Systematic communication key to meeting worker needs

Rick Willis is employee relations manager for Copeland Corporation in Lebanon.

You may remember the old movie "Cool Hand Luke." It's one of Paul Newman's claims to fame.

In the movie, Newman's character, Luke, plays a convict on a work detail who constantly demonstrates his independence. The foreman of the work gang must discipline him on a regular basis. It appears the constant message of reform just won't sink in, resulting in a famous line. The foreman, after reading him the riot act once again, glares at Luke and states, "What we have here is a failure to communicate!"

Is there ever a failure to communicate as we run our businesses? The answer to that is easy, because it happens all the time. Every manager has a story to illustrate the point. How do these communication lines get so fouled up? Really, when you stop to think about it, it's not so hard to understand the complications that tend to aggravate the process.

Employee A has just come from a tough situation at home, and focusing on work is not foremost on his mind. Manager B is extremely busy and a message about something like a 401(k) meeting is the last thing on her mind. Team Leader C just had a production line go down and is worried and running around seeking help to salvage the day. Each individual provides unique circumstances to the overall picture of communication roadblocks.

Let's say Manager B attends a staff meeting. She has three items to cover and there are multiple subjects discussed during the course of the hour. One of them is to be sure to tell your employees they need to attend the voluntary 401(k) meeting at 4 p.m. Friday. The manager rushes from the meeting with a lot to be done. Later, she tells Team Leader C, "Please inform your team members that we'll be having 401(k) meetings in the near future." Leader C asks when, and she replies, "I forgot, but I'm sure HR will post something."

Relying on the posting, which goes up virtually unread, nothing is mentioned to the employees because of the production problems. Employee A later says, "I really needed to attend that 401(k) meeting. I had some important questions and have been waiting for corporate to come down. I can't believe no one informed us. But it's typical!" He had walked past the posting several times during the day, but because of the personal stuff on his mind, he didn't care what was on the bulletin boards.

It may be the talk of the office and plant for several days during breaks and lunch times that management failed the employees again. How do we avoid such a message? How do we insure that we systematically get information through channels effectively?

These missing links in the communication chain are all the more reason to have a system in place that will foster consistency and provide options for informing everyone.

My employer has a strategy for overall communication. This communication plan allows every employee to hear pertinent news from every level of the organization at different time intervals. Here's a brief overview of that plan.

Annually, we hold "state of the business" meetings. The division president comes to each plant and provides an update on pertinent business information to give everyone the big picture of our organization.

Quarterly, we hold plant meetings with all employees. The local plant manager conducts these sessions and provides an update on how our plant is doing compared to our formal goals and objectives.

Monthly, we hold department "measures" meetings in each major area of the plant, with the staff managers relaying relevant data regarding how the individual department is doing, charting our progress related to key measures. This is also used as a time to celebrate success, seeking creative ways to involve everyone in the fun.

Twice a month each supervisor holds team meetings with their employees to go over the performance of their specific work area. This is one of the best chances for two-way communication.

Every day before each shift begins, the supervisors hold "white board" meetings with their employees to make them aware of the production schedule and daily goals.

The above meetings are routinely held within the time frames indicated. In addition, we hold monthly roundtables, by shift, for those with birthdays during the month. This is a chance for employees to quiz the plant manager or human resources manager about things that haven't been answered otherwise. Cookies and soda are provided, and the session opens with talk about family, hometowns and hobbies.

The minutes are posted, and we follow up with individuals if an immediate answer isn't given. It's also a chance for the top officials to stay in touch with the concerns and perspectives of those in the factory, gauging how issues evolve and change month by month, and from shift to shift.

Of course, we have an open-door policy, but we don't wait for employees to come to us. We go to them, routinely. We share information about plans and success, about concerns and problems, and we listen. Every two to three years we have a formal opinion survey that gauges the attitudes and feelings of our team members. From the feedback gained, we establish action items and discuss them at the quarterly plant meetings, so everyone can see the progress being made toward improvements.

By using this defined process, the results, in terms of convincing employees that you really are trying to work with them and keep them informed, are significant. From 2001 through 2002, a real focus was placed in our plant on working this process faithfully, seeking to improve our opinion survey score. Our score improved 9 percent. During the same period, productivity went up 15 percent. Communication glitches still occur, but they are offset by a very visible system that we faithfully pursue.

Consider improving things with channels of communication that touch everyone. You may not get through to the occasional "Cool Hand Luke" in the crowd, but the time spent on communication will be worth the effort in terms of overall morale and the resulting productivity.