Getting back to ‘where we were’ will not make us a happier nation

THE name of the company is irrelevant. It’s a big one with systems.

One of the systems requires it, every three years, to do a communications audit of its workforce, to find out if they feel “nobody ever tells us anything” or, contrariwise, if they believe the management informs them clearly when they need informing about developments impending within the company.

During the presentation of the latest audit, up they went, the PowerPoint slides, one after another, showing that, in the main, the company’s communications was somewhat better, on all fronts, than it had been in 2008. Then came the bar chart measuring complaints made by members of the sales force. The contrast was startling. The bar showing the level of complaints went almost to the top of the chart, three years ago, and had more than halved since then.