Communication within The Weymouth Steel Corporation
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Weymouth Steel
Introduction
Every company will in one time or another face a difficult moment of its existence. This could be either having to deal with a strike or communicating important news to the workers, especially when the news could negatively affect the said workers. This situation faced Weymouth Steel Corporation when it tried to communicate the news that was not so good to some workers, although it was somehow good for the rest. This paper looks at the analysis of this case and the effect it had on the company. It will be important to look at how the public reacted to the challenge facing the company.
Communication within a company
Weymouth Company was facing a tough time trying to communicate the good news about the increase of salaries for all its workers regardless of their grade. It also had an uphill task communicating its decision to downsize the workforce (Cheekooo, 2007). This was meant to deal with the cost of operations in the company, which would boost bad performance in the steel industry at the time.
The steel industry was not doing well and had been on a downward slump for quite some time. This meant that the company would certainly not operate at the profit margin it was operating on earlier. This slump down would consequently make the companies run without having to spend much on operation costs. One of the best ways to do this is by laying off some of the employees. This however has the effect of demoralizing the remaining work force since they do not know who will be next to be laid especially if the problem persisted. This demoralized moral of workers would spell doom for any company. It was for this reason the company was finding it hard to communicate the news to its employees.
In order to placate the remaining employees, the company had decided to raise the salary of the workers who would remain after the laying off. This was done in an attempt to placate them and maybe ensure that the company runs smoothly. Then, how would the news be communicated to the affected individuals? The timing of this communication and the way it would be done would be very vital.
It is to be noted that communicating of the downsizing news would be detrimental to the moral of the workers. The company’s performance would be affected a great deal. The management realized the need to communicate a new vision for the company. It would propel the workers to work hard and hence improving future performance of the company. On the other hand, the communication of this new vision would not be done without first taking some measures to cut on cost; this would touch on the workforce. The communication of such news would attract the media. The publicity that would be brought by such news would not do any good to the public image of the company (Cheekooo, 2007).
Therefore, decision makers had to be very careful about the reaction of the public. This is because such publicity would destroy the chances of restoring the company to performance. An injured public image would not be good for the company. It would affect the management’s vision of bringing back the company to performance.
Conclusion
The Weymouth Steel Corporation was really facing a hard time of its existence. Having to deal with the challenges brought about by the fact that steel was not doing well in the country and having to tackle the challenge of public opinion brought about by media publicity was a thorn in the flesh for the company.