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CHAPTER SEVEN: CHOOSING MEDIA
The learning goal of this chapter is to sensitize students to the fact that choosing the right media
will determine the effectiveness of their messages.
The Timken Company offers an opportunity for students to consider, and choose among, all the
available channels (or media) through which they can send their messages and receive feedback:
writing, speaking, videotapes, meetings, training programs, focus groups, posters, letters, radio
and television, social events, newsletters, faxes, videoconferencing, the grapevine, surveys, and
formal suggestion programs. Developing and implementing a successful employee
communication program requires the manager to communicate effectively with colleagues (on
the planning team), superiors (the company leaders who will approve or reject the proposed
program), subordinates (the employees), and a variety of external media.
Teaching THE TIMKEN COMPANY
The Timken Company explores how a large American manufacturing company uses employee
communication as a significant element in its response to increasing global competition. It
invites discussion of the middle range of communication options between traditional labor
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Teaching Objectives
2. To examine effective and ineffective approaches to formulating a company’s internal
communication policy,
4. To understand the need to balance concerns of various constituencies when designing an
internal communication policy,
6. To emphasize that, once initiated, communication must be ongoing if it is to be effective,
8. To point out the role of communication in fostering employee commitment, and
Suggested Assignment: Ask students to develop a 3-4 page action plan for Timken’s 1986
employee communication program. This should require them to balance the views of top
management who must approve the program against the concerns of the workforce which
constitutes the program’s primary audience. Students can write before or after the case
discussion. In either case, the instructor would be well advised to refer students to the Plan of
Action formula described in the text:
l. Recommendation: brief overview of the course of action the student is proposing.
3. Implementation: what next steps need to be taken if your proposal is adopted.
Videotape: The following suggestions on teaching the case incorporate use of videotaped
interviews with two middle managers and two top managers who take considerably different
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Background
The Timken Company’s employee communication efforts in the past developed within
constraints dictated by the company’s labor relations history. Like other heavy manufacturers,
Timken had fought hard against unionization in the 1930s and 40s. Nevertheless, most of the
older plants, located around corporate headquarters in Canton, Ohio, were unionized by the
United Steelworkers. During the company’s expansion in the 1960s, two new plants had been
opened in the Carolinas, largely because of anti-union sentiment there. At the peak of its success,
During the 1970s and 80s, the desire to avoid further unionization largely drove the Timken
Company’s labor- and employee-relations policies. Several attempts to unionize non-union plants
failed in the face of strong opposition from the company. Some protagonists in the case,
including Bob Lang, George Arris, and Burt Jones, had earned their spurs in part by avoiding
further unionization. Until the early 80s, “employee relations” meant mediating employee
grievances and avoiding further unionization. Because the period was a prosperous one for the
industry, and salary increases were generous, the company had suffered no strikes since the
1960s.
In 1980, the Timken Company decided to invest $500 million in a major new production facility,
The Employee Communication Program
In order to gain unionized employees’ approval of the Faircrest contract, the Timken Company
initiated its first employee communication program. It was a modest effort; Tim Timken, soon to
succeed his father as Chairman of the Board, made a speech urging approval of the contract on
Canton-area television, and workers were provided with the company’s point of view by their
supervisors. Although the company refused to open its books or disclose its profit margins, the
Faircrest agreement was approved by union voters.
Things began to change with the approach of the 1983 union contract negotiations. Timken’s
leaders decided that, given increasing global pressures, the company needed to hold the line on
Teaching the Class
The Timken Company provides an opportunity to examine a wide range of communication
issues because of the diversity of audiences, the novelty of a significant internal communication
program, and the widely varying expectations of the program within management. It also
emphasizes the contribution communication can make to a company’s competitiveness.
Management has achieved a short-term success with a flawed, top-down program, but this is
During the opening and follow-up comments, students will likely identify the central elements of
a communication strategy, and the instructor can get these up on the board. For example:
Context: History of little communication, arm’s-length labor negotiations, severe competitive
environment, increasingly militant union, conservative top-down management tradition.
Goals (many of which are in conflict): Prevent a strike, improve quality, develop more
Once these issues have been vented, move to a discussion of the 1986 communication program:
1. What would happen if The Timken Company had no communication program in 1986?
2. Since the audiences for The Timken Company’s communication program are multiple
and often divergent in their interests, should the company send different messages to
different audiences? While there might be an opportunity to place different emphases on
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3. How should the program be administered? Videotaped messages from top management
circumvent the traditional Timken chain-of-command. Are there risks to traditional
employee-supervisor relationships in this approach? The company could use
4. How receptive is our primary audience to our message? Employees have already
sacrificed in the 1983 negotiations and are likely to feel they’ve done their part.
Moreover, given the 1983 experience, they’re likely to feel that any message from top
management is designed to prepare them for further concessions. How can the company
overcome this skepticism, even hostility? What potentially conflicting messages are the
employees going to receive from the union over the next few months? What are the
consequences of the union’s intention to make Timken a test case in 1986 settlement
patterns?
Once these major issues have been raised, about half way through the class, the discussion can be
significantly enriched by running the video clips of Burt Jones and George Arris. These can be
introduced by saying: “We’re on the middle management team assigned to design the l986
By this point, many students may be suggesting that the Timken Company adopt a more
participatory management style. Some will be cavalier about the difficulties of bringing about
such a drastic change in corporate culture. This provides an opportunity to emphasize the
To this point, students will likely have concentrated on designing a program acceptable to the
workforce. Towards the end of the class, remind them they may have neglected the most