FRONTLINE SUPERVISORS AS THE KEY COMMUNICATORS
The source employees most want to receive information from is their immediate or frontline supervisor—the most effective vehicle for communicating with employees, according to the previous list. Frontline supervisors are trusted and therefore more believable.
The communication process that passes information from top management down to employees through their immediate supervisors is sometimes called cascading meetings. It involves:
• Providing resources and training for frontline supervisors to relay information to their direct reports;
• Giving supervisors advance notice and in-depth and meaningful information to share with employees; and
• Making subject matter experts available to immediately answer questions.
This process helps relationship building within the management team. Supervisors get information in a timelier manner and feel more plugged into what’s going on. And messages are delivered face-to-face to all employees in 24 hours using this process—which beats both the news media and the grapevine.
TRUST IS ESSENTIAL
Trust directly impacts an organization’s success and profits.1 It contributes to job satisfaction, which leads to effectiveness, financial strength, competitiveness, and productivity. Trust must start with initiatives from the top.
If we look at organizations realistically, it is apparent that the most important people are those at the bottom—the frontliners. They make the product, deliver the service, sell the goods, and provide essential support mechanisms. In short, they more than anyone are the organization.
If, as shown in the diagram, you draw a line above the frontline supervisors (whether called team leaders, managers, or whatever), everyone above the line is overhead. The top of the pyramid is cost, not income generating. Those positions exist to support what the frontliners do.
Therefore, if management wants to earn trust, it must acknowledge this, and then formulate policies and processes that prove and continually symbolize it to the frontliners.
There are six components of trust:
1 According to a study by the International Association of Business Communicators, “Measuring Organizational Trust: A Diagnostic Survey & International Indicator.” For more information, call 800–776-4222, or e-mailservice_center@iabc.com.
1. Openness. Good news and bad must be shared with employees or they may suspect secrecy and conspiracy. Divulge plans in a timely fashion explaining the “whys.”
2. Shared values. Management must share its vision with all employees and encourage employees to offer theirs.
3. Consistency of words and actions. Consistent treatment of all employees as well as consistency between management’s words and actions are needed.
4. Appreciation. Management must show appreciation for employees’ commitment to the organization.
5. Feedback. Employees’ input must be solicited and considered, and they must be allowed to speak out with impunity. Often, trouble stems from executives believing theirs is the only workable way.
6. Autonomy. Management must give employees respect, allowing them to work independently and monitor their own performance without breathing down their necks.
COMMUNICATING THROUGH TECHNOLOGY: PROS AND CONS
The convenience and speed of technology make it an alluring communication medium, but it needs to be used wisely. Once awareness has been created—preferably by face-to-face communication where possible—technology (e-mail, the Internet, and intranet sites) is useful for reinforcing the message.
The advantages of technology include a quick way to give and get feedback, which shortens the communication cycle time, convenient information storage and retrieval, reduced communication costs, a flatter corporate hierarchy when an employee with an idea or concern can share it directly with an individual (from a senior manager to an immediate supervisor) without having the message reviewed and filtered by others, and the ability to collaborate with others. It allows people on different floors, different time zones, and different continents to have immediate access to working documents and data.
On the negative side, it’s impersonal and increases the risk of dehumanizing relationships; it’s generally done quickly, even impulsively, and thus increases the likelihood for misunderstanding; it’s a pull medium, which means the receiver must want it and seek it; information security is still a big concern for many; and often the information received is not information mapped (a visual layout that makes text easy to read and understand, reduces long paragraphs to bite-sized chunks bulleted for easy scanning, and offers a source for more details).
The main impact of technology, as one PR firm CEO put it, is “speed without analysis, data without wise interpretation.”2
Trustworthiness Now Means Holding Back Nothing
Public relations counselor Bruce Harrison advises that in dealing with key publics such as employees, it’s not enough to just communicate honestly. Organizations are finding that in order to foster trust, they must be entirely open and show all evidence, a method called “transparent communication.” Organizations need to let constituents know:
• Here’s how we’re making the decision. Here are the facts that led us to make this decision.
