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| Corporate Cultures |
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Employee Communication:
"I Heard It Through the Grapevine" |
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"Most of the time I feel like a mushroom."
This comment from a dealer in a large Midwestern casino
typifies the way many employees feel about communication
in gaming operations where the authors have conducted
research. The dealer explained that mushrooms are kept
in the dark and occasionally covered with manure. Many
other employees interviewed complained about not knowing
what's going on most of the time, and when they do hear
from top management, it tends to be ivory tower pronouncements
from on high.
Employee communication in gaming companies is, more often
than not, rated as poor by employees. It typically consists
of a newsletter, an occasional employee meeting, and pounds
and pounds of memos with numbing operational details that
few employees read and fewer still comprehend. One mid-level
manager interviewed pointed to a pile of papers on his
desk and said, "I've got a four-inch stack of memos
here, and I still don't know what's going on." The
typical company newsletter, according to the majority
of employees, is outdated, boring, and self-serving for
management. Most say they don't read the company newsletter
at all or certainly not cover-to-cover.
Employees below the upper management level almost invariably
name The Grapevine — the informal word-of-mouth
communication network present in all large organizations
— as their most vital and dependable information
source. The 60s pop hit "I Heard It Through the Grapevine"
accurately describes the dominant state of employee communication
in most casino operations.
By its nature, the grapevine is an unsupervised, undocumented,
and unverified rumor mill. That makes it a superconductor
for negatively-charged news. Bad news travels fast. In
this flash channel, word of perceived ill deeds by the
company spreads like a virus all through the culture within
the space of three shifts. A legitimate disciplinary action
against an employee for a regulatory infraction, for example,
can and does get amplified and distorted into a major
atrocity committed by the company against a poor, defenseless
individual. The corporate culture becomes defined by the
grapevine rather than by visionary design.
The absence of effective and informative employee communication
leaves the field open for anyone with a beef — like
unions, for example. Unions are adept at using the grapevine
as a powerful communication channel to stir resentment
against the company.
Effective, positive employee communication doesn't happen
by accident. It must be managed and disciplined.
Casino executives can borrow principles from the advertising
world to construct an employee communication system based
on reach and frequency. "Reach" refers to the
percentage of the target audience that is exposed to the
desired message. "Frequency" means the number
of times they hear the message (once is never enough;
studies by advertisers show it takes a minimum of eight
exposures to make a message stick).
Employee communication should be as carefully strategized
as your advertising and marketing programs. What to say,
when, how, and how much should be mapped out by the highest
level management; this is not a task to be delegated to
a third-tier manager (the execution can be delegated but
not the planning).
Advertisers use a media mix of television, radio, outdoor,
newspaper, direct mail, and other means to hammer their
message across time and time again until it penetrates
the clutter and becomes familiar to the consumer. The
same concept can be applied to employee communication
in gaming cultures.
A management team should be assigned to develop a media
plan for employee communication, using all available channels
to reach the employees. Direct mail to employee homes,
audiocassettes they can play in the car to and from work,
signs in high-traffic employee areas, doorhangers, flyers,
lapel buttons, computer screensavers, table tents in the
employee cafeteria and break rooms, payroll stuffers,
informal get-togethers with management, "management
by walking around," even the grapevine itself —
these are only a smattering of the possible communication
contact media available in a casino. If necessary, invent
new ones to add to the media mix.
Advertisers also pay great attention to the content of
the message, creatively packaging it in the most appealing
form possible. If you look closely at a can of Coca-Cola™,
you'll see that it contains phosphoric acid, caramel coloring,
carbonated water, and some other ingredients. That's the
actual content. But what the company presents to the consumer
is a bright, refreshing, wholesome lifestyle imagery that
speaks to consumers in terms of their desires. Casino
management should try to get inside the minds of employees
and creatively package communication that makes clear
what's in it for them.
Above all, employee communication should be consistent
in its message to get maximum impact and minimize confusion.
If employees hear one thing from one source and something
contradictory from another source, not only do they not
know exactly what to believe, but it leaves them with
the impression that management doesn't know what it's
doing (and sometimes they're right). Consistency builds
familiarity and confidence in the validity of the communications.
It also constantly reinforces the message, implanting
it deeper into the culture.
Casino executives most often give only passing notice
to employee communication, being more interested and preoccupied
with meeting financial goals. Yet positive, active management
of employee communication can play a big role in improving
bottom-line performance. Employees who are well-informed
and who feel management cares about them and trusts them
are more likely to show up for work, be on time, stay
on the job longer, be more loyal to the company, and be
better equipped to answer customer questions about the
casino and its attractions and activities.
Keeping employees "in the loop" makes them feel
more like insiders, part of an inner circle. It makes
them feel important and needed. These are fundamental
human motivations present in all cultures.
Fear of the unknown, of being left out, is what drives
employees who feel "like a mushroom" to turn
to the grapevine as their primary source of information
in a gaming company. Smart casino executives will give
them an alternative they can trust.
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