"Heads will roll if you're over budget
and off schedule again."

The plant communication manager has been asked asked to implement an operations-based, employee communication process within six months. The proposed communication process has been promised, documented in the plant's business plan for next year and shipped to corporate headquarters. 

Question:
If you had been the plant's communication manager, what would you have done? 

What happened?
Gavin-Hodges Associates was contacted and asked to "teach our managers a communication process." During interviews with the trainer, senior group members described their expectations of an operations-based, employee communication process. 

In summary, they said, their ideal employee communication process would:
•  anchor itself to the plant's business objectives and fit with both existing and future human resource management initiative;
•  provide ordinary, routine, two-way information flows; 
•  position and establish senior managers as accountable and responsible for plant employee communication; 
•  require that each plant manager/supervisor bear individual responsibility and accountablility for employee communication within his or her work unit; and 
•  result in a yearly employee communication action plan that would serve as a roadmap for influencing what employees need to do to support the plant's operating priorities for the year. ^Top 

Training barriers
There were some unique training barriers. The critical barrier was the composition of the plant's general workforce. Nearly 2000 people worked three shifts at the site. The employee population's educational level ranged from highly skilled and highly educated to those with only a high school education. 

The site is isolated from other industries and businesses. There is low turnover. Those employees who described themselves as among the "start-up" workforce presented attitudinal baggage that inferred, "The way things are here is the way they've always been, and the way they're always going to be." Start-up employees, it was learned, did not identify with 'the new senior managers' (those not among the start-up managers) nor did they pay much attention to communications from corporate headquarters. Many employees identified only with their work unit. Many had no sense of "we" in reference to plant operations. 

There were 300-plus employees with the job title of manager or supervisor. That group also offered an additional attitudinal challenge. Most worked in highly technical, highly prescribed units under the threat of penalty-laden consequences for deviation from operating specifications. It was determined that the group included (1) those who "communicated everything" relayed to them--without amplification or interpretation for their subordinates; (2) those who "filtered everything" and added personal biases before they communicated with subordinates; and (3) those who "communicated nothing" because, they said, they were "too busy with important, technical work" responsibilities. 

Implementing the process
Gavin-Hodges' proposal to the management group was anchored to Communication Skills & Techniques for Managers, a one-day immersion session in operations-based communication management. It was explained that during each training session, each manager/supervisor would learn to use The Values/Communication Actions Matrix, a communication decision process. The process, it was explained, would give managers a way to use their operating objectives to anticipate, plan and manage their unit's employee communication. The Matrix process focuses managers on how to define desired employee behaviors before deciding messages and media. 

Each manager/supervisor, it was proposed, would attend the training session with his/her peer group (engineers with engineers, etc.). Each group would complete a specific pre-session assignment and identify three operating priorities with the most urgent employee communication needs. 

From the top
Within four months, the managers/supervisors had been trained to use the new communication decision process. The 10-member, senior management group was trained first. They learned the process, identified the top three plant operating goals, defined the plant's umbrella desired employee behaviors and developed umbrella message categories to be communicated by each plant manager/supervisor. That meant that any operating priority identified by any work group as a "priority communication topic" would need to be traceable to the umbrella operating priorities set by the senior management team. The senior team also specified that the priority managerial communication medium would be face-to-face. ^Top 

A year later
One year later, the plant was under budget and all planned projects were on schedule. Certainly, installing an operations-based internal communication process was not solely responsible for the achievement. However, providing managers/supervisors with an operations-based communicatrion process allowed each to anticipate, plan and manage their units' employee communications in line with the priority communication topics set by senior management. The plant's employee communication process became a value-adding influence on operating success. 

The follow-up
Eighteen months after the training was completed, Gavin-Hodges Associates conducted a written, anonymous submission survey of all managers/supervisors who were trained. 

They were asked to rate (on a scale of 1 to 10) their level of agreement with survey statements. A rating of "10" meant that the respondent totally agreed with the statement. Below are examples of the survey questions and the response rating averages.

Survey Statement/Response Rating Average

•  This process was "easy for me to learn.": 6.4

•  This process was "easy for me to use.": 5.5

•  I could apply this process to my work "after the one-day training.": 7.1

•  This "process works when I remember" to use it: 8.2

•  I "always remember" to use this process: 5.5

•  This process can be used "to develop both routine and emergency" communications: 6.3

•  This process "meets my needs, supports achievement of my business objectives": 6.0

•  Over the past 18 months "plant employee communications have improved": 6.0

•  The perceived "value of messages identified and communicated" by senior managers determine which messages I communicate with my subordinates: 7.7

•  What "key messages do you recall" as originating from senior management over the past 12 months?
"Safety and the budget! I got sick hearing them talk about the budget. I don't remember any other topics, but I do remember safety and budget."

The communication message topics "Safety first" and "Meet the budget" were among the umbrella message topics identified by the senior management group during its training session. Those topics were cited by the majority of the managers/supervisors submitting a response to the question." 

Note: The averages of rating responses by survey respondents who identified themselves as "senior manager" were consistent with the averages of rating responses by those who identifed themselves as "manager/supervisor." 

This project was headed by Roland L. Draughon, Managing Associate, Gavin-Hodges Associates.
E-mail: rdraughon@gavinhodges.com

Management team presentations
Since 1990, Communication Skills and Techniques for Managers has been presented exclusively in-house with management teams. For information on a presentation at your organization, contact Ms. S. N. Jones, Marketing Associate. Click the course title for information on Communication Skills & Techniques for Managers. ^Top 
 
 
 

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