The Communicator

Even on the best of days, communications can be a high-stress job. In fact, in a recent study by CareerCast, Public Relations was ranked as the second most stressful job for 2011 (commercial pilots ranked first; senior executives third). 

And while much of that stress can be attributed to the short deadlines, high risks and demanding stakeholders that we all toil under, leadership and culture also play a commanding role. 

Indeed, many communications leaders often fail to fully understand the impact of their actions on the engagement, culture and stress of their teams. And since higher stress usually means more mistakes, lower productivity and burn-outs, we thought we would offer four key areas where communications leaders can significantly reduce their team’s anxiety levels: 

• Keep your cool – Remember that your stress level will have a direct impact on the stress of your employees. No matter what the topic – or how ‘safe’ you feel within the confines of your department – leaders should always try to refrain from blowing off steam inside the office. Bottom line is that stress breeds stress, or (as one of my old colleagues used to put it) when the Big Top spins, all the Little Tops spin too. 
• Maintain a reasonable schedule – This is a challenge across most organizations. Leaders like to get into the office before their employees in order to get a jump on the day, but employees like to get into the office before their bosses to prove their commitment (in a dance that is otherwise known as ‘Optics’). But eventually, everyone is coming in at the crack of dawn and staying in the office until 8pm which obviously kills any semblance of work-life balance. Leaders must break the cycle (though that will often mean starting and finishing the day from the home office) in an effort to demonstrate that it’s OK to have a life outside of the office.     
• Allow failure – Communicators take on a certain amount of risk every day (media calls, for example, can be very risky endeavours, even in the best situations). But to do this successfully, employees must feel that there is some allowance for mistakes within the team culture. And while I’m certainly not endorsing wild risks or stupid failures, many communications leaders may want to take a softer line on errors, thus promoting continuous improvement and experience over constant perfection. 
• Be clear and consistent – One of the bigger stresses for communicators generally manifests when ownership, objectives or goals are unclear or – worse – contradictory. And given that most communicators tend to serve multiple customers and stakeholders simultaneously, communications leaders will need to work closely with their teams to ensure that they are receiving clear and consistent direction. For more on defining roles, click here.

So while the title of Second Most Stressful Job of 2011 is probably a bit of a stretch, many communications leaders would still be well advised to keep a keen eye on how their own actions are influencing the overall stress level of their team. 

And by the way – those looking for less stressful jobs may want to consider a career as a Philosopher or Mathematician; two of the least stressful jobs for 2011 according to the analysts at CareerCast.

Want to reduce your stress levels? Get Communications Unlimited on your team. Contact Peter at Peter@CommunicationsUnlimited.ca.

Employee engagement has never been so important. Across the board, workers continue to feel a deep sense of insecurity and anxiety. Understandably so: in many industry sectors and geographies, unemployment continues to run high; consumer optimism is virtually non-existent; and most corporate employees just count themselves lucky to still have their jobs. 

Employers are in a similarly tough spot. Unsure about the shape of the short-term economy, most organizations are now focused on increasing productivity at the lowest possible cost. Around the world, economic pundits are continuing to predict a largely ‘jobless’ recovery.  

The result is that organizations are expecting to realize much of their short-term productivity gains from their current employee base.  So if you kept your job over the past two years, expect to be working harder than ever before. 

The obvious challenge for executives now lies in re-engaging a distrustful and passive employee base.  

Professional communicators can – and should – take a lead role in responding to that challenge. 

And while short-term gains in engagement will be hard to measure in relation to bottom-line economic output, there are a few high-value areas where communicators can start to see some quick returns. 

• Go see your people – consider taking your executives on a ‘road-show’ to visit your employees at their posts. Far from a staged town-hall event or video broadcast, your executives need to be seen on the factory floor or in the lunch room. Take advantage of the face time to remind employees how important their individual contribution is to achieving the company’s goals.
• Re-vitalise employee programs – most organizations already do a decent job at investing in employee programs and training, but often fall far short when it comes to driving actual participation. Whether they use them or not, employers should highlight these programs to their employees as evidence of the company’s investment and long-term commitment to their staff.
• Band together for a cause – after the economic, environmental and social upheaval of the past few years, there are unlimited good causes to support. Build employee morale and a sense of unity by pulling together for an issue that everyone can feel good about.  

