Employment References: Automated, Anonymous Reference Checks Are Changing the Game

Employment references have been one of the more volatile areas of business communication in recent years, and the situation is often frustrating for everyone involved. With the threat of lawsuits over negative references, many employers now offer nothing more than confirmation of dates of employment. On the other side of the equation, recruiters are frustrated by the time and work it can take to track down anyone willing to provide balanced feedback on candidates, and candidates are sometimes frustrated by their inability to provide meaningful references.

In response to the challenges faced by prospective employers, a new class of software is helping recruiters get the information they need to make informed hiring choices—and the implications for job seekers are huge. These systems essentially automate a confidential online survey of a candidate's references. The candidate provides names and email addresses of a specified number of references, and the references then respond to a standardized questionnaire. As this article in Workforce Management explains, employers who use the systems report dramatic increases in the quantity and quality of information they're able to get on candidates. Given an opportunity to provide confidential feedback, past employers and other references are much more willing to offer candid assessments.

Now for the implications for job seekers, particularly less-experienced workers who might not appreciate just how long a bad reputation can follow one throughout a career. Employers who use these systems require candidates to provide references, and those references are protected by anonymity (and liability waivers, in at least one of the systems we looked at). The chances of botching up a job and moving on with no damage to one's career are going to shrink as more employers adopt these tools. Students should be aware that even those part-time and entry-level jobs they can't wait to escape from could come back to haunt them if they leave behind a negative reputation.

On the plus side, these systems should benefit employees who exhibit professionalism and dedication to the job, because their former managers will be free to provide in-depth information to future employers.

Should the Business Communication Course Change to Reflect the Media Preferences of Generation Y?

One of the more intriguing aspects of age diversity in the workplace is the degree to which technology has shaped the communication habits and preferences of each generation. For instance, Generation Y (roughly speaking, those born between 1981 and 1995) has a well-documented preference for electronic media, from texting to IM to social networking. Coupled with a generally more casual approach to information privacy, this reliance on electronic media can clash with the habits and expectations of older workers and managers.

As Generation Y continues to move into workplace and up the managerial ladder, these cultural mismatches are only going to get more common. Moreover, as a recent article in Workforce Management ("Gen Y Execs Shake Up Office Culture") points out, this generation's embrace of entrepreneurship is creating new organizational cultures built around electronic media.

The differences in technology preferences can be significant on their own, but the changes run much deeper than just the tools themselves, of course. Here are some of the issues to consider:

  • Lean versus rich media. Lean media, those with the fewest informational cues and least potential for feedback or personalization, are at the core of this culture clash. For example, Baby Boomers accustomed to walking down the hall to a colleague's office or using their phones for actual voice communication are sometimes dismayed at the tendency of younger workers to fire off a terse text message in situations where they believe a more nuanced live conversation would be more effective. Gen Yers, for their part, can sometimes wonder what all the fuss is about, having grown up texting and IMing.
  • Synchronous communication with real-time feedback. Richer media, including phone and face-to-face conversations, can make it much easier to resolve misunderstandings and negotiate shared meanings. We've probably all had the experience of getting stuck in time-consuming email loops where neither side seems to be getting the message, only to resolve the confusion with a quick phone call.
  • A comfort level with distributed, virtual team communication. As networked and even unstructured organizations become more common and traditional employment gives way to independent contracting for many workers, the ability to communicate without a fixed organizational framework is becoming increasingly important. For all their perceived shortcomings in other areas, Gen Y communicators have a big head start here—and could be developing information encoding and decoding methods that work well in this environment but are perhaps underappreciated by older communicators because they don't fit established patterns and process models.
  • Illusions of communication efficiency and effectiveness. Every mode is vulnerable to the illusion that communication efforts are successful, of course, but email and other asynchronous modes are particularly prone to this because it is so easy to fall into the trap of believing that hitting the "send" or "publish" button is the same thing as communicating.
  • Attitudes about privacy and sharing. These concerns range from publishing sensitive company information (or inappropriate personal information) to treating information as a resource to be shared, rather than as a "power lever" to be hoarded and used selectively.

