Internal blogging and the rules of disclosure: an IRreconcilable difference?
29th March 2006 by Ron Shewchuk, ABC
We are hearing and reading a lot these days about the new Age of Transparency, in which organizations must go beyond traditional, tightly controlled communication and engage in a conversation with their customers, communities, employees and other stakeholders. A recent keynote speech by Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson does a great job of explaining this dramatic paradigm shift. Blogs are now big, but not yet big in the corporate world. We’re seeing a few high-profile corporate blogs, but apart from some noteable exceptions it doesn’t seem as if there’s a big stampede to adopt blogging as a corporate communication channel.
It’s easy to see why. Blogging is by its very nature a decentralized, uncontrolled style of communication that encourages dialogue and spiritied debate, and breaks down traditional boundaries. And large corporations, particularly publicly traded ones with investors to serve, are naturally centalized and tightly controlled when it comes to disclosing information.
So how can an organization reconcile the need to open up conversations with its stakeholders with the requirement for full, plain, timely and true disclosure to its investors, who are supposed to have the right to hear about important information at the same time? Ironically, the rules of disclosure have been getting stricter and more limiting even as technology is providing ways of opening things up.
And when it comes to employee communications, we know that there has always been a strong desire to control information. Anyone who has had to get an internal story approved has experienced this first hand.
So, here’s a question: what do companies need to do to encourage lively conversations among their employees without risking unwanted external leaks, and without exposing themselves to the kind of anarchy, and even bitter insurrection, that many leaders fear would come with losing control of internal communications?
It may well be time to open the shutters of the corporate bellfry and let in the fresh breeze of real human dialogue, but how?
And what role will communicators play in this new world of social media? Do we need to lead, follow, or just get out of the way?
March 30th, 2006 at 12:26 pm
I’d like to add a relevant note. Here’s a posting by Trevor Cook on the Employee Engagement blog that outlines Australian law firm Baker & MacKenzie’s suggested policies for corporate blogs. Thanks to Jeffrey Treem for the point.
The suggested policies include provisions for who is entitled to blog, the use of disclaimers, requirements for accuracy, adherance to defammation law, prohibition of discriminatory comments and illegal conduct. But do policies like these fully mitigate the risk of blogs that "can push organizations to make overly hasty announcements"?
April 1st, 2006 at 6:14 pm
For the most part, benefits communication is not what many IABC members see as adopting cutting-edge communication tools. Of course, there are exceptions. However, most employers do very little to educate employees about their benefits other than an annual meeting and perhaps a total comp statement. So, consider this: If employers want to change how employees interact with and use their healthcare benefits (to be wiser consumers, partner with the company in managing medical costs, etc.), you have to believe that traditional communication strategies and tools won’t get the job done. With a benefits-entitlement mindset and little knowledge of how their health benefits work, most employees won’t wake up one morning and find themselves savvier consumers of healthcare benefits without more aggressive communication strategies. (Think safety communications and the “in-your-face” communication strategies that produced safer work environments.) In this scenario, we will need more personalized and targeted communication strategies. This leads us to looking at what works in marketing and PR to engage, educate and motivate audiences to adapt preferred behaviors. From what I’ve seen so far, corporate communicators are just beginning to integrate blogs, podcasts and perhaps wikis and similar tools into their strategies. I can see blogging as a tool to be used during major change initiatives and perhaps as a freestyle tool for employees to use in discussion groups relative to managing health issues (i.e., discussing what they’ve learned about certain types of treatments, what works/doesn’t work in smoking cessation, weight management, etc.). If more employers are eager to create a healthier workforce, benefit communicators need to find ways to engage and motivate employees to consider healthier lifestyles. This will not be easy, and will require tremendous top-level support. If anyone has thoughts on this, or used newer communication tools and more aggressive strategies to change employee or audience behavior, let us know.
April 4th, 2006 at 4:10 am
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