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Use of technology in employee communication

Regular and effective communication is critical for fostering a culture of openness, trust and integrity. By Manjari Juneja

Good governance, employee-friendly HR policies and transparency in communication are increasingly becoming the fundamental pillars of progressive firms. Employee communication is often the most ignored aspect of HR initiatives without much thought or resources being dedicated to it. HR people often forget that communication is a two way process. In India, employees still expect the HR department to spend face time with them. This is an aspect that HR heads in India need to constantly communicate and build awareness about with their global counterparts.

While smaller organizations have focused on building a strong bond mostly through direct communication, larger organizations have sharpened methods of attaining success through large scale indirect or common communication across teams and geographies. The objective has been common in both modes, which is to build a well-oiled organizational machine for attaining superior performance and to build team engagement in organizational processes.

According to the key findings of the 2009/2010 Towers Watson Communication RoI studies, “For companies that are highly effective communicators, total returns to shareholders over the last five years were 47% higher than those with low communication effectiveness.” (The 2009/2010 Communication RoI Study looked at data collected in April and May of 2009, from 328 organizations that collectively represented five million employees in various regions around the world).

Sudhanshu Pandit, Director HR, Symantec, said, “Effective communication is a driver for employee engagement. Internal communication is particularly crucial in a crisis, providing employees with a strategy to handle a crisis and the facts surrounding such an event. Honest communication at such times helps stem rumors and the grapevine while helping build trust between the employees and the management. Effective employee communication is linked to employee productivity and morale. Employees today expect to receive direct, clear and timely communication on company plans and initiatives.”

Rohit Mahajan, Founder & MD, Saviance Technologies, said, “An organization is solely built on a base of committed employees. Every organization is rooted with a need to understand each of its employees, be it a small, mid-sized or a large corporate. Effective internal communication is an integral part of the genesis of a company. Each employee must be well understood before hiring and bringing them on board in order to create a unified group of dedicated employees. It should be a long term goal for a company to promote employee interaction with the senior management and with each other on a common platform. In an extremely fast-paced corporate scenario, with competitive employee offerings across the board, it is crucial to retain the talent pool, which can primarily be accomplished through controlled, effective and proactive employee communication.”

Gautam Ghosh, Product Evangelist, HR Head, Qontext, said, “It is critical to listen to what employees are saying to improve productivity and employee morale. One needs to move beyond semi-annual satisfaction surveys. Communication is the bedrock on which the success of change initiatives hinges.”

Methods of communicating

Employers these days constantly communicate with their employees through an internal employee social network. It helps each of them know what people are feeling, doing and sharing on a regular basis. The social intranet allows them to share corporate news, which employees can comment on. Even the employee newsletter is a crowd-sourced initiative.

Organizations have deployed a holistic communication model ranging from leveraging the latest technology to face-to-face meetings. While technology has enabled mass reach; face-to-face meetings create a connect with the audience.

Dr. Pallab Bandyopadhyay, Director - HR, Citrix Systems, said, “E-mail, noticeboards, e-boards, meetings, all hands, skip level meetings, HR 1:1s, Manager 1:1s, newsletter, employee surveys, virtual meetings, Webcasts, training, employee portals, even mass SMS messages! are how we communicate with the employee.”

" All important announcements worldwide are made through the micro blogging platform on our site." Yogesh Bansal Founder & CEO, ApnaCircle.com

Yogesh Bansal, Founder & CEO, ApnaCircle.com, said, “Micro blogging has changed the way that the world communicates. We have adapted micro blogging as a tool to communicate with our employees. All important announcements worldwide are made through the micro blogging platform on our site. Other modes of internal communication occur on e-mail, phone, IM or SMS.”

Deepak Kaistha, Director, Planman Consulting, said, “Messages to the employees get delivered with ease and at the earliest. It is easy to communicate through BlackBerry Messenger. It assures me that my messages are delivered instantly and that the necessary action will be taken. Other important announcements are sent through e-mail or put up on the company's bulletin.”

Inculcating technology

Communication and information methodology has to be fast, easily accessible and it has to keep things confidential. While planning and implementing an active communication strategy the maturity in providing appropriate and timely information to all employees has to be kept in mind.

The benefits of technology in communication can be immeasurable, since the returns are long term and well rounded. Companies can use this to their advantage in order to increase productivity, elevate revenues, build better relationships and customer delight as well as to become global entities.

