Internal forums improve communication at Maritz

One-day sessions help managers communicate better with direct reports

It was an all-too-common scenario: 84 percent of managers at Maritz reported communication with their people was excellent, while only 33 percent of their people reported receiving adequate information from their immediate managers.

“Managers insisted they told their reports all they needed to know, and the reports confided the amount of information shared, if any, varied greatly across departments,” says Director of Corporate Communications Laura McAllister. People didn’t know what was going on other business units, managers felt they didn’t have time to communicate because there was too much “real work” to be done, there was a feeling among general employees that communication had been downgraded and they had questions that weren’t getting answered.

The survey that revealed all of this also found that the lack of communication was creating a vacuum that uninformed people tried to fill with misinformation and rumors.

The result, McAllister says, is that only 8.8 percent strongly agreed with the statement, “At Maritz, it seems like we’re all on the same team, working for the same goals.”