Melcrum's Source for Communicators took me aback slightly today when among Kathy Collura's five suggestions for communicators coping with employee angst she stated: Connect the employee communication plan with the external communication plan The messages about jobs, paychecks, retirement and benefits are specific to employees but these messages should be linked to the business and industry messages going to external audiences.
Hello Kathy, but where have you been this past decade? Or is this just a sign that employee comms in the US is some way behind Europe.
For all my time in Leapfrog and even before, I've dealt with issues communication - as have most of my peers around me. Today's employees are shareholders, customers and vociferous members of their employer's local community.
Even back in my corporate days we looked at issues and defined the appropriate audiences for them, cutting across the artificial internal/external boundaries.
Employee communication should never be dealt with in isolation. If it's to be credible, it has to be bound up into one seamless corporate communication plan that identifies all of the audiences to be engaged, and builds the appropriate relationships with them.
It's quite shocking that Melcrum and Collura seem only to be waking up to this now.
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