PANDEMIC AND EMPLOYEE COMMUNICATION. Unprecedented Changes in Employee Communication and Organizational Processes

This chapter addresses the topic area of pandemic and employee communication, focusing on the unprecedented changes brought about by the COVID-19 global health crisis. While the COVID-19 pandemic represented an exogenous, high-magnitude crisis for organizations, its severe consequences were an internal problem, and indeed, employees were among the most affected stakeholders. This chapter reviews the international research on employee communication that has emerged from the pandemic experience to delve into the following core themes: the cross-situational factors of crisis history and relationship quality; employee communication approach and the situational antecedents of its quality; leadership communicative role and sensegiving; employee crisis sensemaking and communication behaviors; and tensions in pandemic communication management. Overall, the findings from the COVID-19 research on employee communication show how the pandemic disruption triggered a significant renewal of employee communication, for example, more relational, based on ethical and strategic listening, guided by empathetic and democratic leaders, more sensitive to employees’ psychophysical health and communication behaviors. This chapter draws on these findings to develop theoretical and practical implications for pandemic and employee communication. It concludes with reflections on how (pandemic) employee communication of the future might benefit from adopting a processual, paradoxical perspective on crises and communication that could better prepare organizations for any “unimaginable” critical event.