Many internal communications professionals have already recognized this change and started 2011 with a renewed focus on rebuilding employee engagement. Those that haven’t will need to quickly bury the ‘hunker down’ mindset of the recession, and take a much more proactive role in driving productivity and re-establishing morale. 

Looking for a writer to can engage your audience(s)? Contact Peter at Peter@CommunicationsUnlimited.ca

Is your communications department environmentally friendly? It should be. 

Around the world, businesses, consumers and governments are keenly focused on reducing their environmental footprint. And communicators must be at the forefront of this movement: we must work with our companies to drive sustainable solutions; we must strive to effectively communicate our environmental credentials to our customers and regulators; and we must engage and motivate our employees to do their part. 

But most of all, we must set a good example. And while communicators have never been big emitters of greenhouse gasses or huge proponents of seal-clubbing, there are still a number of ways that they can start to reduce their environmental footprint and – at the same time – set the bar for their organizations. For instance: 

• Reduce paper – while pundits have been prophesying a ‘paperless office’ for more than a decade, this utopia still seems far away. Communicators (who are often the most rampant users of paper – particularly once all the corporate collateral is taken into account) will find that by creating a ‘print-to-order’ system for brochures, factsheets and annual reports, they can not only cut down paper use, but also reduce cost and effort. For a deeper discussion on the benefits of a print-to-order system, check out this article. 
• Promote web content – while ‘print-to-order’ will help manage the supply side, communicators must also work to reduce the demand for paper products. This means migrating their (internal and external) audiences away from paper and towards the web versions. In most cases, this may require some subtle ‘incentivising’. So, for example, instead of taking 10,000 brochures to a conference, communicators should be exploring opportunities to make the web copy more relevant to the conference attendees (maybe add a coupon, a free guide or relevant links to valuable content).
• Leverage technology – given the rapid adoption of smartphones and the proliferation of social networks, communicators should be looking for ways to migrate all of their existing paper-based communications tools to new and more dynamic platforms. At the same time, the growing popularity of video applications like Apple’s Facetime are driving adoption of video conferencing and should dramatically reduce business travel and all of the greenhouse gasses that goes with it.    
• Work with responsible suppliers – an organization’s environmental footprint doesn’t stop and start at your front door: your suppliers and partners also play a part. So when selecting a supplier or a service, environmental impact should be considered as one of the key indicators along with cost and value. Some suppliers may be quite innovative (for example, at Communications Unlimited, we plant a tree every year for each client we work with in an effort to ‘pay back’ what little paper we use). 

But most importantly, professional communicators must use their considerable skills and influence within their organizations to promote and catalyze sustainability programs. There are many ways to do this, from the subtle (i.e. working with executives to build a sustainability fact sheet ‘just in case the media call’) to the blatant (i.e. forming and chairing an employee sustainability committee to explore grassroots strategies). 

Few today could argue that the environment is not a key concern for businesses and consumers. Now we just need to make sure that communications is part of the solution instead of reinforcing the problem. 

Reducing our environmental footprints was the last of our Top 11 Communications Issues for 2011. We hope you have enjoyed and/or found value in our outlook on issues facing communications professionals this year.  

To work with a communications supplier that cares about the environment, contact Peter at Peter@CommunicationsUnlimited.Ca.

A few years ago – when I was still an in-house communications pro – I took a ten day vacation to the Middle East. After one particularly exhausting but thrilling day in the desert, I returned to my hotel to send a few pictures (me riding a camel) back to the folks at the office. 

“Cool,” replied my boss, “Can you call me ASAP?” 

Had the business gone bankrupt? Had my entire executive team been killed in some horrible industrial accident? Maybe I was being ‘let go’ while on vacation as part of a corporate downsizing exercise…. I – in a classic Pavlovian response – scurried to find a phone and call the office. 

