Survey: Execs embrace two-way communication

A new study argues that employee communication is more important than it’s ever been to executives

Has the economic crisis spurred corporations to increase communication between senior management and lower-level employees? The answer for many companies: Perhaps.

But in financial service companies, there’s no doubt that the last six months have seen a big spike in messages by management to reassure, educate and prepare employees to deal better with the economic crisis, at least in their own companies.

So says Steven Fink, CEO of MessageBank, LLC, a New York firm that specializes in staging live interactive Web events and mass conference calls for their clients. The audiences for these events: shareholders, analysts, the media and—more and more these days—employees.

MessageBank recently surveyed 425 American corporations, polling directors of corporate communications and managers and directors of investor relations. Here is what they found: