Participatory Communication for Improving Employee Engagement in Knowledge Based Industries

Human Resource Management in the age of internet and superfast mobile communication is battling new questions on its role, scope and relevance to corporate management. Many doubt whether a modern knowledge industry with every bit of information on its fingertips even requires an HR Department. This is because many of the traditional roles of HRM like recruitment, designing job profile, interviewing of candidates etc. are now easily outsourced or accomplished by computers and smartphones. So what is it that makes an internal HR department valuable for a company? It is the alignment with the company’s mission, vision, and the management of its relationship with employees who are its greatest assets.

It is time that HRM in modern workplaces changes from a stoic observer to an active participant in the pursuit of corporate objectives by using new concepts and ideas from other disciplines. In this paper, the author has tried to adapt the concept of ‘participatory communication’ to the functioning between top management and knowledge employees. Participatory Communication (PC) is one of the newest branches of communication study that focuses on sharing of meanings and ideas to improve effectiveness of an organization intending to benefit a community. The paper gives a theoretical model on how PC can be incorporated in HRM policy of a knowledge sector company. It also discusses a few of the likely challenges and their solutions in planning, implementation and evaluation stages. The paper concludes with the observation that this model may be adapted by companies to bring out optimum performance from their employees and to set industry benchmarks in employee retention and satisfaction.