A poll of 524 white-collar workers commissioned by fin­ancial comms agency FD has found worryingly high levels of employee dissatisfaction facing businesses bosses as they adjust to the economic downturn.

YouGov found that a minority of employees (44 per cent) felt their CEO showed strong, decisive leadership and only 28 per cent trusted messages from their CEO more than ‘a little’.

Only 15 per cent of respondents felt that their employer had communicated news about job security ‘very well’, with 37 per cent saying that the communi­cation had been poor or non-existent.

Read more at PRWeek… (via Geneva Communicators Network)

Although many companies aspire to promote easy interaction and coordination across departments, office locations, and pay scales, the “boundaryless” organization—like the paperless office—hasn’t materialized.

The corporate silo is alive and well.

This observation is supported in a recent working paper, “Communication (and Coordination?) in a Modern, Complex Organization,” written by Harvard Business School postdoctoral fellow Adam M. Kleinbaum, and professors Toby E. Stuart and Michael L. Tushman.

In an unnamed company with over 100,000 employees, the team analyzed over 100 million e-mails and 60 million electronic calendar entries over a three-month period. The results provide an unmatched look inside the “black box” that hides what Stuart calls the “soft wiring” of previously invisible social networks.

In this Q&A, Stuart says the team was taken aback by the lack of communication across the organization. In short, most people tended to communicate with others in their own group or with peers. Among the exceptions: women.

Read more at HBS Working Knowledge…