How should employers communicate with their employees effectively
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Communication is the key to an organization’s success as it leads to the formation of positive employee-employer relationship. According to Yue et al. (2021), an online survey which involved 482 employees in the US was conducted, and it showed that positive communication in an organization, which includes symmetrical internal communication and the use of motivating language by leaders, promoted a positive employee’s perception which promoted employee’s organizational identification; This is because a positive emotional culture was promoted among the employees and their employers. By creating an emotional culture, an organization gets a positive perception from its employee. Yue et al. (2021) stated that emotional culture is the effective aspect of a business culture which affects the employees behaviours and attitudes; This is different from cognitive culture, which dictates how the employees of an organization should feel. Thus, by promoting a positive emotional culture in an organization, positive impacts such as employee advocacy, job satisfaction and quality employee-organization relationships are formed.
Internal communications in an organization is very beneficial to the organization. According to Yue et al. (2021), “the power of internal communications in shaping organizational culture has been evidenced” (p.2). Internal communications lead to positive impacts in the organization as the organizational environment is safe and open. Yue et al. (2021) also stated that “There are two types of internal communications as antecedents of a positive emotional culture: leadership-level motivating language use and organization-level symmetrical internal communication” (p.3). By recording the employees having fun, organizations send a positive message to the public about how their employees feel. Yue et al. (2021) also stated, “Companies like Ubiquity, Vail Resorts, and many start-ups emphasize having fun as one of their management principles. Emotional culture of joy is instrumental in employee flourishing and achieving their goals leading to job success” (p.3). People working in an organization that has culture of companionate report higher levels of commitment, group attachment, enhanced teamwork, job satisfaction, and personal accountability for work performance, and it even boosts external stakeholders’ willingness to invest it the organization. In contrast to this, a culture of pride in an organization influences organizational outcomes, such as decreased organizational identification, job dissatisfaction and poor organizational commitment and low employee retention (Yue et al. (2021). Effective employee-employer methods of communication in an organization include symmetrical communication environments, motivational language theory and CEOs rational communication.
Symmetrical internal communication is one of the effective employee-employer methods of communication in an organization. Symmetrical internal communication is whereby the managers and their employees engage in a diabolic communication by listening to each other with the aim of reaching a mutual understanding and build healthy employee-employer relationships. According to Lee et al. (2021), “symmetrical internal communication, as a core function of public relations, brings positive organizational outcomes such as employee engagement, commitment, and performance” (p.1). By organizations supporting symmetrical internal communications, their employees are encouraged to make decisions and are therefore empowered. Symmetrical internal communications encourage the employees to have positive and open communications behaviours in the workplace. Symmetrical internal communications is often “contrasted with asymmetrical communication, which primarily focuses on the top-down management of employees via the dissemination of pre-determined organizational decisions and ensuring employee compliance, allowing for little employee autonomy” (Lee et al., 2021, p.2). Thus, symmetrical internal communication is an important method of communications that organizations should use as it promotes openness, reciprocity, and tolerance for arising disagreements between organizations and their employees.
Motivating language theory is another effective employee-employer method of communication in an organization. MLT refers to the use of different types of speech by the organizational leaders when they are talking to their subordinates so as to promote their work motivation. According to Yue et al. (2021), “The three forms of leader motivating language are meaning-making language, empathetic language, and direction-giving language” (p.8). Meaning-making language involves the leaders using a language that connects their employees’ personal aims with those of the organization, empathetic language involves the leaders of an organization using respectful and supportive language when addressing their employees, and direction- giving language involves clearly articulating what is expected from the employees and giving employee feedback (Yue et al., 2021). By using the three dimensions of MLT, positive impacts from the employees will be generated; This is because the employee’s perception of their supervisors becomes positive, leading to increased commitment to fulfill the organization’s goals and objectives (Lee et al. (2021). Employees feel supported by their managers through communication practices such as openness and empathy. Thus, motivating language theory is another effective method of communication in an organization because it makes the employees feel supported, valued and appreciated, and they, therefore, comfortably voice their opinions on how to improve the organization’s performance.
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) rational communication is another effective employee-employer method of communication in an organization. According to Yue et al. (2019), CEOs play a unique role within the organization by setting the overall direction the organization should follow. According to Mammen et al. According to Lee, CEOs should foster good communication system with their employees as the employees often desire a close and open relationship with their top managers. Yue et al. (2019) also stated that “one of the vital tasks of a chief executive officer (CEO) is to communicate with infomediaries, such as journalists, analysts, and social-movement groups” (p.3). The diverse relational communication behaviors CEOs employ when engaging with their subordinates include showing trust and confidence in employees, being friendly and considerate, and being supportive and helpful by trying to understand their problems” (Lee, p.3). By having a good communication system with the employees, CEOs foster employee motivation to fulfill the organizations goals. It also promotes job satisfaction and trust between the CEOs and their employees. Thus, relational communication on the part of CEOs that emphasizes on interpersonal connections, caring, and benevolence helps employees perceive the organizational communication systems as participative, open, and mutually influenced.
In conclusion, organizations should adopt positive communication methods with their employees. Through their website communication channel, organizations should use dialogic communication as a means to maintain healthy and positive relationship with the public; This enables them to identify the needs of their end users. In todays society, organizations use social media to communicate with the public and the engagement of the public is measured by the posts getting likes and comments. Feedback-seeking behaviour (FSB) should also be encouraged as it promotes employee creativity. Employee creativity, which is the the generation of useful ideas by employees, is important for the organizational survival and effectiveness and also for individual employees’ job performance. Based on the trust, identification, and commitment established through symmetrical communication environments, motivational language theory and CEOs rational communication, employees are more likely to believe that they will obtain quality information concerning how to improve their performance, thus achieving the organization’s goals.
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