The emergency (of course) wasn’t an emergency at all. But it led me to two important conclusions. The first was that – as a people leader myself – I needed not only to respect my team’s work-life balance, but to protect it. 

The second, and maybe more important, insight was that I needed to make some fundamental changes to my own work-life balance.   

I, like many of my professional communications peers, am an overachiever. I have spent most of my evenings, weekends and vacations in the throes of either furious editing or feverish writing. Where should I draw the line? When does being everyone’s ‘Go-To-Guy’ become a disadvantage? 

For many of us, the answer is not as simple as saying ‘no’. Without the right resources to delegate to or additional team members to pick up the slack, we feel obligated to take work home or to put off vacations in order to get the job done. 

And while that is certainly admirable, the truth is that we all need some time away from the office to decompress and re-integrate into normal society. 

So (keeping in mind that I’m no self-help guru) here are a few tips that I’ve picked up over the years to help me find some balance: 

Block off time: It’s easy to let your day get taken away with meetings and events, but when do you find the time to get some actual work done? I used to block off 8am-9am and 4pm-6pm in my calendar to preserve time in the day for media review, writing, supplier management and those last minute ‘end-of-day’ deadlines. This clearly blocked-off time had the additional advantage of providing space for an urgent but unexpected meeting too. 

Stop eating at your desk:  Whether you are at the office cafeteria with colleagues or outside under a tree, it is important to take a few minutes away from your desk. More than just for digestive reasons, time away from the desk helps you take a step back from the pressures and deadlines, allows you to see the big picture and – hopefully – lets you properly prioritize the rest of your day so that you can leave the office on time. 

Take time ‘in-lieu’: While we’ve all put in the occasional weekend or evening, work with your manager to arrange some work-time off ‘in-lieu’ of your personal time. Not only will you recover some valuable mid-week time, but you are also demonstrating to your team that – while you are willing to sacrifice to achieve objectives – you also value your work-life balance. 

Go abroad: My wife and I tend to gravitate towards destinations with no internet access and sketchy telephone reception. Believe it or not, there are still parts of the world (many closer to home than the Dead Sea) where you can get through a whole day without even being able to get a call from work… 

Need some help with your writing so you can find more time for yourself? Contact Peter at Peter@CommunicationsUnlimited.ca.

Blogging is a wonderful way to build relationships, showcase ideas and motivate audiences. But do blogs work in every industry and for everyone? Certainly not. 

Blogs facilitate the sharing of ideas with like-minded audiences. They can be used to motivate, inspire, educate or placate, but – at the end of the day – their value rests in their ability to communicate ideas and opinions. 

In my very first post on this blog (To Blog or Not to Blog), I suggested that certain industries and functions – in particular those that generate ideas or motivate people – had more to gain from blogs than most other sectors. Here are some examples: 

Not-for-profits: For organizations that depend on public good will, blogs provide an excellent way to motivate donors, inform volunteers and advocate for a cause. Blogs are also great vehicles for improving an organization’s profile with stakeholders, media and the general public. 

Professional Services: No industry produces more thought leadership than the professional services. For consultants and ‘rain makers’, blogs deliver a safe and certain distribution channel that can be branded and reused as business development or marketing collateral. 

Industry Associations and Unions: With a geographically dispersed membership and only the occasional formal interaction with the members themselves, blogs offer trade associations and unions a way to highlight certain issues and motivate the membership around advocacy. 

Politicians: In most democracies, the public likes to know what their elected officials are thinking, planning and doing on a daily basis. Blogs provide a transparent and approachable way for politicians to further their agendas, rally constituents, and win-over their detractors. 

CEOs: Regardless of the type of organization, blogs have a large role to play in Executive and Internal communications. It is critical – especially in times of change – that executive teams be visible, approachable and honest. Blogs can be an excellent way to provide context to corporate objectives, motivate employees around a cause or inspire innovation and collaboration. 

