For the employee communications expert panel at this week's IABC World Conference, I was asked to talk briefly about a communications trend I've seen recently. Aside from the obvious one (social media), the only thing I've seen is internal communicators getting beat up on a daily basis. For the last six months they have been in crisis mode because announced layoffs, business cuts and other fun news.
So what I presented to the group was more a curiosity that I had. I'm really interested to see that as the economy moves from recession to recovery, what key role will communicators play?
One of the Canadian attendees provided some fantastic insight. She said what the US is going through now, several Canadian provinces went through in the mid 90s. In the down economy, employers held the balance of power. There were no jobs, so employees simply hunkered down. Once the economy rebounded, employees held the balance of power and could basically make demands of their job that they couldn't before. She said, for example, that Starbucks workers were making $16-20 an hour.
Though I doubt we'll see something that dramatic here in the US, it is possible that the power will shift to employees. I know of people who like to leave their job, but simply can't. And when the economy improves, they will have options.
So companies must engage the employees they want to keep, the good guys. It can be extremely damaging to a business to lose talented workers. So corporate communications professionals will play a vital role in adding this value and must continue to improve workplace communication. Proof that I'm not the only one thinking about this, I found this post from Melcrum this morning titled, "10 questions to ask leaders as businesses emerge from the recession."
It's a great read for those interested. One particular contributor cited the need for communicators to get out in front of the recovery period and begin communicating before it's too late.
In a future post, I'll talk about how and why communicators should begin now making plans as part of this recovery period, such as making investments in new tools (like digital signage) or updating existing vehicles.
______________________
Photo credit, Doublep1
So what I presented to the group was more a curiosity that I had. I'm really interested to see that as the economy moves from recession to recovery, what key role will communicators play?One of the Canadian attendees provided some fantastic insight. She said what the US is going through now, several Canadian provinces went through in the mid 90s. In the down economy, employers held the balance of power. There were no jobs, so employees simply hunkered down. Once the economy rebounded, employees held the balance of power and could basically make demands of their job that they couldn't before. She said, for example, that Starbucks workers were making $16-20 an hour.
Though I doubt we'll see something that dramatic here in the US, it is possible that the power will shift to employees. I know of people who like to leave their job, but simply can't. And when the economy improves, they will have options.
So companies must engage the employees they want to keep, the good guys. It can be extremely damaging to a business to lose talented workers. So corporate communications professionals will play a vital role in adding this value and must continue to improve workplace communication. Proof that I'm not the only one thinking about this, I found this post from Melcrum this morning titled, "10 questions to ask leaders as businesses emerge from the recession."
It's a great read for those interested. One particular contributor cited the need for communicators to get out in front of the recovery period and begin communicating before it's too late.
In a future post, I'll talk about how and why communicators should begin now making plans as part of this recovery period, such as making investments in new tools (like digital signage) or updating existing vehicles.
______________________
Photo credit, Doublep1
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