Employee Communication Plan

Employee Communication Plan

Company Synopsis

Walmart operates grocery stores, discount stores, and hypermarkets. The store’s hypermarkets primarily stock general merchandise such as frozen food, wheat products, and dairy products. These supercenters also provide financial services, optical services, and beauty items. On the other hand, discount stores feature general merchandise, gas stations, and fast-food outlets. Grocery stores, also known as neighborhood markets, sell fresh produce, grocery items, organic food, and general groceries. Walmart is the world’s largest company in terms of revenue. Besides, the retailer is the largest private employer globally, with 2.2 million by the end of 2022 (Walmart, n.d.).

Management Philosophy on Employee Communication

Walmart’s communication strategy is to reach out to every associate as soon as possible. To ensure this is possible, the company implements satellite communication, a strategy that enables the company to get to every employee as soon as possible. On the one hand, corporate leaders use satellite communication to pass strategic policy guidelines to associates, while employees apply the strategy to communicate problematic phenomena to the executives (Jiang, n.d.). Other than downward and upward communication, associates also use satellite communication to share strategies on how they can improve processes and operations. Overall, the retailer leverages satellite communication to maintain constant touch with all associates with the objective of streamlining store operations.

Goals of the Communication Plan

The goals of Walmart’s communication plan include communicating corporate values to all company associates. Walmart believes that its customers are gods and that their needs should be satisfied in time. To achieve that, the company’s top executives must communicate these values and any strategic changes in time and ensure that they are followed to the letter (Jiang, n.d.). It is also worth noting that Walmart is a highly bureaucratic company, which means that most decisions are made at the top level with little input from the lower-tier employees. There is a need for a reliable communication plan that ensures that these strategies are communicated accurately and in time to avoid any actions that go against company values.

Another goal of maintaining constant touch with employees is to stimulate employees’ inner enthusiasm and potential. The company’s uniform culture ensures employees are committed to helping deliver corporate goals (Kaur, 2013). To that end, constantly communicating with employees about the company’s goals ensures that associates across all stores have a unity of purpose. It is also worth noting that the company seeks to inspire and motivate employees across all stores globally, hence the need to maintain maximum communication with employees.

Target Audience Characteristics

As the company seeks to attain its goals through communication, it will consider different employee characteristics. The company has a diverse pool of employees from different cultural settings, hence the need to consider individual beliefs and cultural orientations (Kaur, 2013). The company will use executives from respective cultures to address employee needs. For instance, Asian employees will be addressed by Asian executives who understand the target audience’s cultural orientation. In some cases, female employees will be addressed by female executives who understand their unique needs.

Communication Tools

According to Jiang (n.d.), Walmart has traditionally used oral communication as the primary channel of communication. The company will continue using the conference philosophy to pass crucial messages to employees. To that end, there will be physical meetings where executives give policy directions. The meetings will be relaxed environments where associates can raise inquiries and provide feedback.

Communication Channels

In line with the conference philosophy and direct top-down communication, Walmart will rely on top executives’ speeches to communicate with associates across all stores. There is a need for direct interaction between the top executives and associates to ensure messages are not misinterpreted. Additionally, since the company’s philosophy is based on uniformity, only direct speeches from the same top executives will ensure similar corporate values are passed across all stores.

References

Jiang, Y. (n.d.) Motivation at Work and Organizational Culture Case Study of       Walmart. International Journal of Education and Technology, 159.

Kaur, A. (2013). Maslow’s need hierarchy theory: Applications and criticisms. Global Journal of             Management and Business Studies, 3(10), 1061-1064.

Walmart. (n.d.). Our Business. Corporate – US. https://corporate.walmart.com/our-story/our-business/

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It is time to draft the employee communication plan for your company. Using the information that you gathered from Weeks 1–3, include the following information in your strategic plan:

Employee Communication Plan

Company synopsis: This is a snapshot of the company, what it sells, and the number of employees.
Management’s philosophy on employee communication: An example of a management philosophy could be that any important communication about the company’s activities is shared internally before being shared externally on the Internet or in a news release.
Goals of the communication plan: One possible goal could be to help employees be more productive by establishing a clear and effective employee communication plan. The plan can be viewed as an organizational diagnostic that provides employees with consistent, accurate, and regular information about the company’s business goals and objectives.
Target audience characteristics: The plan should take into account cultural, gender, and linguistic differences to help employees understand the goals of the organization.
Communication tools: These can include various deliverables, including e-mails, newsletters, e-blasts, brochures, reports, conferences, employee meetings, and more.
Communication channels: Communication channels include internal and external Web sites, public relations venues, visits or speeches from management, and more.