Corporate Communication 6th Edition

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Chapter 07 - Internal Communications
Teaching Notes

Chapter 7
Internal Communications
Everyone says that internal or employee communications is the most important part
of any corporate communication program today. I regularly work with companies
in this exciting area and can tell you that even those that are committed to changing
the way they communicate with employees still have a lot to learn.

This chapter gives you a fairly straightforward account of the best thinking out there
on employee communications. You can supplement the basic information with fun
exercises to help students sort through how to develop stronger two-way
approaches in their communications. Use the two-way exercise included with this
chapter to start off the class; it is an ice-breaker for the subject and a neat way to get
students focused on the importance of increasing two-way communications
internally.

You can also, however, get them focused on other material in this chapter. For
example, how have workers changed over the last twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years?
If they have read an early work of fiction in the beginning of the semester, you can
focus again on that here. Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle is excellent for this purpose
because it shows how awful the work environment was in the early part of this
century.

Get students to talk about their own values and their own previous work
experience. Are they going to commit their lives to some corporation? What would
motivate them to feel comfortable working in one environment versus another?
You can also talk with someone in the human resources area of a local company
about these issues. The ideal guest speaker for this chapter would be a
communications professional who focuses only on internal communications.

Another useful tool is sample company newsletters or internal intranets or blogs.

Usually these are so bad that you may not have anything good to say, but every once
in a while, you will find an innovative company that has put some time into
developing a strong internal communications program. Along the same lines, get
students to talk about their own experiences with employee communications tools
at their former jobs. How did they react to these publications compared with co-
workers from different backgrounds or age groups?

I have included a reprint of “The Employee Care Revolution,” from Leader to Leader
(Summer 2004), which I wrote with Janis Forman. Even if you do not assign this
article to students, it can still provide many more examples for in-class discussion.

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© 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized instructor use. Not authorized for sale or
distribution in any manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in
whole or part.
Chapter 07 - Internal Communications
Teaching Notes

With constituencies morphing and technology changing the speed at which and
manner in which information is disseminated, I think that internal communications,
along with reputation management are likely to be the two most important areas for
corporate communications classes to focus on in upcoming years. You should also
look at Chapter Six in The Power of Corporate Communication for more examples
and a more managerial approach to this topic.

Finally, if you have strong organization behavior faculty at your school, you should
try to form a strategic alliance to teach this subject jointly. The issues are important
to both disciplines and would make for a tremendous opportunity to integrate
subject matter in your school’s curriculum.

Teaching Note
Westwood Publishing
Again, as with many of the sub-specialties in this book, you can always get an
employee communications specialist in to your class to discuss this subject with the
group if you know someone who does a good job for a fairly large company.

Westwood Publishing (formerly “Norwich Software,” for those familiar with the
second edition, and “Claremont Publishing “ for those familiar with the third
edition) is based on a real case, believe it or not, and it points out exactly how not to
deal with laying off a good workforce in a company that has lots of esprit de corps.

Bosworth is shirking her own responsibilities here. Get the students to come up
with solutions to John's problems that will help them use the material in the case
while at the same time dealing with some of the political and other problems
introduced.

Although it is a short, hypothetical case, it hits all the right buttons. I have had many
interesting discussions about this little case based on the material in the chapter.
Get them to focus on the problems, as always, first. Here are the problems that your
students are likely to come up with.

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© 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized instructor use. Not authorized for sale or
distribution in any manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in
whole or part.
Chapter 07 - Internal Communications
Teaching Notes

Problems

1. The boss is shifting down responsibility for her problems.

2. The company doesn't have a strong corporate communication person and is
about to give the bad one they have the axe. What should you do about this
given what you now know about the field of corporate communications from
the previous chapters?
3. How will the remaining employees respond? What can you do about this?

Solutions

A good strategy for Westwood Publishing should include:

1. A way to stratify employees into constituencies.

2. A way to deal with the loss of corporate communications vice president.
3. A way to deal with the reputation of Bosworth after it hits the fan.
4. A way to save your own job.

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© 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized instructor use. Not authorized for sale or
distribution in any manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in
whole or part.