Reference no: EM132189393

The Situation:

The Communication competency reflects a critical component of all HR activities. HR professionals must hear what is needed, deliver what will be helpful, and change their message and activities based on the feedback they receive. Communication is a feedback loop.

Consider an HR organization that must communicate a new policy on education reimbursement to a large, dispersed, and varied workforce.

The HR leader and an HR manager discuss the new policy, the changes that must be explained, the rationale behind the changes, and how the policy is likely to affect different employee groups. They meet with a benefits specialist who will be responsible for implementing the communication. As a team, they outline the key points, analyze information needs and attitudes of different employee groups, and decide the best way to communicate this change. They decide that they will have a web conference with all managers before announcing the policy. This interactive medium will allow managers to ask HR questions and prepare answers to the questions their people may raise. A week later an e-mail will be sent to all employees.

Meanwhile, the specialist drafts an e-mail aimed at being understandable to the average employee and as brief and complete as possible. The tone of the message will be important. Before this critical document is reviewed by the senior members of the team, the specialist arranges for an internal review by several readers who know this audience.

Reactions at the web conference cause the team to change their strategy slightly. The managers would like to direct employees to the organization intranet for more detailed information and forms they will need. Another HR staff member is assigned this task.

After the policy is released, the team tracks reactions. The few questions coming into HR indicate that the team has done a good job in anticipating employees’ communication needs. The intranet page is being visited. The process described there appears to be understood and is being used properly. An e-mail survey of managers indicates that the policy announcement went smoothly in the field.

1. What is the advantage of using a team to tackle this communication? Apply different communication management principles and activities to this situation.

2. What is the advantage of breaking the communication into multiple segments? Clearly relate your answer to elements if communication explained.

3. What are the advantages of the communication technologies used in this case?

4. How is this communication improved through feedback? What impact does cross culture has on communication.