Outline
Nowadays communication with the employees in a multinational company has become very difficult. This issue has become so sensitive that it has to be dealt in an attentive manner. The role of Citi Group in this area has become a good example for other global companies. The technique of generic benchmarking was used successfully by the group for its employees. The use of the technique of generic benchmarking gained wide appreciation even during the times of recession.
Introduction
The most relevant question that comes up in the minds of the Global Corporates is that more and more companies are becoming Global and the challenges of effectively communicating with the workers have become a diverse issue which has to be dealt in a meticulous manner.
Main Text
Citi group Inc has faced this problem in the recent times and have adopted many strategies and has become successful in overcoming various communication issues with its employees. With the problem of recession booming large, it was important for Citi group to communicate with its employees in an effective manner regarding the job cuts and other dismal results for the fourth quarter. We can now explore how Citi overcame this and what strategies it adopted from the outside corporate world. Citi group resorted to the technique of Generic benchmarking. It analyzed its competitors and finally came up with the model for the solutions that its competitors had done in a similar scenario. The following is the brief description of what Citi group did.
The Appreciation Levels for its employees did not go below the expected standard. Citi group made sure that the employees were appreciated for the tasks that they had done during this turbulent phase and made their managers do an effective communication with their team members. Citi group also did not slash the talent budget, but made sure that right talents were also encouraged.
It made sure that it captured the top three demand information. This was from end partners and the customers and communicated it well to the employees in the organization. Thus the employees were able to adapt to the changing business scenarios.
Since Citi group is a global organization, the people are distributed globally and it helped in finding the right set of people to solve business problems. It also developed a web portal where employees could raise their concerns and made sure that the resolution steps were taken by their managers.
Citi group also empowered its people to improve their work by imparting skills set required for them which benefitted both customers and the company. In that way Citi group was able to reduce the redundancy associated with the process. This was due to the effective communication between the customer and the employees associated with Citi.
It incorporated customized workbenches that integrated important information and also communication mechanisms for different roles. Hence Citi group was able to target appropriate roles for go-getter, for team members unraveling the mystery, and also the Co-creation role. The Go-getter’s process was well laid out. He or She worked in the context of the situation. The solver – Who unravels the mystery surrounding the organization, does not have a well defined process. He or she was driven by immunity. They handled the problems that arose in the organization. A Co-creator was obsessed with ideas. Thus the people oriented approach helped Citi group for effective collaboration among its team members and employees and hence it was able to overcome the crisis to a considerable extend.
Conclusion
The success of Citi group was because, it analyzed beyond a single company for best practices for the best practice studies that are done on a much broader scale. It also sharpened its powers of unearthing and surveillance to find out the most excellent practice and adopted the important one. Generic benchmarking helps to realize the organizations immediate goal. It also looked at some of the non-competitors and adopted the best practices from them. Citi group’s goal was effective communication to its employees in the toughest of scenarios and that was recession. It has been able to overcome this scenario by the support and belief provided by the customers and the employees at large. This was mainly due to the support and effort provided by the organization. In life things work on give and take policy. If you treat and communicate well with the employees and customers well they will give it back with a whole-hearted approach to the organization. A good leader is the one who has got a vision to see where the problem lies and takes proactive steps to resolve the issue. CITI has got great leaders and it reflects in their hierarchy
Citi group has proved that effective communication is vital to the organization’s success, and the good results for this quarter are bound to come (Maul).
References
Maul,J. Generic Bench marking: For Solving Problems…and for Life.