" We use new age tools like telepresence, WebEx, IP Telephony, Webcasts and podcasts etc." Anshuman Ray Director HR - India, Armenia & Middle East, Synopsys

Anshuman Ray, Director HR - India, Armenia & Middle East, Synopsys, said, “The use of technology in communication has helped us in achieving the goal of ensuring partner success, embodying industry leadership as well as in driving shareholder value through globalization, customer intimacy and human capital development. Global messages are delivered instantaneously and worldwide customers are supported from one remote location; virtual classrooms have enhanced the reach of programs meant for a global audience through the use of the latest technology. We use new age tools like telepresence, WebEx, IP Telephony, Webcast and podcasts etc. which have shortened the geographical distance and helped us in reducing the cost of operations as well. The organization uses tools like global intranet, region-specific intranet, e–mail messages, news splash, department sharepoints and Synopsys TV (podcast) on a secured network to communicate with employees.”

" Mobile technology and the wireless Internet has made communication seamless and sans boundaries." Ramakrishna Karanam VP & Global Head - HR, Intelligroup

Ramakrishna Karanam, VP & Global Head - HR, Intelligroup, said, “Using e-mail allows you to communicate and send files quickly to remote locations within and outside the purview of office locations. Mobile technology and the wireless Internet has made communication seamless and sans boundaries. Since minimal technical support is needed, installation, operations and maintenance can be done with little or no supervision. With feasible budgeting, companies can save a lot of money and ensure the optimum utilization of resources if the use of technology is planned and executed properly.”

Communication strategy

A structured approach becomes necessary while planning an effective employee communication strategy. Technology has become an indispensable part of any organization’s overall growth plans, including interactive employee communication. Social media has undoubtedly taken a leap as the primary tool for keeping up personal as well as business links. Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are at the forefront of technology as a communication tool for professional, personal and business discussions. However, with organizations giving restricted access to social networking sites, evidently, an intranet portal remains the most appealing form of internal communication in order to engage all employees.

Employees being exposed to too much information could be both a boon and a bane. On the one hand, it helps the employee understand what is happening in the company and which direction it is moving in. On the other hand, it could pose a problem to the employee, if he doesn't know where to draw the line and limit himself to data relevant to his job role. Therefore, it becomes difficult to manage data from an organizational standpoint.

Margaret Rodriques, Associate Manager - Corporate HR, Directi Internet Solutions Pvt. Ltd., said, “However, there are some communications, which need to be sent to one and all in the organization. It is imperative for every manager to give a download of the company vision to each team member under him. This helps everyone look at the larger business goal eye-to-eye. For this purpose, most teams organize a weekly meeting wherein the goals for the near future are discussed. A quarterly planning meeting is organized at Directi, wherein the bigger goals are outlined and every team member is made aware of the same. We believe in constantly communicating with employees and reminding them of the bigger goals and understanding the bottlenecks that they face while trying to find a way to work around the same.”

Elango R., Chief Human Resources Officer, MphasiS, An HP Company, said, “We have over 41,000 employees from varied domain, industry, education and demographic backgrounds. For e.g., employees servicing the BPO wing are predominantly freshers whereas employees in the Applications Development space are lateral hires. Therefore, verbose corporate communications mailers will not do the trick and a combination of various innovative modes and methodologies to reach out to the entire audience is essential. Our mantra is to always be relevant. We host leader connect sessions called town halls every quarter across all locations; put up eye catching posters, screen savers, online games (mandatory participation), etc. We encourage blogging and have an internal community called MminglE, which is much like Facebook or any other social networking site and lets you share the latest happenings.”

Leveraging communication

Robust employee communication that demonstrates the integrity and honesty of an organization’s leadership, helps build an inclusive culture and eliminates negative perceptions. An informed workforce is one that is better aligned to an organization's goals and objectives as well as highly productive.

There are three factors involved in building an engaged workforce namely how an employee feels about work and the immediate team, whether the employee has friends at the workplace and what the employee feels about the organization.

" We leverage technology to communicate with employees and enable the power of interdependent collaboration." S. Chandrashekhar Director - Human Resources, Juniper Networks India

S. Chandrashekhar, Director, Human Resources, Juniper Networks India, said, “Our founders' vision is Connect Everything, Empower Everyone. In line with this thought leadership, we leverage technology to communicate with employees and enable the power of interdependent collaboration to flourish in the organization. Technology is used to share company strategy and direction, competency development, employee engagement, collaboration tools for enabling communities and knowledge management.”