Given the range of important differences involved in media choices, how far should the business communication course move toward reflecting these emerging preferences? There is never enough time to cover everything we'd like to cover, naturally, so how do we find the optimum balance? For instance, many instructors like to devote time to telephone skills, and understandably so, but should some of that time be shifted over to skill development with instant messaging (as one example), given the shifts in workplace habits? On the other hand, one can argue that the very lack of practice and finesse with phone conversations makes this mode even more important to cover in the business communication course.

We'd love to hear your thoughts, particularly if you've already made changes in your topic coverage or teaching style to accommodate these evolving habits and preferences.

 

Image credit: woodleywonderworks

This Stuff Is Important: “Strategic Informality” in Business Communication

When Google wanted to alert users to significant changes in its online privacy policy, it didn't couch the news in the formal language that corporations normally use for major policy announcements. Instead, it used phrases such as "This stuff is important" and "This stuff matters."

Whether or not one believes "stuff" is stylistically appropriate language for serious, high-visibility business communication, it strikes us as effective in this case. At the very least, it stood out from the thousands of other words that wander across our computer screens on any given day.

We haven't measured it, but we suspect this sort of studied informality is definitely on the rise. Language that businesses would not have dreamed of using for formal communication 20, 10, or even 5 years ago is becoming more common. Just this morning, for instance, Copyblogger Media sent out an email message in response to apparently widespread complaints about the pricing of its blog hosting services. The subject line? "How We Screwed Up Our WordPress Hosting."

Two forces seem to be driving this shift toward informality. The first and most obvious is the rise of social media. Just as conversations are less formal than public speeches, communication in a social media environment is more casual than communication in the old "we talk, you listen" model of corporate communication. Writing that comes across as stilted corporate-speak is rejected as inauthentic.

The second possibility is that formal business language is simply being worn out and trivialized in some instances by overuse and misuse. How many times a week do you see a print or online message that proclaims to contain "Important Information About Your Account," for example? If it's from your bank, credit card issuer, or cable TV company, it's probably not "important information" about "your account" at all but rather a sales pitch that may or not have any relevance to your account or your needs.

How do you see this trend affecting your business communication teaching? Have students raised questions about any disconnects between what they learn in class and what they see businesses actually doing? Let us know what you think.

 

Is Visual Design an Important Part of Your Business Communication Course?

Some of us have been around long enough to remember when business communication was a fairly specialized activity. Writers wrote, typesetters set type, art directors designed, graphic artists created, photographers took photos, and production specialists equipped with X-Acto knives combined all these elements on the page.

Then along came desktop publishing software, word processors that were more than glorified typewriters, graphics software, presentation software, and eventually web publishing software. With each advance, more and more design and production responsibility wound up in the writer's lap. In addition to grammar, spelling, and syntax, business communicators now had to worry about typeface choices, leading, color palettes, page composition, image resolution, and a host of other aesthetic and technical concerns. "Business writing" gradually became "business communication" in the broadest sense, and often not to the benefit of communicators or their audiences.

In addition to burdening writers with creative and technical matters in which they often are not trained, this gradual melding of design and production into the writing task steals time and attention away from the writing itself. Presentation software is a great example of this risk: with so many tools (and toys) available in the software, it can be devilishly hard to stay focused on the message one is trying to develop and convey.

Templates and themes can be a powerful way to incorporate design sensibility and to eliminate some of the design decisions that business communicators would otherwise be forced to make. However, choosing and using these guides successfully requires at least a minimum degree of design savvy. Even the safest PowerPoint template or WordPress theme can be misused by communicators who don't appreciate how visual design affects their verbal messages.

Now that so many business professionals need some basic design skills just to survive in their day-to-day work, where are they likely to get this training? Given the many other learning goals you have to incorporate in the business communication course, how much time can you devote to visual design? Do your students get exposure to visual design in other courses (such as presentation slide design in a public speaking course)?

