Today, because of the onset of new technology, organizations are becoming more complex. It is now difficult to practice a coherent communication strategy. Paul A. Argenti, a professor of management and corporate communication at Dartmouth, gave an example in his book, Corporate Communication, about this complexity. He wrote: “In earlier times, companies were small enough that they could get by with much less sophisticated communications activities.” Now, with a new era of advanced communications, it is important for organizations to do something to keep one step ahead of the competition. Argenti also stated that, “By creating a coordinated, coherent corporate communication system, an organization will be able to face the new century with the strategies and tools that few companies in the world have at their fingertips.”
In the past, corporations/institutions had no specific strategy for communications. But now that the business environment changed, someone, or everybody (hopefully) has to take control of certain aspects of communication. “Public Relations, like charity, begin at home.” The best spokespersons of the institution are the employees. An institution may publish an advertisement boasting of the great things it has been doing, but if the employees belie these claims, the impact is blunted.
Communication Practices combines advantages of our two main ways of learning: organized education (such as classes, books, tutoring, or therapy), vs. learning by life experience. The goal of Communication Practices is to establish a discipline for cumulative development of better methods for teaching and learning certain interpersonal skills — skills which today are usually learned (or not learned) by happenstance through life experiences.
By “practices” we mean training methods which work entirely through everyday life and ordinary human interaction, and require no special equipment or other resources. Also, practices integrate training and life in exactly the same actions. (James, 2004)
Communication research indicates that people generally deny knowing something or refuse to cooperate unless they hear it from their manager or supervisor. This is so even when they actually have heard about it in some other way. They tend to take the “they didn’t tell me” attitude, and actually use the claim of poor communication to sidestep their own personal accountability, or to just continue with their same old ways.
Generation Y comprises the bulk of employees in multinational companies. According to a 2007 survey in Australia, the Generation Y is “demanding, impatient and bad at communicating.”
Internal communication must allow for two way flow of information. Multinational companies want employees to be ambassadors for the organization so providing employees with good information will help them do their jobs confidently.
To contribute towards the aims and objectives of multinational companies, having strong two-way internal communications which ensure a well-informed and involved workforce and a management team who are in touch with staff and their concerns is important. Key principles to keep in mind are as follow:
- Effective communication is essential to the way employees work, encouraging a positive “can-do” culture in the way multinational companies provide services.
- Everyone should be well informed about issues which affect the company and impact upon them as employees.
- Everyone should have the opportunity to contribute to the development of policies, practices and procedures which help improve the quality of services companies provide.
- All employees are valued as ambassadors for companies.
- Staff will be supported by training in effective communication.