Did you ever hear a parent or someone in authority say, “Don’t do as I do, but do as I say?”
That statement is an example of someone sending a mixed message. In a perfect world, employers and business leaders should always avoid sending out mixed messages to their employees. And for many employees, if not all, company leadership plays a critical role—despite the challenges—in setting the tone for credible and trustworthy workplace communications.
Here is an example to help make my point.
Some years back, a CEO stood in front of his employees at the holiday lunch and told them that the state of the company was fine. He further explained that results were strong for that year and then he wished them happy holidays.
Guess what happened about a month later? After the holidays were over, this CEO ended up reducing the workforce by 40 percent, and those employees who remained were forced to take a salary reduction.
So in order to avoid upsetting all the employees right before the holidays, this CEO still had to face the inevitable, which was made even worse because the employees were unprepared to learn the truth.
After all this happened, I asked him, “What message do you think these employees got?” After recovering from the shock of this event, these employees—the ones who were laid off and the ones remaining—realized that their CEO did not tell them the whole story.
Moving on: As it turns out, business improved for this employer so, in the summer, he tried to recall about 90 percent of the laid off employees. Most of them refused the job offers; some had already accepted other job offers, but others refused them, saying that they couldn’t work for someone whom they could not trust.
The employer was actually surprised at their responses because, in his mind, he thought they would be thrilled to get called back. Their responses really opened his eyes, and he saw the folly of sending out mixed messages. Most employees don’t want to put themselves in situations where they might have to go through something like that again.
So it’s a matter of trust and good will. This story describes not only a poor communications strategy for an employer’s relationship with its employees, but also one that describes how this type of behavior can damage an employer’s reputation with the public. When word of this type of employee relations gets around, it can hurt the company’s image with the public, too.
Important lessons: I share this story as an example of a poor workplace communication strategy, and how bad news can be made even worse for everyone. For practical tips on developing and prioritizing an effective workplace communications strategy, read my previous Insight on www.hrtools.com.