We'd love to hear your thoughts on how you address this challenge. And for ideas on teaching visual communication in your course, be sure to check out Bovee & Thill's Teaching Visual Communication magazine on Scoop.it.

Media Curation: A Powerful New Tool for Finding the Information That Matters to Your and Your Students

Newsfeeds from blogs and other online publishers can be a great way to stay on top of developments in any field. However, anyone who has signed up for more than a few RSS feeds has probably experienced the "firehose effect" of getting so many feeds so quickly that it becomes impossible to stay on top of them. Moreover, when a highly active publisher feeds every new article, from the essential to the trivial, the reader is left to sort it all out every day.

An intriguing alternative to newsfeeds is media curation, in which someone with expertise or interest in a particular field collects and republishes material on a particular topic. Business Communication Headline News, for instance, was one of the earliest examples of media curation in the field of business communication.

The latest curation tools, such as Scoop.it, make it easy to assemble attractive online magazines or portfolios on specific topics. To see these tools in action, check out Bovee & Thill's Online Magazines for Business Communication:

  • Business Communication 2.0: Social Media and Electronic Communication
  • Teaching Visual Communication
  • Teaching a Modern Business Communication Course
  • Teaching Business Communication and Employment
  • Teaching Business Communication and Workplace Issues
  • Teaching Business Communication and Interpersonal Communication

And on the right side of our Scoop.it home page, you can see the many curated magazines that we follow as well.

Curation promises to bring the power of community and shared expertise to a lot of different fields, and we're excited to see how it will shape business communication.

See media curation video.

Ringing in the New Year with an Eye-Opening Prediction

Happy New Year! From everyone on the Bovée-Thill team, we wish you a successful new term.

Looking at what lies ahead for business communication, this recent article in Workforce Magazine certainly caught our attention. The consulting firm MBO Partners predicts that over half the U.S. workforce will be independent by 2020. Reaching that threshold would require an increase from 16 million independent workers today to 70 million in just eight years, but even if the eventual growth falls short of that forecast, the rapid increase in unattached professionals is dramatically reshaping the nature of business—and business communication.

The sheer number is not the only important change going on here, either. In past years, corporate refugees made up an important share of the independent workforce. We know from our own experience that these people often benefited from the mentoring, formal training, "safe" learning opportunities, and professional networking that corporate structures can provide. When they went solo, they took these skills and connections with them.

However, with the spread of virtual organizations, the increase in freelance project work, and the weak employment market, we suspect that many workers will take—or be forced to take—the independent route without the broad skill sets that former corporate employees have.

Not only will more workers be operating outside a formal organization structure, in other words, but a significant number are likely to be fending for themselves without the benefit of much organizational communication experience at all.

Depending on how this scenario plays out in the coming years, the implications for business communication education could be profound. As freelance work has gone mainstream, from a relative rarity to an accepted career path to the very model on which some companies operate, the assumption that business communication takes place largely within a defined organizational context is becoming less and  less valid.

Moreover, in this new world of work, business communication skills will become even more important than they are now. On the one hand, less-skilled communicators without the support of an organization to carry them along face a rough future as independents. Even experienced corporate pros can be shocked at the demands that suddenly being one's own salesforce puts on their persuasion and negotiation skills. Many freelancers are in nearly constant job-search mode, always scrambling for the next project and the next client.

On the other hand, skilled communicators can use their talents to land the most interesting and profitable projects and to build sustaining client relationships that ease the pressure of constantly needing to sell, sell, sell.

We've addressed virtual work and networked organizations in our textbooks for some time now, and we'll continue to adapt our coverage and content as the business landscape changes. In the meantime, we invite you to share your thoughts on how this seismic shift could change the practice and study of business communication.

One this is certain: The communication skills you are helping your students develop now are going to mean the difference between struggle, survival, and success in the future.

 

Please Don’t Buy This: Patagonia’s Un-Marketing on Cyber Monday

From Black Friday to Small Business Saturday to Cyber Monday, business communication over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend is all about buy, buy, buy.

