Changing demographics of employees, coupled with changes in organizational structures, create unique challenges for communicating with one of the most important publics in public relations – the employee. Communication with employees plays an important role in developing and maintaining relationships, job satisfaction and employee productivity. Practitioners must consider demographic and technological changes, organizational culture, management wants, employee needs, message strategies, media formats and other factors when designing material targeted to potential, current or past employees.

From recruitment to departure, employees represent an often overlooked, but probably one of the most important, publics. Practitioners use a variety of controlled media to communicate information to various employee groups. Content and design decisions for traditional forms of employee communication such as help wanted advertisements, employee newsletters, postal inserts, brochures, flyers and for new technologies such as Web sites and Web blogs require practitioners to continuously update their skill sets about the effects of communication style, formats and usage on employees. Different employee situations require different strategies for obtaining success in employee relations. For example, communicating information about employee benefits such as health insurance will require different message strategies and media vehicles than information about a collective bargaining arrangement between management and labor unions.

At the organizational level, employee relations and communication represents a link between employees and management. In organizations that institutionalize employee communication as a management policy objective, the practitioner matches organizational objectives with consistent messages through a variety of internal communication media to inform, educate or facilitate change among employees and/or within the organization. The benefits of effective employee relations include increases in job satisfaction among employees and managers as well as boosting employee confidence during times of organizational challenges.

Small and large organizations need to understand the advantages and disadvantages of using various media platforms to distribute information to employees. Although practitioners can select from a variety of print and electronic formats for message distribution, cost, time, usability and reader comprehension need to be considered in the decision-making process. Depending on the simplicity or complexity of the message, a practitioner may decide to use a bulletin board flyer rather than a Web site.

Employee relations play an integral component of policies related to the success of the organization. Practitioners need to learn how to distinguish between organizational cultures and be able to match organizational goals and objectives with communication policies. In the end, effective employee communication, including matching the message with the best media platform, is related to job satisfaction and organizational productivity.