Other communication issues

Some other points were raised during the review that are not the direct responsibility of the Internal Communications team but are worth publishing and will be passed on to appropriate areas for consideration.

This review did not ask specific questions about communication within departments or faculties and with line managers – this is better addressed in the staff satisfaction survey – however inevitably some comment was made...

Management/faculty/department communication

"There should be a structure from the top down and more filtering, managers should be more accountable and responsible for cascading information."

"Senior staff need to understand that communication involves listening a well as giving out information."

"Line managers are busy and forget to transmit information."

"Thought needs to be given to improving communication amongst senior staff, so they can cascade information."

"Need to encourage line managers to do more direct communication. Hate reading in Communicator and all-staff emails things my boss should have told me about."

Face-to-face and two-way communication

"We appear to have no way of upward communication on general things."

"Meetings do not happen. Some people have asked for meetings."

"There should be team meetings, more often."

Staff responsibility to remain informed

Interestingly, there were several comments made on our own responsibility to ensure, as members of staff, that we are fully informed...

"Everybody has a responsibility to engage."

"I regularly hear colleagues say 'oh, I didn't know about that'. Well that's because you didn't read Staff Essentials/Communicator/all-staff email!"

"I worked in the private sector where team meetings and communication plans were mandatory but this would not fit in our culture. We treat people as adults who can look for information for themselves."

"Reading all-staff emails and material on Staff Essentials can take very little time in one's busy schedule, and yet I am constantly hearing about staff who do not read any of the emails. I don't have a solution, but I really feel staff need to be encouraged to at least glance at this material."