Walking a Fine Line Between
Inspiration and Intimidation

by Shel Holtz

Halliburton's approach

You have to wonder how Halliburton employees reacted when their CEO called on them to write letters to the editor of local newspapers defending the company in the face of various misconduct allegations.

Dave Lesar wrote the memo last October 17, telling employees that critics were distorting the company’s efforts and offering talking points for the letters he hoped employees would write.

It’s one thing for employees to rally to a company’s defense. It’s another for employees to feel that perhaps their jobs depend on it.

This short-term public relations ploy (of the worst kind) could have long-term employee relations repercussions. The message Lesar sent to his employees may well have come from his heart, but perception being reality, many could have interpreted it as intimidation. An erosion of employee commitment could be the consequence.

Twin holy grails

Employee commitment and job satisfaction are the twin holy grails of employee communication, often overlooked in the tactical rush to produce knockout publications, intranets, events, and other internal communication tools. Building commitment and satisfaction should serve as the foundation for all internal communication efforts.

Commitment is the rational choice employees make to dedicate their energies to supporting organizational goals and initiatives. Commitment is different from loyalty, an emotional response that employees once felt for organizations that promised them job and income security.

Similarly, job satisfaction is different from happiness.

An employee can be thoroughly satisfied with his job even if he’s not happy. Nobody’s happy during a layoff, for instance. It is during a layoff, though, when the best employees – the ones who get calls from headhunters even during the worst economic times – are most inclined to bolt to a company with a less oppressive atmosphere. If they are satisfied with their jobs, though, they are more likely to ride out the storm.

Four criteria for achieving the goal

There are four criteria for achieving job satisfaction and commitment:

• Involvement - Employees want to believe that the company will involve them in decisions that affect them.
  
  
• Role knowledge – Employees need to be able to connect the work they do to the bottom line. They need to understand how their day-to-day work efforts relate to the big-picture initiatives and announcements that seem to routinely emanate from the executive offices.
  
  
• Connection to the marketplace – Employees need to understand the forces that impact on the organization, from the economy to customers to competitors. This connection usually heads off any shock or surprise when marketplace factors force the organization to announce a dramatic change. In fact, connected employees often identify the need to change before the leadership team does.
  
  
• Trust – Without question the most important factor in the equation, trust means that employees believe management tells the truth, walks the talk and has employees’ welfare at heart.

  Aetna's approach - the key difference

  It is trust that Lesar jeopardized when he issued a memo compelling employees to help defend the organization. How does that differ from former Aetna CEO Richard Huber’s appeal to employees to sign a petition?

  The key difference is that Huber appealed to employees to get involved while Lesar used employees to further the company’s PR efforts.

  Here’s the Huber story: During the election cycle in 2000, several congressional candidates bashed health maintenance organizations (HMOs) as part of their campaigns. Huber, in a streaming video presented to employees on AetNet, the company’s intranet, argued that Aetna employees were proud of their efforts on patients’ behalf and that the company did not appreciate being painted with the same brush as other HMOs that focused on cost savings at patients’ expense.

  He told employees there was an online petition they could sign that said, essentially, “We work for an HMO, we’re proud of what we do, and we vote.”

  So many signatures were gained that Aetna was able to buy display advertising in newspapers in key regions, listing the names of local employees beneath the ad’s narrative text. The effort quelled the HMO bashing in most of those markets.

  Employees rushed to sign the online Aetna petition, but there was no equivalent rush of Halliburton employees to send letters to their local newspapers.

  While Lesar’s letter to employees came out of the blue, Aetna had been promoting employee advocacy for a long time. There’s even a section of the intranet dedicated to keeping employees informed about pending litigation, legislation and regulation, a link to Capitol Connect (an employee advocacy resource tailored to each organization’s industry and issues), and a host of other material that built trust by keeping employees up to date and kept them involved at a grass-roots level.

  When Huber issued his call to action, it was part of an ongoing bond between employees and the company. When Lesar issued his, it was an aberration, a bolt from the blue insisting that employees help the company solve problems that most of them were unaware of. The fact that Halliburton’s employees learned of the company’s alleged abuses through traditional media channels and not from the company only worsened the situation.

  While Aetna built trust, Halliburton eroded it.

  To put it another way, organizations cannot effectively employ internal communications as a one-time effort, nor can it be viewed merely as news reporting to employees. Employee communication is an ongoing effort with clear and measurable objectives.

  And there is a payoff. Companies that improve the effectiveness of their internal communications experience a related increase in their market value.

  According to a study conducted by the human resources consulting firm Watson Wyatt Worldwide, organizations that communicated most effectively with employees experienced a return to shareholders of 26%. Those organizations that communicated least effectively produced a -15% return. That’s a 41% swing in returns between companies that communicate well and those that don’t.

  That’s an enticing incentive for investing in communication that builds relationships and addresses the needs of the audience.

  And make no mistake. Employees represent a constituency every bit as important as media, the financial community and customers, and maybe even more important.

  Shel Holtz, ABC (Accredited Business Communicator), is principal of Holtz Communication + Technology, which focuses on helping organizations apply online communication capabilities to their strategic organizational communications. His books include Public Relations on the Net and his newest, Corporate Communications. For more details and a wealth of resources visit the company website and Shel's blog: A Shel of My Former Self.

  
  
  

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