Communication is essential in every aspect of life in today's world - especially maintaining contact between the areas of corporate, marketing, employee and investor relations within an organisation.
Employee communication has not been the top of a corporate agenda, even within the human resource context, particularly in Hong Kong.
However, the trend has changed in recent years.
'Prior to 1997, most corporations adopted a parental approach, a father-child arrangement. That means the boss would take good care of their employees and did not want them to speak up,' says Paula DeLisle, vice-president, Asia-Pacific, business development at Watson Wyatt, a global consulting firm which focuses on human capital and financial management.
In Hong Kong, most corporations did not have any formal employee communication system set up until regulations on retirement plans (Occupational Retirement Schemes Ordinance and the latter Mandatory Provident Fund) were implemented.
At that time, corporations were given an impetus to communicate with their employees about various issues, including retirement.