In this hypersaturated message environment, this email missive from the outdoor-clothing supplier Patagonia on Cyber Monday definitely stood out, starting with the large headline "Don't Buy This Jacket" and a large photo of one of its signature fleece jackets.

Rather than promoting the jacket as a must-get gift for holiday shoppers, Patagonia used the email to talk about the environmental impact of its products and to encourage readers to take the Common Threads Initiative pledge: reduce, repair, reuse, recycle, and reimagine.

Here's how the company explained its unusual message:

Because Patagonia wants to be in business for a good long time – and leave a world inhabitable for our kids – we want to do the opposite of every other business today. We ask you to buy less and to reflect before you spend a dime on this jacket or anything else.

The message wasn't entirely un-promotional. It did point out that the high durability of the jacket meant that wearers wouldn't need to replace it for a long time. However, this was done within the context of the "reduce" message, and it clearly stands in opposition to the planned obsolescence that drives so many product categories today—how many weeks until the next generation of smartphones replaces the perfectly functional current generation?

Was Patagonia's message a cynical ploy to gain favor with its environmentally conscious target consumer? One might jump to that conclusion, but we've been following the company for a long time and respect its managerial ethos. While the message clearly resonates with the target audience, we believe it definitely fits the criteria of ethical communication, regardless of one's personal stance on sustainable commerce: It includes the information readers need in order to make an informed response, it is true in both word and spirit, and it is not deceptive in any way. 

This is a great example of communication ethics to discuss with your students, as well as an intriguing case study in promotional communication. For example, can a company benefit in the long run by discouraging customers to buy less in the short run?

Please let us know what you and your students think about this unusual message.

The Challenge of Nuanced Messages in Lean, Text-Only Media :(

You know that feeling when the words don't quite capture the spirit of your intended message, but words are all you have?

Let's say your project team has just been reprimanded by the boss for missing an interim deadline. You're confident that the team will meet its final deadline, so you're ready to brush off the criticism and get back to work. Your colleagues, however, left the meeting grumbling about being criticized in public, and you fear that morale will slip.

You could craft a restorative, inspirational message to soothe the bruised egos and get the team's energy turned around in a positive direction. However, writing such a message could be risky, because world-weary teammates might just brush it off as happytalk and resent you for trying to be a cheerleader. Moreover, to minimize the chances of a negative reaction, you'll have to spend a lot of time trying to get the words just right.

Alternatively, you could also suggest that your colleagues lighten up and stay focused on the ultimate goal of the project. However, you already know that telling grumpy people to cheer up is a sure-fire way to make most of them even grumpier.

Instead, you opt for a quick bit of gentle and jovial sarcasm, designed to help release the negative emotions in a collegial way. When you get back to your desk, you write the following one-line message via IM or email:

Well, let's pick up the pieces of our shattered lives and move on ;)

The over-the-top phrasing is a subtle way to remind everyone that the criticism wasn't all that traumatic, the use of "our" reminds your colleagues that you're all in this together, and that winking emoticon tells everyone to lighten up without actually saying so. The apparent sarcasm connects with people who are marinating in their negative emotions, but it's really a pep talk disguised as sarcasm. With apologies to Julie Andrews, you're feeding them a spoonful of medicine to help the sugar go down.

But wait: you remember reading somewhere that emoticons are "unprofessional," so you replace it with a simple period:

Well, let's pick up the pieces of our shattered lives and move on.

Oops. That one minor change to make the message more professional turned it into a statement of resigned sadness. If you were delivering the message in person, you could use a real smile to replace the emoticon. Even over the phone you could use a brief chuckle. But with IM or email, all you have are soulless squiggles on the screen.

You search your keyboard for any acceptable symbol that might help:

Well, let's pick up the pieces of our shattered lives and move on!

Great, now you've managed to sound bitter and demanding at the same time.

Under these circumstances, are emoticons really all that bad? And given the trend we're seeing in many industries toward a less "corporate" voice in business communication (spurred in large part by social media), is it only a matter of time before a few basic symbols enter the mainstream for all but the most formal messages?

