they amplify their possibilities of positioning themselves as builders of relationships and transformations for people and business.

In this sense, the communication with employees goes beyond a tactical or instrumental bias, becoming an element of culture and organizational performance. In this sense, the actions of communication with employees must be oriented to the search of strategic alignment, by sharing challenges and solutions. They also must aim the creation of a life and work environment in which individuals can express themselves, by going beyond the mere relation of purchase and sale of labor power. Consequently, the acts of communication must involve leaders and employees at the same time, and make them co-producers of the implemented solutions in the organizations. In a hyperconnected society, in which self-expression is an essential part of the identity, denying people this co-participation is a strategic error, to say the least. On the other hand, there is also a need to provide appropriate support for leadership in this process. After all, the experience of living and working conditions that have developed within organizations is the experience of management that we live.

In other words, to understand the different dynamics of relationships, the construction of meanings and management are some of the challenges that we have in organizations. Our contribution, as communication professionals, lies in understanding and establishing strategies and tactics addressed to all the audiences presented in the organizational space, which respond to what is expected of both organizations and their different interlocutors.

#REFLECTION

Communication with employees is not only about directing the information to the internal environment of work – since there are no more barriers between internal and external communication. The internal audience abandoned its so-called passivity to be also the subject of communication and relations. The networked society, the access to social media and the disclosing of online content concretize the idea of employees who also transmit communication and are part of the reputation of organizations.

In this way, communication in organizations – which had been divided by the clear boundaries of internal and external communication – has been reassessed. Now, it is understood in the context of inter-relationships, since its goal is filtered by the idea of building the sense of organization, regardless of the group to which an action is aimed at. (OLIVEIRA, 2008, p. 99).

MEGAPHONES OUT

“Internal communications is a young discipline – barely 30 years old. Yet even for such a short period of growth compared to our sister disciplines lie HR, I believe the most exciting developments in our field have happened in just the past three years. And they are about to get a whole lot more interesting.

For too long we have focused on top down messages, restricting ourselves to manning the corporate megaphone for those messages decided by the new to be imposed upon the many. We became very professional at spinning messages, segmenting audiences, managing our channels and protecting the senior team from distractions filtering up from the actual business. But with the arrival of the web that cozy sinecure has gone forever. As soon as we started publishing online, we started to uncover the inconvenient data that our newsletters were not being opened, but let alone. And that our carefully refined messages had been ignored for years by the majority they were aimed at.