Making company communication more effective

使公司沟通更有效

In the last few years, managers throughout industry have been seen more changes than many of them could have expected to see in their entire working lives. Having to communicate information which often leads to feelings of insecurity has a become a key activity. From being regarded as relatively unimportant in many companies, management-employee communication has become a central corporate need.

在过去的几年里，整个行业的经理们所看到的变化比他们中的许多人在整个工作生涯中预期的要多。必须交流常带来不安全感的信息已成为一项关键活动。从在许多公司被视为相对不重要事情，管理层与员工的沟通已成为公司的核心需求。

Concordia international provides a good example of a company that has adjusted well to the changing needs for communication. Since 1995, Concordia has been turned inside-out and upside-down, to ensure that it is a marketing-led, customer-responsive business, one that looks outwards at customers and competitors, rather than inwards at its own process and the way things were done in the past. In the last eight years, Concordia has reduced its workforce by more than 80000 people - or 35% - on a voluntary basis, with further downsizing anticipated.

康考迪亚跨国公司提供了一个很好的例子，说明公司已经很好地适应了不断变化的沟通需求。自1995年以来，康考迪亚一直被彻底颠覆，以确保它是一家以市场营销为导向、响应客户需求的企业，一家向外看客户和竞争对手的企业，而不是向内看自己的流程和过去的做法。在过去八年中，康考迪亚在自愿的基础上减少了8万多人，即35%，预计还会进一步裁员。

From being an engineer company, Concordia is now remarking itself as a service company. The role of employee communication in such a context is to build people's self-confidence , to persuade them that, although it is inevitable that the changes will go ahead, they also bring with them new opportunities for employees. However, this is not an easy task. People tend to be skeptical for these claims and to feel that they are losing touch with the company they have worked for over many years. This is understandable, since many of the old certainties are being swept away, include the core activities of the company they work for: Above all, they had to face up to the fact that they no longer have a job for life.

从一家工程师公司开始，康考迪亚公司现在开始将自己重新定位为一家服务公司。在这种情况下，员工沟通的作用是建立人们的自信心，说服他们，尽管变革不可避免，但也会为员工带来新的机会。然而，这不是一项容易的任务。人们往往对这些说法持怀疑态度，并觉得他们正在与他们工作多年的公司失去联系。这是可以理解的，因为许多曾经确定的事情正在被一扫而空，包括他们工作的公司的核心活动：最重要的是，他们必须面对这样一个事实：他们不再有一份终身工作。

Research indicates that people respond to this predicament in a variety of ways. The bulk of employees fall into two main categories in terms of their response to the new situation: on the one hand there are the 'pragmatists' and on the other 'the highly anxious'. The former see their job as a means to an end and have a relatively short-term perspective, with strong loyalty to their local team, rather than the company as a whole. The second category, usually the majority, may respond to threatened changes with a feeling of having been let down, and even feel anger at the company for what they see as changing the terms of their employment.

研究表明，人们对这种困境的反应多种多样。就对新形势的反应而言，大部分员工分为两大类：一方面是“实用主义者”，另一方面则是“高度焦虑者”。前者将工作视为达到最终目的的一种手段，并具有相对短期的视角，对当地团队而非整个公司有强烈的忠诚度。第二类人，通常是大多数人，可能会对受到威胁的变化感到失望，甚至会对公司感到愤怒，因为他们认为公司改变了他们的雇佣条款。

The employee communication process needs to be capable of accurately directing its messages at a variety of employees groups and departments within the workforce. This is why middle managers and line managers are so key to communication. They are the people who knows about the full range of concerns among the workforce. The problem in the past was that this crucial area was often the responsibility of a separate, relatively isolated unit. Concordia puts responsibility for communication firmly on line managers. All their research points to the same conclusion: people prefer to get their information face-to-face from their line managers. That is the key relationship and where arguments - the hearts and minds - are lost. 

员工沟通过程需要能够将其信息准确地传达给员工队伍中的各个员工群体和部门。这就是为什么中层经理和直线经理是沟通的关键。他们是了解劳动力中各种担忧的人。过去的问题是，这一关键领域往往由一个单独的、相对孤立的单位负责。康考迪亚公司将沟通的责任牢牢地交给了直线经理。他们的所有研究都得出了相同的结论：人们更喜欢从他们的直线经理那里当面获取信息。这是关键的关系，也是争论在心灵和思想层面被消除的地方。

The general rule in company communication is to tell employees as much as you can as soon as you can. If you cannot provide details, then at least put the news in context and commit yourself to providing great details when it becomes available. Another rule of company communication is that there must be a fit between what the company is telling its employees and what it is telling its stakeholders.

公司沟通的一般规则是尽可能快地和多的告诉员工。如果你不能提供详细信息，那么至少要把新闻放在上下文中，并承诺在它可用时就提供详细信息。公司沟通的另一条规则是，公司告诉员工的内容和告诉利益相关者的内容之间必须保持一致。