The implementation of the communication strategy chosen by a company in its daily operations is essential for the overall corporate culture, workplace productivity, security, and developmental potential. The effective communication style of a company’s leadership and management when interacting with multiple stakeholders, including investors, customers, partners, and employees, predetermines successful methods of guiding the company. Within the corporate communication strategy at the Coca-Cola company, open communication between leaders and employees, as well as managers and employees, is characterized by a variety of effectively used channels and messages. Importantly, both leaders and managers are highly interested in reinforcing feedback from employees to ensure creating an effective and value-driven working community on a global scale. In particular, this paper will concentrate on analyzing Coca-Cola’s CEO’s and managers’ communication styles with employees to demonstrate how they help create a favorable corporate culture that contributes to business success.
Internal communication is an integrative part of corporate culture and employee relations. As stated by Opran (2018), organizational accomplishment vastly depends on leadership’s and management’s effectiveness of communicating core values, tasks, and expectations. Thus, in such communication, the most important elements are the message, the channels, and the potential for feedback. Firstly, both managers and the CEO of the Coca-Cola company strive to deliver a clear message through their communication styles. To demonstrate, one might refer to the company’s CEO’s direct message to employees considering social justice issues in the company and the larger community. Indeed, when addressing the employees globally, Coca-Cola’s CEO, James Quincey, referred to the recent events in the USA and encouraged “advancing civil rights and promoting equality” within the company and beyond (The Coca-Cola Company, 2020, para. 1). Repeatedly stating “we” and “our,” referring to the company as a whole, the CEO emphasized the importance of the contribution of everyone into the fight against injustice. Quincey stated, “we stand as one with our employees, business partners, and communities in rejecting racism and discrimination,” which signalizes the unity of Coca-Cola’s community (The Coca-Cola Company, 2020, para. 2).
Secondly, the proper choice of communication channels allows for establishing a connection with the target audience and engaging in a qualitative interaction. For example, the company’s CEO chose corporate e-mail as a communication channel for the social justice message. Later, the message was shared on social media and the official website of the company. In this particular case, the choice of digital communication channels is effective since the message requires far-reaching information distribution. Furthermore, the Coca-Cola company positions itself as the brand that unifies people under the motto “One company, One Team, One passion.” (Scheufele, 2017, p. 8). These values of teamwork are manifested through group discussions and face-to-face communication between managers and employees.
Thirdly, the provision of an opportunity to give feedback is vital for employee-centered, goal-driven, and potential-recognizing corporate culture. Managers engage in continuous dialogue with employees to advance performance and job satisfaction (Scheufele, 2017). As for the potential for feedback in the CEO’s communication style, the analyzed message demonstrates that Quincey is particularly interested in obtaining feedback from employees and provides multiple opportunities to do so. The CEO encourages employees to participate in a specifically designed Stand As One dialogue and share ideas and experiences. He explicitly states, “we will listen, and we will work together to take action” (The Coca-Cola Company, 2020, para. 5). Thus, feedback plays a pivotal role in Coca-Cola’s communication style.
In conclusion, as the analysis of communication styles used by the CEO and managers at the Coca-Cola company demonstrates, the choice of compelling corporate messages, effective channels, and provision of feedback opportunities are successful. Such an approach to communication allows for the effective exchange of ideas and approaches that help organize the work of the company and promote each individual’s contribution. Thus, Coca-Cola succeeds in its implementation of a transparent corporate communication strategy.
References
The Coca-Cola Company. (2020). A message from James Quincey on social justice. Web.
Opran, E. R. (2018). Internal communication campaigns and employees’ motivation. Social Sciences and Education Research Review, 5(1), 162-168.
Scheufele, P. (2017). Assessment of the Coca-Cola company’s HR-processes in regard of current trends. Web.