Employee communication vs. corporate PR

Phew. After two weeks on the road and five speaking gigs, I've finally dug out.

Lots and lots to blog about, but let's start with a a panel discussion yesterday on Canadian business TV network BNN.

The topic: the sorry state of corporate PR and the growing credibility gap suffered by business leaders.

The conversation starter: Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit's memo to employees talking about better than expected earnings in the first two months of the year. When Monday's internal note was 'leaked' to the press, it sparked a dramatic increase in Citigroup's share price and initiated a huge rally in the stock market.

The discussion centred on CEO credibility, which has gone down the tubes in recent months along with the public's trust of big corporations. The most prominent of the panelists, Richard Edelman, had some interesting things to say about the importance of honesty and transparency in employee communication.

Direct, open communication with employees was held up as an example of the kind of information that could be trusted, as opposed to external PR "spin." Those of us in employee communications know that internal messages are often spun even more than external ones, but it's great to know that Edelman is pushing corporate leaders in the right direction.

There are two eight-minute segments that are certainly worth a look.

What do you think? Which is generally more trustworthy - internal or external communication?

Comments

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[Sebas Paschmann]

If you are transparent with your employees, you'll be transparent with your stakeholders.

Credibility is a construction based on transparency. In that way I think internal communication is more trustworthy, because it is the seed of the value proposition of the company.