Managers 'not telling staff about business performance'
People with management skills are not communicating with their staff on how their organisations are performing during the recession, research suggests.
The study by recruitment consultancy Badenoch & Clark found that more than one-fourth of workers surveyed are not told about the financial state of their companies.
Five per cent are even discouraged from asking questions about business health, while one-third of respondents said there was no communication or explanation when redundancies were made.
Neil Wilson, managing director at Badenoch & Clark, said: "Good internal comms isn't a complicated task. It means ensuring someone has clear responsibility for it and processes are set up to regularly inform the whole organisation of key business news."
He added: "However it's done, employers need to engage better with their people, especially when times are tough. The alternative is an unmotivated, unproductive, nervous workforce that will head for the hills at the first opportunity."
More than 1,000 office workers from across the UK were questioned as part of the study.
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Never a good sign when communication breaks down. Bad news should travel the fastest as that's the only way for it to be solved. If people don't know about a problem it won't get fixed.
At Best Companies we surveyed over 900,000 employees from entrants to the Sunday Times Best Companies to Work For lists and the Best Companies Accreditation process. We found that 8.5% less employees in 2009 felt secure in their positions compared to 2009.
Clearly companies that enter the processes are already making headway in engaging their employees, as the overall engagement score has not changed (71% for both 2008 and 2009). However we are still promoting that good clear communication that acknowledges the impact the current economic climate is having on organisations is essential in maintaining high engagement levels.
This research in interesting is that it bolsters our point of view on this matter and the sooner people know where they are at with their employees the faster they can progress to make positive change in comms and engagement.
I think the biggest problem is, where there is no information forthcoming, people will naturally speculate on the absence of any information. This speculation then gets passed on and people attribute credibility to the speculation when none is deserving.
Once people have started speculating and gossiping, it's far harder to convince them of the truth because you're reacting rather than proactively communicating.
Key Performance Indicators are a good business driver and these should be communicated regularly.