• Here are the options. Let’s look at them together so you can help us make the decision.
• We believe we’re being forthright and candid, but you judge for yourself. Here are the data. What do you think?
2pr reporter’s“ 30th Annual Survey of the Profession.” Vol. 41 No. 38. September 28, 1998.
Intranets are one way to implement this strategy with employees. Minutes of meetings, policies, plans and strategies, financial results, and other data are posted there for any interested employee.
This type of policy is the key for any organization to be considered trustworthy today.
Source: pr reporter Vol. 35 No. 36, September 21, 1992, p. 3.
References and Additional Readings
Bailey, John, and Richard Bevan. “Employee Communication.” Chapter 12 in Lesly’s Handbook of Public Relations and Communications. 5th ed. Chicago, IL: NTC Business Books, 1998.
Barr, Stephen. “Smile! You’re on Corporate TV.” Communication World 8 (September 1991): 28–31.
Beer, Michael, Russell Eisenstat, and Bert Spector. “Why Change Programs Don’t Produce Change.” Harvard Business Review (November/ December 1990): 158–166.
Brody, E. W. Communicating for Survival. New York: Praeger, 1987.
Casarez, Nicole B. “Electronic Mail and Employee Relations: Why Privacy Must Be Considered.” Public Relations Quarterly 37 (Summer 1992): 37–40.
Cutlip, Scott, Allen Center, and Glen Broom. “Media for Internal Publics.” Chapter 9 in Effective Public Relations. 8th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999.
Davids, Meryl. “Labor Shortage Woes: How Practitioners Are Helping Companies Cope.” Public Relations Journal 44 (November 1988).
Drucker, Peter. “The Responsible Worker.” Chapter 21 in Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices. New York: Harper and Row, 1974.
Friedman, Thomas L. The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006, p. 15.
Herman, Roger, and Joyce Gioia. How to Become an Employer of Choice. Winchester, VA: Oakhill Press, 2000.
Holtz, Shel. Public Relations on the Net. New York: AMACOM, 1999.
Pfeffer, Jeffrey. The Human Equation: Building Profits by Putting People First. Boston. MA: Harvard Business School Press, January 1998.
pr reporter Special Report: A Probing Look at Employee Relations Today: How to Shape World-Class Internal Relationships and Communications. Exeter, NH: PR Publishing, 1998.
pr reporter Vol. 42 No. 29 (July 26, 1999). “‘Are You Being Served?’ Study Finds Employee Politeness Is Huge Determinant of Customer Loyalty, as PR Has Insisted.”
pr reporter Vol. 42 No. 1 (January 4, 1999). “In an Era of Mistrust and Skepticism, Making Your Organization One People Can Trust Is the Ultimate Differentiator.”
pr reporter Vol. 40 No. 15 (April 14, 1997). “The Psychology of Customer Delight: PR’s Vital Role.”
pr reporter Vol. 39 No. 34 (August 26, 1996). “Some Metrics on How Well Employee Participation Pays Off.”
pr reporter Vol. 37 No. 21 (May 23, 1994). “Action Research Unites Staff and Management in Satisfying Customers.”
pr reporter Vol. 36 No. 40 (October 11, 1993). “Communication, PR Ideas Drive Unique Re-Engineering Plan”—An outstanding case study that puts all the organizational trends together.
pr reporter Vol. 34 No. 49 (December 16, 1991). “PR’s Role in Culture Change.”
pr reporter Vol. 32 No. 34 (August 28, 1989). “Survey Finds Trust in Management Translates into Quality.”
Skutski, Karl. “Conducting a Total Quality Communications Audit.” Public Relations Journal, April 1992, 20–32.
Smith, Alvie. Innovative Employee Communication: New Approaches to Improving Trust, Teamwork and Performance. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1991.
Case 3-1 Communicating through Acquisition: Southwest Airlines Takes on AirTran and Blends Employee Cultures
Often one of the hardest parts of a merger or acquisition is blending the different cultures so that employees are able to do their work to the best of their ability with the least amount of frustration and conflict. Those employees whose organization’s name and culture ends up subsumed by the new entity often feel a sense of loss and diminished loyalty. This fact is often overlooked, and a newly created organization can lose precious time and productivity trying to excise the resulting angst and conflict for years.