Almost a year ago, I ended my post with the following advice for professional communicators: 

Treat blogs like you would any other communication vehicle. Evaluate their reach, impact, cost and effort against your objectives. And if it turns out that a blog makes sense, the first step should always be to ensure that you have a long-term commitment from your organization, and the right resources to ensure sustainable success. 

And – regardless of your industry – that certainly hasn’t changed.  

Want to talk about whether a blog strategy is right for your organization? Contact Peter at peter@communicationsunlimited.ca.

As professional communicators, we are often expected to operate behind the scenes. We put out fires before anyone sees the smoke. We script speeches and voicemails that other people deliver. We speak on behalf of companies and executives, never as individuals. 

So it is no surprise that professional communicators are notoriously bad at self-promotion. In fact, one of the greatest challenges facing in-house communicators is how to raise and maintain the profile of the communications function within their own organizations. 

It’s not about ego. There are some very real and direct benefits to seeking out – and promoting -accolades. Besides boosting the department’s perceived value within the organization, an enhanced profile generally leads to better budgets, greater access to resources and a more permanent seat at the boardroom table. 

Sadly, spontaneous accolades are not all that common and even the best communicators sometimes need to use a few tricks to achieve the right recognition.  Here are some examples: 

Industry and Professional Awards: Third party endorsements are always the best way to garner recognition. Whether it’s winning a Gold Quill Award from the IABC for your corporate brochures, or getting the top ranking from a trade publication for your website, these are the types of achievements that make executives take notice.  

Quarterly/Monthly Status Reports: Sometimes the issue is simply that many business leaders don’t understand what communicators do each day. In many cases, a regular status report that includes achievements, metrics and customer quotes can do a lot to display your activities and value. To really captivate your executives, align your report against your company’s business objectives and really hit the ‘value’ message home. 

Recognition Events:  Even within your own department, it’s important to recognize and reward your team’s achievements with the occasional lunch or event. But when organizing a recognition event, always make a point of inviting your executives and leadership so that they can share in your team’s successes and add their voices to the songs of praise. 

Dedicated Resources: While larger communications teams may want to designate a point-person with responsibility for seeking out, collecting and promoting the team’s successes and achievements, smaller teams and lone-wolves will need to carve out some dedicated time for this task. 

For many communications professionals, all this may initially feel slightly awkward and uncomfortable. To overcome any discomfort, think of the whole strategy as another important year-round project. Apply the same principles and discipline as you would anything else, and before long you will see your department’s value rise. 

To explore these and other ways to enhance your team’s value, contact Peter at peter@communicationsunlimited.ca.

   Rebranding is an expensive and complex business. 

Even with the guidance of a specialized branding agency, success can never be guaranteed. That’s because rebranding requires a fundamental change within an organization that transcends logos and slogans. And while some of that change can be forced through advertising and desk drops, ultimately the success of the initiative will depend on how effectively the rebranding is communicated to your various audiences.  

So – from a communicator who has helped a number of organizations get real value from their rebranding – here are a few tips for those communications professionals who might be considering (or be in the throes of) a rebranding:  

Use your people: Employee reaction to rebranding can take many forms. Some become evangelists for the new brand, while others lament the loss of the old brand. The goal should be to engage your employees in the process wherever possible and convert nay-sayers into Brand Ambassadors. Consistent, transparent and engaging internal communications needs to start long before brand launch to achieve a high level of employee engagement.   

Set the rules: One of the more critical aspects of rebranding is to ensure that the new brand identity and standards are applied consistently and appropriately by your staff and suppliers. Beyond the Visual Identity Standards commonly provided by most branding agencies, a robust set of brand guidelines, resources and approval processes are required to properly manage the brand as an asset.  

Be the brand: Branding is about more than flashy logos and new websites. Executed properly, it encompasses a new tone of voice, brand promise and values – characteristics that simply can’t be communicated through graphics alone. While reflowing existing content into the new ‘look and feel’ might seem easy, it’s a dangerous cop-out. Unless you want all your efforts to be nothing more than an expensive facelift, you need to rewrite your brochures, websites, profiles and factsheets to really embody the new brand. 

