Employees’ Perception on Internal Communication during Unrest in Public Universities in Western Kenya

Abstract

Public universities in Kenya have experienced recurrent employees’ unrest which could be as a result of ineffective internal communication between the university and its employees. During crisis, effective internal communication is vital as it is the only way the organization and employees can dialogue and stop the crisis. Despite vast research on organizational internal communication, literature on employees’ perception on internal communication during unrest in Kenyan public universities during unrest is deficient. Data was collected by means of questionnaires and FGDs among 374 employees and 114 union officials respectively. The findings revealed that the employees felt that during unrest there are no sufficient internal communication channels, and opportunities within the organization to give suggestions. Moreover, the study ascertained that the organizations do not support two-way communication between employees and management during unrest. The other finding was that during unrest the information employees got from their organization was unreliable and untimely. Therefore, the employees are largely dissatisfied with the internal communication between them and the organizations they work for during unrest.