Background
FedEx has been delivering products and services to various destinations around the world since its founding in 1971. The company has succeeded because it has embraced a practical approach to internal communication, which unites all stakeholders. However, the company faced a challenge as its internal communication was not adequate to cater to all its employees. For this reason, FedEx adopted a user-centric and modern user site that was optimized to be assessed through mobile, desktops, and tablets. This format has been practical, considering that employees receive resources and news promptly, which then improves chances of success.
FedEx's History, Structure, and Culture
FedEx, an American multinational company with headquarters at Memphis, Tennessee, was founded in 1971 with a specialization in global shipping. Frederick W. Smith, the company's founder, and CEO was keen on establishing why there were delays in the shipping industry. The conclusion led to the founding of Federal Express, which began operations on April 17, 1973, with a team of 389 members and 14 small aircraft which delivered 186 packages across 25 states (FedEx, 2020). FedEx began intercontinental operations in 1984, focusing on North America, Asia, and Europe before expanding to the rest of the globe. The company has adopted an asymmetric organizational structure that comprises both horizontal and vertical differentiation. This organizational structure features work that has been broken down into numerous task specialties, thus translating to several vertical reporting levels. FedEx has adopted a culture based on the "Purple Promise" that ensures that clients perceive every experience as outstanding (FedEx, 2021). This promise means that every employee plays their role and is dedicated to ensuring that they place their clients first.
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Situational Analysis
FedEx internal communication has faced significant challenges in the past owing to a lack of clear guidelines on the role of stakeholders in achieving organizational objectives. The decision to use FedEx as the brand name for all the operations in its portfolios was a challenging undertaking that drew skepticism from stakeholders since it was impractical. The skepticism points to a weak communication plan, considering that employees did not understand how they fit in the new vision (Ahmed, 2020). As a result, the company needs to conduct a SWOT analysis so that the resultant plan would be an effective tool for achieving organizational objectives. The main strength that is associated with FedEx is its global expansion success which has allowed it to have a significant market share (Bamousa, 2016). On the other hand, the company should deal with its weaknesses, most notably an overdependence on the US market, thus missing out on opportunities. The company should invest in online shopping and home deliveries, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, to enhance its profitability. The resultant communication plan needs to address strategies that the company would use to tap into the opportunities arising from the pandemic.
Audience Analysis
The internal communication plan that aims to ensure that FedEx remains profitable involves different employees who will be drawn from different departments and management levels. First, it will target executives whose primary concern is achieving financial stability and hitting key performance indicators. These employees only focus on strategic content to determine strategies for achieving organizational objectives. The plan would also target regional managers in different continents concerned with staff satisfaction and productivity, departmental success, and key performance indicators. The other audience would be the local marketing managers since they need to know how this strategic change would impact trading partners. Lastly, the plan would target general employees who handle customers' online and face-to-face interactions to streamline activities for enhanced organizational success.
Goals/Objectives
An internal communication program is a practical approach that FedEx would need to adopt and implement to enhance organizational objectives. One of the program goals is to keep all the stakeholders informed about policy changes, upcoming events, headcount changes, updates on business health, and engagement initiatives. These objectives are of uttermost importance since it sends a clear message that the company is transparent and committed to the needs of its stakeholders. The other purpose would be to calm the stakeholders, especially when the global economy is under threat due to the negative impacts of COVID-19 (North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute, 2020). Stakeholders ranging from employees, customers, and suppliers need to be assured that they can still rely on the company to fulfill its mandate. Finally, the internal communication program aims at ensuring that employees are engaged as it would create a two-way conversation. Employees who feel that the company is concerned about them would render their services willingly as they will have owned the organization.
