8. Imagine, you are in charge of the in-house magazine in your company. What do you do in these situations?

1. The president calls you into his office and asks why his photo was not on the cover of the last magazine published. Do you:

a) politely explain that people in the firm are fed up with seeing his photo?

b) promise to put his photo on the next publication?

c) explain that it was a mistake?

d) offer your resignation?

2. The financial manager tells you your magazine is much too expensive. Do you:

a) try to justify the cost?

b) tell her she must speak to the president about it?

c) promise to try to reduce costs?

d) tell her it’s none of her business?

3. You sent out a questionnaire asking readers to say what they think of the magazine. Only 50 are sent back (out of 3,000). Do you:

a) continue as before?

b) radically change the contents and format of the magazine?

c) lie about the number of questionnaires returned?

d) send out another questionnaire?

4. Several people admit they never even open the magazine when they get it. Do you:

a) decide to make it glossier and more attractive?

b) change the editorial committee?

c) give the names of these people to the president?

d) take sick leave?

5. The Information Technology Manager suggests replacing the magazine with a weekly newssheet, sent by electronic mail to employees’ offices. Do you:

a) publish an article explaining the dangers of using electronic mail?

b) say you will put the I.T. Manager’s photo on the next magazine cover if he drops his proposal?

c) publish a compromising picture of the I.T. Manager?

d) do nothing, as you know your magazine can fight off attacks on every front?

6. You have had complaints about news being out of date when published. Do you:

a) try to speed up publication?

b) publish every two months instead of every three?

c) write only ageless articles?

d) blame the Post Office?

9. Read the following situation and discuss in groups:

• Why do employees still complain about a lack of information within the company?

• What could be done to solve the problem?

• Is the magazine useful in its present form or should it be modified or replaced?

You work for the Layetana Beef Company, whose head office is in Rosario, Argentina. You produce, process, export and market beef all over the world, but your main markets are in North America, Europe, and the Far East. All your marketing and sales is done by wholly-owned subsidiaries in the different countries, and English is the common language for your employees.

With a worldwide organization of this sort, efficient internal communication, in particular between head office in Argentina and the subsidiaries, is vital. You use the usual means for this communication - telephone, fax and e-mail. On a daily basis, this works well, but employees around the world have complained that while they get the day-to-day information they need to do business, they are not well-informed of what is happening in the company in general.

An attempt was made last year to solve this problem by publishing an in-house magazine. Every employee, everywhere in the world, receives at their home a copy of this magazine every three months. It is in colour, has lots of photos, and contains an editorial from the president, information about company strategy and business, and news from head office and the subsidiaries. As more employees speak Spanish or English than any other languages (see pie-chart), articles in the magazine are in Spanish, with a summary in English next to them, or in English, with a summary in Spanish.

Role-play

10. In- house magazine is a form of “organized” internal communication (the opposite being “everyday” or “functional” communication).

An Argentine beef exporter looks at problems of internal communication worldwide. The glossy in-house magazine comes in for particular scrutiny.

Imagine, you are a member of the company’s top management and you are meeting today to review company policy on internal communication. Choose one of the roles below and have an open discussion, trying to find a sound solution to the problem.

a) The President

Chairing the meeting: you chair the meeting. Make sure everyone participates, and ensure that decisions are made today. Organize the meeting in the following way: ask each participant for their opinions and list on the board.

• communication problems within the company worldwide

• proposed solutions for these problems

• problems with the magazine

• if you continue publication of the magazine, ways of improving it

Your own point of view: You are delighted with the magazine as it is today, and see no reason to change it. It is very glossy and colourful, and has always greatly interested the workforce. The strong points are, of course, your photo (which you’ve managed to get onto the front cover in four out of the five issues published so far), and “The President Speaks” – your editorial, or “leader” as you prefer to call it, on the inside cover.

b) Role: The Head of Information Technology

You are convinced that nobody ever reads the magazine. This does not surprise you. There isn’t much real news in it, and the articles are out of date by the time it reaches the readers. It’s a very good publicity brochure for the company, but that’s not what it’s published for.

You agree that there is a problem of communication with the subsidiaries. Employees worldwide need to be better informed of things like new appointments, who the different managers are in head office and in the subsidiaries, and new products or sales campaigns.

You think the magazine should be scrapped, and replaced by a weekly page of news on appointments, sales and products, to be sent by e-mail to all employees who have a computer in their office. This would be inexpensive, easy to manage, quick, and efficient. The articles would be short and to the point, and the news would be up-to-date. It could easily be stored for future reference. It would no longer be necessary to send articles in two languages. They could be sent in Spanish or English, whichever was more appropriate for the employee concerned.

c) Role: The Personnel Manager, Frankfurt

You are the only person present who really knows about communication problems with head office. Your colleagues in Frankfurt have no problem getting sales figures and product information, but they want and need much more information about who does what in the company, and how the different subsidiaries work. The magazine has created a certain sense of unity and belonging in the company, but its content is much too head office-centred, and there’s too much about strategy and management, and not enough about other countries and ordinary workers. You resent the fact that the magazine is only in Spanish and English. As the pie charts show, only a minority of employees speak these languages.