Get some press: Rebranding offers lots of great opportunities to both strengthen existing media relationships and start up new ones. Make sure to take the opportunity to communicate the new brand to your industry and trade publication contacts, but don’t underestimate the benefits of targeting advertising, branding and marketing publications as well. Good press is good press, and the positive kudos from the profession may reinforce your executives’ will power. It’s also a great time to contact mainstream media to ‘reintroduce’ yourselves and your company. 

Harness social networks: This is a must for any rebranding initiative. More than just updating your company’s LinkedIn and Facebook profiles, social networking can be an inexpensive and highly effective way to build hype about your new brand and solicit valuable feedback from your customers and the general public. As with all great social networking strategies, be sure to use your employee and supplier networks to spread the good news.   

Possibly the biggest challenge for most professional communicators may come from trying to juggle the responsibilities of supporting a new brand launch while still managing the day-to-day communications needs of the business. That said, if your resources are stretched too thin, there are always a few freelance communicators with the right experience to make your rebranding a success.

With a few notable exceptions, most professional communicators would agree that many companies’ reputations have been under fire recently. The truth is that the corporate reputation function in most organizations has been in decay for years and that growing public cynicism and high profile corporate melt-downs are only a symptom of a fundamentally undervalued function.      

Ironically, the corporate reputation function suffers from its own image issues. In many organizations, professional communicators have historically struggled to draw quantifiable correlations between corporate reputation initiatives and bottom line revenue. This has given executives and CFOs an excuse to siphon resources away from these projects to shore up other branding and advertising initiatives that provide the more obvious revenue streams. 

The past two years have therefore delivered a series of potentially fatal body blows to an already weak social contract. As the public either experiences or witnesses companies laying off staff, denying pension benefits to retirees, grabbing tax-funded bailouts or taking unconscionable salaries, the influence wielded by these companies, by virtue of their strong reputations, has evaporated.   

On the bright side – their loss could be your company’s gain. Rather than hollowing-out the function, we suggest that professional communicators explore a few of the following ways to get their corporate reputation off life support: 

• Redefine your objectives and audiences: Everything you once knew about your audiences has probably changed in the past few years. With different motivations and emotional triggers, you may need to fundamentally rethink your overall corporate reputation objectives, strategies and tactics. But be careful not to change anything that might alienate your already-loyal customers.    
• Be transparent and approachable:  These two often go hand in hand. The public wants to feel that you respect your mutual relationship, welcome their feedback and are worthy of their trust. Remember though: transparency is about more than posting reams of documents online. You also need to help your audience find, understand and contextualize the information you are providing.
• Leverage social networks: By far the biggest game-changer for communications this decade, recent surveys show that peer-to-peer recommendations hold significantly more influence with audiences than corporate messaging or advertising. Besides a fantastic return-on-investment, social networks have the rare quality of providing measurable outcomes and benefits.
• Maximize your current assets: Many organizations maintain robust Corporate Social Responsibility and community investment programs that carry a fair amount of existing good will. Remember that the most valuable wins will always be won through getting more mileage from current assets rather than creating new ones.
• Start with your employees: It may be a cliché, but when it comes to corporate reputation, your employees really are your greatest assets. Their personal engagement, loyalty and respect for the company can be infectious, and should be harnessed and mobilized into the community.  

Ultimately though, the eventual success of any corporate reputation program relies on achieving executive buy-in, demonstrating persistent dedication, and adopting a longer-term perspective. 

Taking corporate reputation off life support is one of our Top 10 Communications Issues for 2010. Next week we’ll look at #5 – Process becomes king

This year, many organizations will take a cold, hard look at their social media strategies. Sobering up from the initial marketing euphoria that seems to accompany the popular adoption of all new mediums, marketing and communications departments will focus on realigning their social media objectives and budgets to achieve results, and real value.

This will require a fundamental shift in the overall expectations of social media from ‘selling’ to ‘engaging’. In many cases, this move can be supported by a repositioning of responsibilities, taking social media budgets and management out of disparate Sales & Marketing portfolios and placing them within the oversight of Organizational Communications.