Message Platform/Key Message
A communication plan is a tool for outlining the business strategies that FedEx would adopt to remain profitable in the face of the economic crisis. The company needs to assure its internal audience that their input will help FedEx deal with these challenges. Essentially, the plan should focus on the target audience independently, considering that they have different roles, capacities, and influence. The executives would need information on how these changes would affect their profitability and how they will support this initiative. Case for change, benefits to them and company. Regional managers, on the other hand, would need information on why these changes are necessary, how they would help them, in addition to timelines within which they would happen. Regional managers and general employees would require information on the effects of these changes, sources of clarification, and some of the questions asked from time to time. The company should design the communication plan to make employees feel that they are a part of this change, thus committing to the cause.
Strategy
The internal communication strategy will be successful if it addresses the approaches that would be adopted to achieve FedEx's goals. One of the approaches would be to review the current design in terms of its objectives, resources, and timelines to establish if there are loopholes to be addressed in the new plan. The other approach would be identifying metrics for verifying if the new plan is working or not (O'Neil et al., 2018). Furthermore, the plan would require segmentation and mapping of the target audience to pave the way for designing custom-made messages that fit their specific professional needs. Finally, there will be a need to match staff with the tasks that they are most competent with to increase chances for success.
Tactics/Channels
The internal communication plan targets various audiences, meaning that FedEx has to use multiple communication channels to ensure that the message is compelling. In the case of the executives, the company should opt for weekly online calls scheduled at the most convenient time that considers differences in time zones. These meetings are practical, considering that executives need to bring their input to these changes, despite being busy handling other business operations. On the other hand, FedEx could use Frequently Asked Questions manuals and fact sheets to communicate with the regional managers. This tactic is practical as it simplifies the most important aspects and concepts of the communication plan, making it easier for them to convey the message to their staff. Lastly, the company could use online meetings with staff leaders and design support materials for general staff to increase employee engagement.
Evaluation
FedEx needs to evaluate the internal communication plan to determine the extent to which it has achieved the intended objectives. The company needs to use various metrics to measure key performance indicators associated with the plan's successful implementation. One way of establishing the level of success would be employee surveys to determine their level of awareness and comfort with the change. The company could also use on-the-spot interviews to establish qualitative employees' reactions to the new internal communication plan. In the same way, FedEx could analyze all the completed communication presentations, reports and, events within 30, 60, and 90 days to track progress. Lastly, the company could use focus groups that include employees since, according to Flynn et al. (2018), they produce a richer data set as the members expound on each other's ideas. The inclusion of all these evaluation strategies would provide ample feedback for analyzing employee responses on the effectiveness of the communication plan.
Conclusion
FedEx needs to adopt practical internal communication plans to create unified teams to achieve organizational goals. FedEx, a renowned global shipping company, is not exempt from this assertion since it has to ensure that it maintains its profitability. The communication plan would outline the roles that all the stakeholders are to undertake to facilitate online shopping and home deliveries. This plan would be detailed enough to address critical messages, channels, and strategies that would be used to evaluate if the plan has been successful or not. The program would also consider the differences between different employees across the globe to ensure that the statement therein has a similar effect.
References
Ahmed, S. E. (2020). Critical reflections on the strategic management of FedEx Corporation . [Master's Thesis, The Bartlett – School of Construction and Project Management UCL].
Bamousa, W. (2016). FedEx SWOT analysis. International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, 7 (3), Issue 3, 728-735.
FedEx. (2020). Overview: FedEx history. https://www.fedex.com/en-us/about/history.html
FedEx. (2021). About FedEx: Our people . http://www.fedex.com/sc/about/our-people/index.html
Flynn, R., Albrecht, L., & Scott, S. D. (2018). Two approaches to focus group data collection for qualitative health research: maximizing resources and data quality. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 17 (1), 32-51. https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406917750781
North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute. (2020). Staying true to principles of community and stakeholder engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic. https://tracs.unc.edu/index.php/file-downloadscares?download=4154:stakeholder-engagement-during-covid-19
O'Neil, J., Ewing, M., Smith, S., & Williams, S. (2018). A Delphi study to identify standards for internal communication. Public Relations Journal, 11 (3), 16-31.