You would prefer a much less glossy publication, with more real news, and articles in simple language about the everyday lives of ordinary employees. At least a page per magazine should be in the local language, or at least in another international language like German or French. And could you please have all those photos of the President removed?

d) Role: The Communications Manager

You don’t really understand why there are complaints about communication. All vital information is communicated by phone, fax or e-mail, and background information about the structure and policy of the company, and appointments and employees around the world, is published in the magazine.

The best way to improve the magazine would be to remove the President’s photo from the front cover, and to get articles about the workers inside, instead of news of company strategy and production methods. But mind what you say! Your next pay rise might depend on what you say to the President about this.

e) Role: The Financial Controller

You think that internal communication is just a passing fashion that your company doesn’t need - and it's an expensive fashion. Your glossy magazine is very attractive, but much too costly to produce and distribute; it gives no positive results, except for compliments from people outside the company who aren’t even supposed to read it.

Those people in the company who need to communicate do so. Generally people don’t need to communicate with their colleagues in other departments and other countries, and they just get on with their job perfectly efficiently.

If anyone can convince you of the need for written communication between head office and overseas subsidiaries, you might agree with the idea of a simple typewritten newsletter. The best thing to do with the people from the communication department would be to fire them and so save the money wasted on their inflated salaries.

f) Role: The Marketing Manager

You have more contact than anyone else in the company with fellow managers and employees around the world. You feel that not enough is done to bring everyone together, to give them a feeling of belonging to a family, or to create a corporate identity. People need to know what is going on, who does what and where, who has been appointed to this or that post, and so on. Information in the magazine is already out of date before it is published. What you need instead is something much simpler, less glossy and more informative.

You also think company news played on video screens in the entrance hall or the staff restaurant would be useful, and you support the idea of sending news by e-mail.

g) Role: The Director of Human Resources

You feel the magazine has been a great success, but would like to make one significant change to help it to really reach all employees.

At the moment the magazine is published in Spanish and English; this is fine for staff in other countries who can speak and read English well, but it's no use for employees in the same countries who can't and who can only look at the pictures. You would therefore suggest publishing the magazine in several different languages - how about Spanish, English, Japanese and German? Maybe later you could also publish in French and Arabic.

h) Role: Assistant to the Communications Manager

You are proud of your magazine, for which you write articles and take photos. You sent out a questionnaire after the first two issues, and got very positive replies: 65% of readers said they read most of the articles, and only 3% said they only looked at the photos - although it's true that of 3,000 employees worldwide only about 500 sent back the questionnaire.

You are in favour of improving internal communication. This could be done partly by giving more practical information in the magazine (rather than talking all the time about the President and about company strategy), and partly by publishing an additional monthly or even fortnightly 'newsflash', to give up-to-the-minute news of new appointments, orders or products.

Pair work

11. Superservice is a chain of US-owned supermarkets. Highly profitable and expanding, it is presently setting up new stores throughout the UK. One of the new supermarkets will be in Oldchester, a small, market town of 20,000 inhabitants with a steadily growing population.

Superservice have already bought a site in the centre of town. As they prepare to build the store, they become aware that there is a good deal of opposition to it from townspeople. In order to avoid bad publicity, the Managing Director plus some senior managers from Superservice agree to meet individuals or groups to hear their objections.

Read the following conversation between a local cafe owner and the Public Relations Manager of Superservice.

cafe owner pr. manager cafe owner pr. manager cafe owner pr. manager cafe owner pr. manager cafe owner pr. manager

Let me tell you, I'm really annoyed about this supermarket idea, right in the middle of our town. What makes you think we want one? We’ve carried out an opinion survey. Most people think it’s an excellent idea. Yeah, and how much did you pay them? How dare you! Look, I’m really upset about this, especially about the fast-food take-away you'll have in it. I'll lose all my customers. Oh, I don’t know. It shouldn’t make too much difference to your trade. That's what you think. I warn you, I’ll do everything I can to stop you building that store. You Americans think you can come to our town and do exactly what you like. Well, you’re wrong. Oh, come on, now. I’m sure we can understand each other Don’t try that with me. I wasn't born yesterday. Listen to me now. You try to build that supermarket here and there’ll be trouble-you’ll see. Don’t worry. It’s not as bad as you think.