Communicating by employee reports: a survey of employee attitudes

Over the past few years there has been a growing interest in the general disclosure of a companys financial information to all of its employees. 'In rnany cases this has Inanifested itself in the form of a firm issuing \Vhat is known as an employee repon to ·its staff. Typicall). an employee report summarises the factual information contained in the statutO'I)' annual report but does so in a simplified fonn \\1hich is easier for non-accountants to understand. In addition. the employee r~eport often contains non-financial information \Vhi·ch does not appear in the annual accounts nor in any other company publication. While un·ion negotiators may have access to dctail·ed accounting infonnation. the general rank and file etnr.Joyecs probably get most of their financial kno\vledge about 'the ent~erprise they 'NOrk for via an em ployee report. A recent study by Firth and Smith (1984) found that nearly one-half of publicly listed Nevl Zealand companies currently produce some form of e1nployee r·eport. Additionally. many of the New Zealand subsidiaries of 'larger overseas firms also issue such reports. ln spite of the large number of finns involved. there has not. until no\v. been any fonnal a sessment of employee attitudes regarding such reports. The purpose oft he paper is to address this need by reporting the results of a questionnaire-based survey of employee opinion .