Readership Institute: The State of People Management Practices at Newspapers

Over the past several years, a great deal of research has proven several people management areas to be linked with superior business performance.

While the evidence from cross-industry studies is compelling and overwhelming that people management practices impact business outcomes, the newspaper industry has never before examined its own practices. By people management practices we mean how companies and managers select, train, motivate, compensate and communicate with employees.

The survey measured how newspapers rate on selection, development, performance management, and compensation — four areas found to be linked with customer satisfaction and retention and to business outcomes, including return to shareholders, profitability, growth, and productivity. Importantly, these four drivers also shape an organization's internal culture, and the Readership Institute believed — and ultimately found — a link between culture and readership. (For more on culture, go to our section on Newspaper Culture.)

The study, conducted for the Readership Institute by the management consultanting firm, RNW, focused on understanding the extent to which newspapers engage in specific best practices gathered from a cross-section of other industries that we believe to be most strongly associated with high levels of readership and other key performance outcomes. The study surveyed employees in the departments most directly related to readership — news, advertising, circulation and marketing.

The results were remarkable and surprising. The overall scores were both extremely low and showed little variation among newspapers. The level of homogeneity across newspapers was stunning.

When asked a series of questions about specific practices at their newspapers, on average, 80 percent of respondents either disagreed or strongly disagreed that best practices were in use. It is highly unlikely that there are many other industries in the U.S. today where, as a whole, they have a similarly low self-report in this area.

(Respondents were asked to rate 91 statements about their newspaper as Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly Disagree, or Cannot Assess. An example of a statement on the survey: "The selection process used to fill job vacancies is clear and consistent.")

The low industry-wide results may reflect the newspaper industry's historical, economic and competitive structure. Similar to experiences of the airline, banking, insurance and utility industries during their "regulated era" prior to the late 1980s, newspapers' results may reflect the behavior of an industry that essentially has functioned as an oligopoly. Combining this with the consistency of responses suggests that the entire industry is inwardly focused and "checking with itself" rather than being outwardly focused and checking to see what the best practices are in other industries in the area of people management.

Practices related to direction, communication with managers, and individual responsibility tend to be relatively strong at newspapers. However, practices associated with cross-unit organizational collaboration tend to be weak. In other words, newspapers are more effective at and inclined to manage vertically (that is, up and down within departments) than horizontally (that is, across departments).

While newspapers rated low on each of the four people management areas, of the four they rated highest on "performance management." This makes sense for an older industry in which job descriptions are clear and consistent, and performance standards have been time-tested. Managers and employees know what the job is and how it should be done. There is little ambiguity.

Newspapers rated lowest on compensation, although compensation normally ranks last in this type of survey in all industries. Ignoring compensation, newspapers' lowest rating was for development, a people management area in which the industry is notoriously weak.

The performance drivers — selection, compensation, development, and performance management — are "what to focus on" in the area of people management practices. For each of the drivers there is a short list of "high-impact practices" that are employed across a wide number of industries. These practices could be thought of as "what you should strive to achieve." At the next level down are the specific management actions that underlie each of the high impact practices. These can be thought of as "what you can do."

A complete list of these drivers, practices, and actions can be found on our High Impact Management Practices page.