Overview
sorry such short notice but realy need these by latest 8pm tonight 3 discussion responses with references
Original information: Reflect on your work experience or research recent news articles about organizational communication. Identify a situation where you think an organization or brand may have miscommunicated a message to its employees or other stakeholders. Perhaps management made a change in processes and did not communicate the change or the reason for the change to employees at all levels. When describing the scenario, identify the specific problems and issues that should be addressed with communications, and explain why the issue is substantial enough to warrant communications. In responses to your peers, assume the role of the target audience (i.e., employees) and discuss how implementing communications to address the problems your peers' identified could impact the situations for better or for worse. Use specific examples to support your responses, if possible.
1-Even if people weren’t there in person, nearly everyone has heard of New Coke and the “Most Memorable Marketing Blunder Ever,” (Coca-Cola, 2024) when in the mid-80’s Coke decided to try and update their formula for the first time in 99 years. The company immediately experienced backlash from consumers, who complained that New Coke was too sweet and who flooded Coca-Cola with “up to 8,000 calls a day,” and around “40,000 complaint letters,” over the course of two months (Onion et al, 2023). The public outcry was so loud and persistent that Coca-Cola brought back the original formula as Coca-Cola Classic a mere 79 days after New Coke’s debut.
Coca-Cola did not communicate this change to consumers at all until the launch on April 23, 1985, and the company had no idea what they were about to put their employees through with the update. “’We didn’t really get a lot of information ahead of time. I remember hearing about New Coke the same time the rest of the world did’,” (Coca-Cola, 2015) Ed Hays, now the company’s CTO, recalled. With no real communication to the company beyond phone calls and letters, the public turned to the employees they knew: “’We lived and breathed it 24/7 without a break, because in the evenings we’d go home to our friends and neighbors – all of whom had an opinion,’ [Phil] Mooney [former chief archivist] said. ‘We were the only ones they could get to, so they'd unload on us. To them, we were the face of Coca‑Cola, which means we had to publicly defend the company’s decision to take away something that had been a cherished part of their lives for 99 years’,” (Coca-Cola, 2015). While the launch of New Coke and the subsequent relaunch of Coca-Cola Classic might have caused some unusual press, the company’s ability to realize its mistake and very publicly correct it allowed Coca-Cola to thrive and successfully rebound with consumers. The 79 days of panic and confusion it caused to its employees, however, should not be held as an example of effective communication.
Proctor & Gamble is currently going through a similar issue with one of its most popular items: Blue Dawn. The company changed the formula and scent of its top product without alerting customers until the rollout, leaving many consumers unable to remove the scent from plastics, triggering migraines, and some even having allergic reactions (Dawn, 2024). Unlike Coca-Cola, however, Dawn is not apologetic and is doubling down in responses to the hundreds of customer complaints and poor reviews on its website. While Coca-Cola listened to its customer base when they complained about the change, P&G doesn’t seem to have the same strategy. It could be the difference between the company’s namesake product versus one of many profit-making brands (Tide, Pampers, Oral-B, Vicks, etc.) or it could be that the 1980s were a very different time than the 2020s and that the age of the internet has made customer reviews and complaints a dime a dozen. It doesn’t seem like P&G particularly cares that it is losing a large percentage of its customers on this product based on the company’s lackluster responses to the product’s reviews and customer complaints, but revenue in the coming year will show whether or not consumers follow through with their threats to never use the product again.
2-A recent example of organization miscommunication occurred during the implementation of return-to-office (RTO) policies by major companies like Apple and Google. As these tech giants pushed employees to return to the office 2022, the communication around the reasoning for the shift - particularly regarding collaboration, culture, and productivity - was not adequately conveyed to employees, leading to significant backlash.
At Apple, employees expressed frustration over a lack of flexibility, as many had adapted to remote work and felt more productive in that setting. The company’s leadership emphasized the importance of in-person collaboration but failed to provide clear data to support that stance, leaving many employees dissatisfied. This led to petitions and even employee resignations, as workers felt their concerns about work-life balance and health risks were ignored (WorkLife, 2022). Furthermore, there was a disconnect between leadership’s message and the reality that some employees were still conducting most of their work virtually, even from the office (Buildremote, 2022).
