I would humbly nominate GEICO, where we provide our employees with a weekly intranet column on competitor activities, and a Daily Insurance News Summary e-mail that covers industry news. We're not a completely transparent company by any means, but employees who want to know what's going on with GEICO and our competitors have no shortage of sources for that information.

David, a quick way to compile that list would be to look at the companies who have won Gold Quill awards in the internal communications category, or CEOs who have won EXCEL awards over the years. I think they're as good an external measure as any of an organization's commitment to keep its people informed. That's not to say all the winners would qualify as examples for Mr. Eye Chart, but a good number of them surely would.

Or there are lots of lists of best companies to work for that would highlight at least some companies that consistently get it right.

That being said, most employee communicators have suffered multiple hematomas from beating their heads against many brick walls put up by their employers to prevent open, effective internal communications. And I would go so far as saying that the vast majority of big organizations are naturally not good at employee communications. It's a Sisyphean task to be constantly working against that nature. And the steeper the hill, and the bigger the rock, the greater the opportunity for those who work in this arcane, masochistic field of ours.

It looks like Ron Shewchuk has taken up my argument, so I'll let you and he go a few rounds.

Mizcmc is a woman, by the way. Miz CMC. It would have been MsCMC, but that was already taken.

Best to you,
mizcmc

Sorry. It was late, and I was tired. Please change "he" to "him" in my previous post, so my grammar won't distract you from criticizing me for things that matter: my screen name, and the fact that my experience has simply been different from the philosophy you describe.

Regards,
MS Eyechart

Okay, Greg. Insurance down, the rest of the industries to go.

Ron, good ideas, all.

Mizcmc: I meant no offense, meant mostly to make fun of myself here mostly, to show how smugly I trundle through the business world, secure in my knowledge of what's right in employee relations, day-to-day practice notwithstanding.

I was only teasing about your screen name; I very much appreciate that your experience has been different from my philosophy, and your question, "What companies actually do this," was a good one.

I wouldn't say GEICO is typical of the insurance industry. I've never worked at another insurer, but one of my colleagues has, and she says GEICO is vastly superior to her former employer in this regard. Plus, we have a cooler spokescreature!

Understood, Greg. What I was hoping to give mizcmc is that each industry has ONE company that practices the kind of internal communication I'm talking about here.

(Insurance seems surprisingly rich, actually; in addition to GEICO, I think Progressive and AFLAC might also be good ....)

I don't see my first post, and without that my second post makes no sense. To clarify for your readers, in my first post I said that Mr. Shewchuck seemed to be making the same point I had been trying to make, so I will bow out of this argument and let the rest of you duke it out.

And I wanted to clarify that mizcmc is a woman. Miz CMC. It would have been MsCMC, but that was already taken.

Carry on,

mizcmc

My apologies, MIZ! Don't know why your first post didn't appear. A rocky start but nice to make your acquaintance.

I would second just about everything that Dave Murray and Ron Shewchuk have said so well. As for the companies who do keep employees connected to the marketplace, the list is long and illustrious. I would nominate Washington Mutual, Xerox, Pfizer,Cisco,Pitney Bowes, Hallmark,Wachovia,Hewlett-Packard,Apple,Google and on and on.

Does that mean that their practices are typical among American corporations? No, they're not, but as the demands of global competition intersect with a workforce that has become the means of production rather than merely a cost of production, that list will inevitably grow.

Corporate secrecy is a function of the corporation's nature as a competitive, profit-making organization that feels threatened from many sides. The good ones learn to live with those threats and keep their people well informed about their marketplaces.

How to do that is the subject of a new book that I have just finished in first draft with the working title "The Credible Company: Communicating with Today's Skeptical Workforce." It will be published this fall by Jossey-Bass. Look for it especially if you work for one of those companies that still doesn't get the need to treat people with respect for their needs and dignity.

You're both right. Some companies practice good communications of the transparent or at least translucent kind. Some do not.

What seems missing, to me, is the proportion and how it has shifted/is shifting. I know many the old school types -- the less employees know, the better off we are. I concede that the Googles of the world are different. But I don't live in the Googlesphere (or an equivalent). How many do? How many don't? Etc.

I completely agree that companies should be open with employees. Because here's the thing most companies miss: A lot of employees already know what's going to happen before it happens! I've worked in companies with major press leaks (and where do you suppose they get those complete and totally accurate internal memos from?), companies where everyone walks around speculating who's going to go in the first round of impending layoffs vs. the second (because they know which orgs are getting laid off and roughly when), and companies where everyone whispers to each other who the new CEO/CFO/CAO/CMO/LMNOPQRSTUV is well before it's announced publicly. Organizations can decide to announce what they want when they want, but corporate environments are one of the worst places to try to keep secrets. In that case, the issue is who owns the corporate news, and you'd think smart corporations would want to own it by sharing it first, rather than having the watercooler/coffee pot network pass it on to employees, media, and the community.