Employee communication strategies for organizational crises

Perhaps at no time is it more important for an organization to communicate sensitively and openly with its employees than during a crisis. Such efforts, however, are driven by management's view of a crisis situation, which frequently fails to consider employees' stress-induced responses to management communication behavior. This paper draws on research findings on life situations, crisis management, communication, stress, psychology, and information processing, to analyze employees' emotional, cognitive, and information needs when confronted by organizational crises. The authors present a receiver-oriented Employee Crisis Communication Model. This model outlines employees' stress-invoked perceptual and behavioral responses to major crises, which may, among other things, seriously impair their ability to handle information and make decisions. The authors then discuss the implications of applying certain communication strategies to crisis environments.