How SWA and AirTran Avoided Culture Wars
The Southwest Airlines (SWA) acquisition of AirTran became official in early May 2010. However, the SWA communications team began planning far in advance, knowing that a smooth transition to “one-department communications” would not happen overnight.
This was the first merger for SWA, and a lot was at stake. Over the years, it had carved out a unique niche in the airline industry and had managed to hold onto its passenger-friendly, employee-friendly culture, even through leadership transitions.
“We were fortunate that AirTran shares a lot of the same core beliefs in terms of the culture of employees first and treating customers right,” says Todd Painter, SWA communications manager.
Research First
The first step was to meet with AirTran’s communications team to figure out how it communicated to employees and compare that to how SWA was doing it. AirTran had a strong communications team, but the department structure did not line up exactly with SWA’s structure. At SWA, for example, media relations, employee relations, and social media were all in the same group, which helped them achieve One Clear Voice. They had also established an Internal Communicators Exchange (ICE) which enabled them to communicate with all professional communicators throughout the organization weekly.
Much of SWA’s communications program design was based on results from an ongoing, company-wide employee survey program. SWA began these surveys in 2006, and an outside firm still conducts them every two years. “We look at a lot of topics: leadership, direction of the company, morale, etc. Feedback from the survey is reviewed by different cross-sectional committees who then take action on the recommendations. The idea of having an employee blog and the ability to comment on podcasts came from feedback that we needed to increase two-way communication,” said Painter. The need for texting and a mobile app also came up in survey feedback.
Highlights from SWA Employee Survey and Quarterly Intranet Poll
• 80% say SWA provides up-to-date information on company happenings.
• 97% of SWA employees are willing to go the extra mile for customers.
• On the quarterly SWA Life poll: 90% of employees consistently say they are proud to work for SWA.
Integration Messaging Presented as a United Front
To make the transition, SWA and AirTran decided that all messaging on the integration would be shared and that both companies would continue using their own communication vehicles for at least six months during the transition. Bob Jordan, president of AirTran (and executive vice-president of SWA), established a weekly toll-free message for employees, and Gary Kelly of SWA also delivered a weekly message to SWA employees. The audio messages were then posted as podcasts. SWA continued its daily e-newsletter, “Today at SWA,” while AirTran continued publishing its vehicle “Aline” for six months before the two publications were consolidated into one.
“We also had to iron out some systems inconsistencies,” said Painter. “For example, all SWA employees had company-issued e-mail accounts but AirTran employees didn’t, so we had to get those lined up.”
The “publication of record” for SWA is SWALife, the intranet site that is refreshed with three to five stories a day. During the transition period, AirTran employees had access to SWALife, but they also kept their intranet, Sharetran. SWALife has a very interactive blog that gets monitored closely to get a sense of what issues stimulate the most responses and which messages resonate best with employees. “All comments are monitored by the communication team,” said Painter. “If we deny a posting, we’ll e-mail the employee back and let him know why.”
A little over a year after the merger (summer 2011), SWA launched its mobile app and AirTran employees gained access at the same time. Shortly before that, in April, SWA launched “opt-in-texting” for employees. This is reserved for breaking news such as the decision to fly to a new city or quarterly financial results.
In addition, most stations have their own Facebook pages that are fed by local employees, though, again, the communications department oversees them. SWA also developed a Corporate Social Media Handbook for all employees that provides background on SWA’s social media philosophy and spells out employee guidelines for social media use; it also includes FAQs on this topic.
SWA has some traditional communication vehicles like the monthly LUVLines newsletter for employees and their families and a special e-newsletter for SWA leaders. “We post our daily newsletter on bulletin boards in the field and have slots for every day of the week in which we can place a one pager—and we do get feedback that crews take the information on flights,” said Painter.
The Mission of Southwest Airlines
The mission of Southwest Airlines is dedication to the highest quality of Customer Service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and Company Spirit (Figure 3.1).
FIGURE 3.1