Susan Jain, Vice President Marketing & Communications, IBM India, said, “Employee trust and loyalty is best won by making them realize that their opinions are sought and matter to the organization. Activities such as Jam help build employee trust and sense of belonging, to inculcate our values across the entire organization and to discover new ways to better serve our clients and India’s growth aspirations as a nation.”

Dayanand Allapur, HR Head, Tesco HSC, said, “In order for companies to successfully influence the attitudes and behavior of employees, focused communications must supply all the information that's needed to optimize productivity. Also, we must rely on a multitude of sources to communicate effectively to our employees be it through blogs, portal, media or e-mail. It is important to integrate this with focused external communications so that the employees get consistent information.”

Changing trends

Trends in communication tend to evolve. Concepts like virtual team meetings using virtual private network (VPN), teleconferencing/ telepresence, global town halls through the use of high speed video conferencing, soft VoIP phones on the computer, integrated telecom devices, online chats, e-mail, virtual classrooms etc. over secure networks have been the buzzwords and these are redefining the way that organizations communicate and deliver information to their employees.

As a younger workforce enters organizations, their expectations have been shaped by consumer social applications like Facebook, twitter and blogging and they would want access to similar tools within the workforce. Social media has been viewed as the biggest trend in the way that employees communicate today.

Roopali Sundar, Head, Talent Management, Avaya India, said, “In today’s well developed corporate world, there is a greater focus on transparency and communication than ever before. Employees want to know what they are working towards, how they will achieve it, how they will benefit and how the company will move ahead. This calls for proactive communication from the leaders and decision makers. Gone are the times when employees waited for the year end to hear about the company’s performance and their own. Today is the time of e-communication, direct leader connect and proactive communication on the future or present strategy. Also the trend is shifting from a top-down approach to two-way communication, where the ‘Voice of the employee’ counts and creative platforms to build this two-way mechanism become critical.”

Sheela K.L., VP HR, Collabera, said, “Employees are becoming increasingly demanding and vocal about their needs for transparency and regular communication in their policies and procedures as they are exposed to a vast combination of mixed media both old and new, setting their expectations for a strong, effective and communicative interaction process. In short, communication is the flow of energy from the impossible to possible, from ambiguity to clarity and from being left out to inclusive. This pushes the organization to come up with ground breaking ways to tackle the simple communication process in a stylized way while yet remaining relevant.”

The next step would be to go mobile. This would be a key aspect for organizations with a large sales force that are out for meetings and constantly on the move.

Challenges

Employees face challenges in developing strategies and processes to manage the communication function in ways that would boost an organization's success. Rapid advances in technology have altered both the nature of production, causing a shift in focus from products to services, and the nature of the communication process.

Communicators and senior management have had to work together in order to establish proactive, well-defined communication strategies that engage and align employees with the organization's business goals. A closer relationship between employees and the top level management would help the workforce understand and support the direction of the organization.

Immediate access to technological advances and high Internet bandwidth is required in order to enable video calls for the larger population of the workforce. Building a participatory culture, being open and transparent requires changes in mindset. This could be achieved through continuous grooming sessions for the managers.

With geographical challenges of different time zones and language barriers, in-person two-way communication can proves to be a challenge to achieve leading to an upsurge in the use of electronic means of communication.

" An effective monitoring system should be in place before organizations venture into activities such as blogging." Subhankar Roy Executive Director - HR, India, Middle East & Africa, Lenovo

Subhankar Roy Chowdhury, Executive Director - HR, India, Middle East & Africa, Lenovo, said, “While dealing with employees on forums in public domains there lies a risk to the integrity of the organization. Tools like blogs invite the participation of an internal audience (sometimes external as well) and even if a single view is in contradiction to that of the organization, it can damage the reputation and image of the company. Therefore, an effective monitoring system should be in place before organizations venture into such activities.”

Hanuman Tripathi, Group Managing Director, Infrasoft Technologies Limited, said, “The challenge lies in using communication as a motivational and engagement tool that ensures that all team members across the enterprise understand their roles, duties, results expected and delivered and finally, the impact that they have made on the organization’s success. Therefore, our constant endeavor is to make all personalized communication as nuclear as possible, implying the involvement of as many management tiers as possible for communicating with a single team member or teams and building empowerment among younger managers to share organizational information or communicate important decisions around them in a responsible manner.”

Effective communication is a constant challenge which any organization has to beat with proactive activity and zeal. Procrastination of any type can be a challenge to attaining the desired results that are expected from timely communication. Inter-function coordination is another challenge, which top management has had to focus on.

manjari.juneja@expressindia.com