Megaphones Out, Smartphones In

By Rozália Del Gáudio and Paulo Henrique Leal Soares

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Aberje Editorial
• Release date: Nov 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9786586831276

Book preview

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.

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