When you think about it, is 😉 all that different from !  ? They are both symbols designed to give words a particular emotional shape. In fact, the exclamation point would probably welcome the help. As the only emphasis character at a writer's disposal, the exclamation point is asked to do too much and is often overused as a result.

What position do you take with your students regarding emoticons in their writing for the business communication course? Is it time to introduce judicious use of a few subtle and simple emoticons, at least for internal communication? (Just to be clear, we're talking here about using text emoticons only, not graphical smiley faces, those collections of yellow cartoon characters available in many IM and blogging systems.)

Let us know what you think 🙂

 

Photo credit: VersatImage

The Crowd Is Watching: Social Media and the Shrinking Margin for Error

ProtestJudging from the vociferous comments in the social media atmosphere, one might think that Netflix's decision to split itself in two or Bank of America's introduction of a debit card fee were some of the worst horrors ever visited upon the human race. BofA isn't likely to reverse its decision, even if thousands of people really do drop their banks for a credit union on Bank Transfer Day. However, the online uproar certainly prompted Netflix to first apologize for not doing a better job of explaining its decision—and then to reverse the decision entirely. [Update 11-1-11: In response to an overwhelming number of complaints, BofA just announced it is scrapping plans to introduce the debit card fee. The crowd has spoken!]

When we began covering social media in our textbooks some years ago, it was soon apparent that these new tools were much more than tools: They were disruptive technologies that were going to fundamentally alter the relationships between companies and their stakeholders. Sure enough, consumers have more power to influence business than ever before, and they aren't always yielding that power with a gentle touch and a kind word.

In addition to aggregating consumer voices, social media can amplify consumer moods and emotions. Unpopular decisions that might have once caused little more than isolated, ineffectual grumbling can now spark organized protests that tarnish brands, deplete goodwill, and even cause changes in corporate strategy.

The message to companies: You better get it right, you better get it right the first time, and you better explain yourself before, during, and after every change you make. Effective communication has never been as important as it is in this volatile new world of business. And even if you're doing something that makes strategic or financial sense, prepare yourself for a negative response.

Photo credit: tomboy from morguefile.com

Teaching Students to Keep Their Cool After a Public Insult

Consumer-review websites such as Yelp can be a boon or a bane to local businesses. They can help businesses with little or no advertising budget get exposure through positive word-of-mouth, but they can damage businesses when unhappy customers use the Internet to vent their frustrations.

When a bad review is justified, it can alert potential customers to consider other options and help the company improve its operations. However, an unfair negative review helps nobody. It can divert potential customers away from company that might well meet their needs, and it can inflict temporary or even lasting damage on a company that doesn't deserve it.

Unfair negative reviews can come in a variety of flavors, such as when consumers are at least partially at fault (e.g., ignoring product descriptions on an e-commerce site, ordering a product that clearly doesn't meet their needs, and then criticizing it), when a minor glitch in service is blown out of proportion, or when individuals use review websites as their personal creative-writing platforms and are more interested in being funny or snarky rather than honest and helpful.

Fortunately for unfairly maligned business owners, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and other sites give them the chance to respond. However, these scenarios do present one of the more difficult writing challenges a business owner is likely to face. Unlike an apology for poor service, for example, where the owner can express regret in a straightforward manner and perhaps offer some form of compensation, the unfair review requires a great deal of finesse. The owner's response needs to correct the misinformation without engaging the reviewer in a public argument. Moreover, maintaining a calm, professional tone can be a challenge when one's reputation and livelihood have been subjected to unfair insults.

Putting your students in the roles of maligned business owners can be great practice for writing clearly while keeping one's emotions under control. Have each student find a harsh negative review on Yelp or TripAdvisor and imagine that he or she is the owner of the business in question. The student should assume that the information in the review is factually incorrect and write a hypothetical response that corrects the misinformation without "taking the bait" of the emotional attack. Encourage students to really imagine just how upset hardworking business owners would be after seeing their names dragged through the mud. By role playing scenarios like this, students will get practice at keeping their emotions under control when they are unfairly criticized in any professional setting.

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