ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION RESPONSES TO COVID-19 PANDEMIC: EFFECTIVENESS OF STRATEGIES AND PRACTICES USED BY ORGANIZATIONS IN TURKANA COUNTY

Abstract

n a crisis situation, employees face challenges and pressures because they have to deal with unexpected disruption in their routine working environments with high level of uncertainty. Organizations in Turkana County are no exception and therefore the management had to come up with strategies to ensure continuity. Organizational communication strategies and practices play important roles in giving employees information, direction and support. This research aimed to explore how the responses of organizational communication strategies and practices are and how effective Organizations in Turkana County employed them to such a specific crisis: Covid-19 Pandemic, using situational crisis communication theoretical framework. This research applied qualitative approach. This research applied qualitative approach. This research involved four organizations, two business organizations and two educational organizations which were selected using maximum variation sampling technique. Four people representing each of the organizations were interviewed using inductive method. Data was analyzed using thematic analysis.The findings showed that organizational communication strategies and practices being used by all participants’ departments are mostly related to the preparation stage and the response stage of the crisis management. Early crisis management planning, forming crisis management teams and preparing supporting communication system, including providing health care facilities and communication protocols for infected employees are salient practices during the preparation stage. In the response stage, leader and horizontal communication intensively used a variety of social media and web conference applications. Interestingly, informal communication was minimized, while formal communication was conducted intensively and transparently. Furthermore, sensitivity to employees’ needs and conditions as well as emphatic communication expressing positive emotion and support was perceived as positive to help employees understand the information well and to feel understood and appreciated.