This move will facilitate two outcomes – it will de-couple social media objectives from the achievement of bottom line sales figures, and it will shift the overall expectations of social media throughout the organization.

So as you review your social media strategy this year, try to help your organization focus on five key areas where social media will create actual value:

Corporate Reputation – This year, most organizations will go beyond simply managing their corporate profile on LinkedIn and Facebook. The most tepid will harness social networks as an extension of their existing communications outreach, but market leaders will put special focus on building transparent relationships with their key influencers and most vocal detractors.

Employee Engagement – While some organizations continue to bar employees from using social media networks at the office, many professional communicators have already recognized the opportunity in creating and monitoring employee networks to enhance and manage employee engagement (for more on this topic, see Time for E2E).

Corporate Social Responsibility – An area that is already seeing good returns with social media, CSR leaders will continue to leverage the power of social networks to build awareness and encourage participation in their community, environmental and social programs. Internal charitable events (food and blood drives, United Way challenges, etc.) will find their goals more achievable through the tactical use of social media.

Issues Management – We have all seen the speed by which issues can circulate around social media networks. More than ever, professional communicators will need to put more resources towards monitoring the ‘chatter’ on popular networking sites, all the while seeking opportunities to engage supporters, manage potential issues and debunk rumours before they gain momentum. 

Client Communications and Customer Service – Many organizations are finding great success in creating social networks to provide ‘after-sales’ support. Not only are they able to communicate important product updates quickly and efficiently to customers, they enjoy increased customer loyalty and higher levels of customer service. In some cases, Customer Service departments have been able to reduce their workload by encouraging customers to provide support to each other.

The good news is that social media is ready to return value if used  properly. The trick will be in setting realistic and achievable objectives, while wrestling supervision away from those who are just looking to make a quick buck.

Social media (finally) returns value is one of our Top Ten Communications Issues for 2010. Next week we will look at Issue #8: The advent of GPS 2.0.

Employee engagement has never been so critical. Across the board, workers are feeling a deep sense of insecurity and anxiety. Those lucky enough to have kept their jobs have witnessed friends, neighbours and colleagues lose theirs, seemingly without rhyme or reason.

Employers are in a similarly tough spot. Unsure about the shape of the short-term economy, most organizations are now focused on increasing productivity at the lowest possible cost. Around the world, economic pundits are predicting a ‘jobless’ recovery.  

The result is that organizations are expecting to realize much of their short-term productivity gains from their current employee base.  So if you kept your job last year, expect to be working harder than ever before.

The obvious challenge for executives now lies in re-engaging a shell-shocked employee base.  

Professional communicators can – and should – take a lead role in responding to that challenge.

While short-term gains in engagement will be hard to measure in relation to bottom-line economic output, there are a few high-value areas where communicators can start to see some quick returns.

• Go see your people – consider taking your executives on a ‘road-show’ to visit your employees at their posts. Far from a staged town-hall event or video broadcast, your executives need to be seen on the factory floor or in the lunch room. Take advantage of the face time to remind employees how important their individual contribution is to achieving the company’s goals.
• Re-launch employee programs – most organizations already do a decent job at investing in employee programs and training, but often fall far short when it comes to driving actual participation. Whether they use them or not, employers should highlight these programs to their employees as evidence of the company’s investment and long-term commitment to their staff.
• Band together for a cause – after the economic, environmental and social upheaval of the past few years, there are unlimited good causes to support. Build employee morale and a sense of unity by pulling together for an issue that everyone can feel good about.

Many internal communications professionals have already recognized this change and started 2010 with a renewed focus on rebuilding employee engagement. Those that haven’t will need to quickly bury the ‘hunker down’ mindset of the recession and take a much more proactive role in driving productivity.

Re-engaging employees to drive productivity is one of our Top Ten Communications Issues for 2010. Next week we will look at Issue #9: Social media (finally) returns value.

Have you seen our new site? www.communicationsunlimited.ca.