The importance of communication grows in crisis situations. Given the global economic meltdown, organizations that are linked directly for business to countries that have been affected badly by the downturn, also find themselves in a crisis situation. It was therefore felt that an opinion survey on various aspects of organizational communication channels, its extent, frequency, effectiveness, etc should be conducted among employees of such companies. The key observations from this survey were based on basic frequency distribution of response categories that varied from strong agreement to strong disagreement on the aspect in question. A neutral response was also kept as an opinion choice, so as to ascertain how many of the respondents are either not engaged in the process by the organization or are simply indifferent to it. The results of the study indicate that even among the well-known IT companies in India, the junior employees are frequently kept out of the vital communication loop in the company, particularly when the communication is crisis-related. The companies, currently being largely pre-occupied with the economic crisis, are presently not addressing this important issue. As a result of this there is disconnect between the upper and lower echelons of company employees, that could be affecting the companies’ productivity. The role of transparent and regular communication is therefore yet to be appreciated and operationalised in many of the crisis-affected companies. The most affected section of employees are the juniors who have little experience and maturity to manage the situation on their own.
Crisis communication, IT, ITeS, economic crisis, commitment