Google faced similar issues. Their RTO policy required employees to return to the office for at least three days a week, with badge tracking and performance reviews tied to attendance. However, employees who had been approved for full time remote work found their approvals subject to rescission, causing uncertainty and frustration. The company emphasized the importance of being connected to the Google community but did not adequately address the concerns of those who had relocated during the pandemic or who had other reasons for preferring remove work (CRN, 2022).
These cases illustrate how miscommunication can arise when companies fail to involve employees in decision-making or provide clear, transparent reasoning behind significant policy changes. The failure to address employee concerns, combined with inconsistent messaging, resulted in decreased morale and increased turnover, underscoring the importance of effective communication during organizational transitions.
3-I worked for Brand for 11 years total, in my office we had the CEO, the CFO and the regional manager. We had estimators and salesmen that been with the company all in the same office. Our headquarters are in Atlanta, GA, but my office was in Michigan and I sat in the office with some of the higher ups. In 2017, we merged with Safway scaffoldings. This is the press release from Power Magazine, Brand Energy & Infrastructure Services (“BEIS”) and Safway Group (“Safway”) have completed their previously announced merger effective today. Brand Industrial Services, Inc. (“Brand”) will be the new name for the combined company. With nearly $5 billion in revenue, approximately 32,000 employees worldwide, and over 350 locations in 30 countries, Brand is a leading provider of specialized services to the global industrial, commercial and infrastructure end markets. The combined company has the global footprint, comprehensive service offerings and rigorous operating processes necessary to support customers’ required facility maintenance, turnaround and refurbishment needs as well as new construction, capital-driven upgrades and expansion plans (Power, 2017). We basically merged with our competitor and became one of the worlds largest infrastructure companies. I first heard about the merger through an online source not through our company. Work didn’t stop, our name changed, our management changed, but us workers did not know what changes were to come with the merger.
Specific Steps
Out of Kotters 8 steps, BrandSafway used three steps in the methodology. The created a sense of urgency, formed a strategic vision and instituted change. According to our reading about the GME change management, the sense of urgency thus created was palpable, leading our department chair to select 2 faculty co-chairs to build and lead a team to redesign GME recruitment strategy for all 15 programs within our department (Miles, 2023). BrandSafway incorporated the same approach, but with our employees spread across the world, we did not know what was what and who was our new management. According to Kotters steps, building a guiding coalition would have helped brig everyone to the forefront to help with the sense of urgency and to remove barriers. We combined with a competitor, the management team was half Brand and half Safway.
Timings of steps
We knew of the merger for about a year at least, but this didn’t cause excitement, it caused anxiety. Press harder after the first successes. Your increasing credibility can improve systems, structures and policies. Be relentless with initiating change after change until the vision is a reality. “The way that you can guarantee success in a difficult change… is to not skip any of the steps or the learnings.” (Kotter, 2023). Before the merger, Brand should have made it a point to get each region of employees informed of the change, assure no one is losing their jobs and having a volunteer army to help spread the message. On site meetings should have happened, no matter how big or small the project. We should have had a stand down and a face to face with our new management team speaking of the future of the company and getting feedback to help operational efficiency. With BrandSafway management knowing a change was coming, the communication should have started right away. In construction its a difficult task due to many of its employees being on job sites. No matter what if there was a company wide safety change ALL of the employees would have been notified and trained, why would anything be different if the company was going through a merger. I ended up losing my job with the company during covid, this was 100% due to the merger, the one that laid me off was part of the new regime and I was part of the old. My hiring manager said he would have never let me go, he actually didnt find out till seven months after it happened, he called me to see what job I was on and found out I was with a competitor. I would say construction is one of the industries that communication needs to be overcommunicated due to all the moving parts and all the people involved.