The most basic issue for implementing agencies in managing the process of labor adjustment in PPI is to communicate effectively with all stakeholders.
Good communication with workers and unions is important for successful PPI. Get it right and, all other things being equal, PPI can be relatively smooth. Get it wrong and PPI can be delayed or postponed indefinitely.
The following are common objectives of a communication program:
Clearly defined objectives are essential.
At a minimum, the implementing agency must ensure that employees and their representatives know what decisions have been made on work force restructuring, and why. They need to know the implications for them and any actions they must take. Poor (or late) communication of information about work force restructuring can lead to misunderstandings, rumors, low morale, and poor performance within the enterprise. Moreover, it can lead to breaches of law in countries where employees have a legal right to be informed about plans to downsize or change their terms of employment.
The communication plan must provide a timetable of activities and indicative estimates of the costs involved. Costs vary greatly from country to country and should be calculated at an early stage. (A checklist on the CD-ROM provides a list of items for which costs need to be determined.)
Checklist for costing a communications program.
In addition to timing and resource questions, a communications plan must consider five elements:
Employees may have a legal right to be informed or consulted on work force restructuring.
There are five key elements in a communication plan.
A methodology for bringing those five elements together into a practical communication plan is described by Cabanero-Verzosa and Mitchell (2002). That approach uses a standard template (illustrated in table 6.2) based on identifying stakeholders (the audience) and sharply defining the communication objectives.
Cabanero-Verzosa and Mitchell 2002.
Each of the key stakeholder groups identified by the stakeholder analysis should be included in the communications plan. Communications to other stakeholders may also be useful but should not distract from or compromise the program of communication to key stakeholders.
The specific objectives should be defined as tightly as possible so that it is clear what is wanted from the communications. For example:
| Overall engagement objective | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Message | |||||
| Audience (stakeholder group) | Specific objective (change in stakeholde behavior) | Take-away message | Supporting data and evidence | Communication channels amd media | Method of monitoring and evaluation |
| Group A | |||||
| Groups B, C, and so forth | |||||
Source: Adapted from Cabanero-Verzosa and Mitchell 2002.
"Take-away" messages reflect the specific concerns of stakeholder groups.
The objectives also provide the basis for subsequent monitoring and evaluation, which can then check whether the communications have produced the desired effects. benefit from staying on to see what new job opportunities and freedoms PPI can offer.
Messages need to be supported by credible evidence– and this may take time to acquire.
Designing the message requires careful preparation because when the message is disseminated widely, it cannot easily be withdrawn.
Stakeholder analysis allows the implementing agency to disaggregate broad groups and better understand their concerns. This allows for messages to be fine-tuned and couched in terms relevant to different subgroups or audiences. For example:
In table 6.2 these differing messages are called "take-away" messages, to emphasize that they need to focus on the specific concerns of each stakeholder group and not on a vague and unfocused government desire to tell people about its work force restructuring plans.
To be credible, "take-away" messages need to be backed up by credible supporting evidence. Mere assertions by government or the implementing agency will not be enough. Indeed, they could well be counterproductive; telling workers that retrenchment will open up new opportunities for them without providing evidence will only reinforce suspicions. Collecting, organizing, and presenting the supporting evidence may be very time consuming, so the timetable and work plan need to schedule the preparation of this evidence at an early stage. Among the main evidence to be gathered is the following:
Visits allow stakeholders to experience the real situation for themselves.
Effective communication is not propaganda.
Effective communications should not be confused with propaganda or "spin." Although it is often necessary and legitimate to present the case for PPI and to detail any changes–such as work force restructuring–associated with it, it is just as important to give the bad news as well as the good. The whole process can be undermined by loss of trust if stakeholders lose confidence in the accuracy and honesty of what they are told.
Senior managers and ministers need to deliver messages themselves in face-to-face meetings. When written information is provided it should be presented in the appropriate language and in ways that reach all who are entitled to it–and that means taking into account the particular needs of different groups of workers. A note on the CDROM ("Do's and Don'ts of Communicating with Workers") gives some practical tips on how to use various communications tools.
Checklist of "do's and don'ts" for communicating with workers.
The implementing agency can use a variety of channels for delivering messages. A media audit can be commissioned to provide factual information on alternative media and channels of communication. The audit can help the implementing agency select among various channels (table 6.3), some of which are also relevant to consultation, negotiation, and cooperation.
As table 6.3 shows, a variety of channels can be used. In rough order of effectiveness these channels are:
Small-group meetings with presentations by experienced workers are the key to effective
Posters and commercials alone cannot change opinions.
| Communication | Consultation | Negotiation | Cooperation | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Opinion polls and focus groups | V | |||
| Small meetings | V | V | V | V |
| Mass meetings | V | |||
| Visits to other PPI schemes | V | V | V | |
| Video documentary | V | |||
| Video memo | + | + | + | + |
| Consultation papers | + | V | + | + |
| Information brochures | V | |||
| Mass media (TV, radio) | V | + | ||
| Press releases | V | + | + | |
| Press briefings | V | + | + | |
| Posters | + |
V = highly relevant tool; + = somewhat relevant tool.
The best medium is the one with the most impact, so face-to-face meetings are usually strongest and an impersonal printed leaflet is probably the weakest medium.
Communications can be combined: for example a visit, with a video, followed by a group meeting.
Posters contain short messages that, even if true, are so abbreviated as to seem propagandistic and hence perhaps unbelievable. For workers whose livelihoods may be at stake, posters will be credible only if accompanied by more informative and more convincing materials.
Visits to see how others have dealt with PPI are valuable for government, workers, and unions alike, and are a means of communication in their own right. When planning visits, the following design points can be borne in mind:
Guidelines on videos for communicating with workers.
Check to see if the communications are working.
Akey government official involved in the concessioning of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) in Manila, the Philippines, kept a diary of this PPI transaction. He wrote:
Sometime in April 1996, the World Bank broached the idea of organizing a trip to Buenos Aires. We had actually been thinking about this possibility from the very beginning of the transaction, but, with so many other things to take care of, it had never been actively pursued.
From all the reports we had received, the Buenos Aires transaction was highly successful. We thought that it would be great if key people involved in the MWSS privatization could actually meet people who had been involved in the Buenos Aires transaction.
When we decided on the composition of the contingent, we took a great risk. Aside from MWSS top and middle management, we decided to send members of Congress and the labor union leaders. We were not really in control of what would happen in Buenos Aires, but we gambled that the trip would have a positive result.
In the end, the trip turned out to be highly successful. The contingent met with numerous officials and all of them were happy with the privatization. The happiest were the labor union leaders. Their counterparts in Buenos Aires explained that even if so many jobs were apparently lost with the privatization (due to retrenchment), all of those jobs and more were recovered in the private sector. The concessionaire generated a lot of new business, most of it for other companies in the private sector.
It seems this trip was key to securing labor's support of the privatization. They saw that the results in Buenos Aires were positive. They also saw that the MWSS privatization itself was transparent.
Source: Dumol 2000.
Communications campaigns are intended to alter stakeholders' perceptions, so the implementing agency should check now and again to see what has been accomplished. This can allow the correction of misunderstandings before they emerge. The implementing agency therefore should plan to survey stakeholders periodically for changes in attitudes, actions, or intentions. Tools to assess them can include opinion polls, longitudinal surveys, and follow-up focus groups (with the same participants).