Lockdowns have created a monumental shift in working practices and made home-working the norm for many. The long-term impact of the pandemic on the global workforce is beginning to emerge.
From the “great resignation” to organisations implementing flexible working hours, it is clear that human capital and ensuring the workforce’s wellbeing are priorities for organisations worldwide.
While some organisations are looking at reducing hours in the office and prioritising emotional wellbeing, it has amplified a fundamental issue: how do you continue to train, develop and support your employees in a post-pandemic world?
The personal and organisational benefits of professional development cannot be understated: not only does it equip employees with skills that will benefit the organisation, but from a unique perspective, it enables them to feel valued and invested in by their employer.
For instance, at KC Academy, we have worked with numerous organisations across Asia, Africa and the Middle East. They continuously commit to upskilling by implementing training programmes that organisations can deliver virtually to all employees.
Yet despite this, a global survey by Deloitte found that less than half of respondents (47 per cent) think that their company is making a significant investment in their professional development, and only 34 per cent are happy with their organisation’s investment in improving their skills and performance.
We find that choosing not to invest in an employees’ future can damage employers’ ability to attract and retain talent. Investing in developing new skills and capabilities among employees can drive up loyalty for employers, lead to happier workers, and more satisfied customers in return.
So how exactly can professional development improve your organisation?
We’ve identified three critical areas that non-technical training can improve and that is reliant on being developed by external factors such as training:
Communication Skills: The need to structure, articulate and deliver a clear and compelling narrative remains as critical as ever, regardless of your industry.
New Business Pitching: from senior management to executives, new business meetings require pitch preparation, coordination and delivery.
Strategic Thinking and Leadership: Managing’ constructive chaos’ across disciplines, cultures, and even countries is not a new challenge, but it is undoubtedly more significant with today’s constraints. By investing in training your talent, you ensure your talent pipeline is robust and ready to take on tomorrow’s challenges.
Training presents a prime opportunity to expand the knowledge base of all employees; however, many organisations find the development opportunities expensive and struggle to rationalise the long-term value of an upskilled workforce. Despite the potential drawbacks, training and development provide both the company and the individual employees with benefits that make the cost and time a worthwhile investment. Your organisation’s biggest asset is its talent, and investing in training and professional development is an investment in your organisation.
Our clients continuously report that employee retention increases following their employees’ participation in a KC Academy course, and that sentiment is echoing across the training and professional development industry. We have found that organisations that fund professional development training programmes see a significant increase in their employees” tenure and commitment, productivity, and contribution to the organisation.
By investing in professional development – whether that is through 5 or 10-day training courses or virtual learning programs, you are proactively combatting feelings of dissatisfaction in your workforce. At the same time, you are broadening your talent pipeline, fostering inclusive cultures, and creating ongoing upskilling programs for the future of your industry.
According to Google Trends, the search volume of the term “personal brand” has increased approximately 4x over the last 15 years.
“Personal branding” is a term that you now encounter on many channels. Especially self-employed people, founders or people working in PR, marketing and journalism know the importance of a personal brand.
But does an Investment Banker, Lawyer or Sustainability Consultant need one too?
The answer is a resounding yes.
Just as a brand’s reputation influences your decision to interact or not around it, your brand is what makes you unique and stand out from your peers and competitors.
Why do I need a Personal Brand?
A personal brand consists of the values and characteristics that you want to embody and convey.
A recent study by Koukash Consultancy found that 58% of respondents prioritised organisations and individuals with a personal brand.
Think about your reasons for choosing a specific lawyer or working with a consultant know as being the best in their industry. It is their personal brand that makes you want to work with them.
When beginning to think about your personal brand, the essential questions are: “Who do you think you are? Who do other people think you are? What do you think of other people?”
The intersection of these questions is the key message of your personal brand.
A professional brand sets you apart. In today’s digital-first world, standing out within your profession is crucial to staying ahead and having people seek you out as a Key Opinion Leader (KOL).
However, personal branding is not a quick fix: it takes consistency and commitment to integrate your personal brand effectively.
What are the benefits for companies when employees have personal branding?
Developing and building a personal brand is not just crucial once you’ve achieved career success.
It is, in fact, an essential step to getting there.
From Mark Zuckerberg to Elon Musk, brands are now intrinsically linked to their “people”. According to a study by Brand Builders Group, 82% of all Americans stated that “companies are more influential if their executives have a personal brand that they know and follow.
The importance of creating a personal that persuades, compels, leads and inspires is something that business leaders aspire to achieve.
With the exponential growth of social media, the freelance workforce, and the gig economy, a solid personal brand has become imperative for almost any ambitious future.
More organisations seek to hire employees who can act as brand ambassadors and utilise their professional and personal networks.
A strong personal brand online can also help you land your dream job: a 2018 CareerBuilder survey revealed that 70% of employers use social media to screen candidates during the hiring process, & 43% of employers use social media to check current employees.
For example, you can utilise social media platforms such as LinkedIn and Instagram, publish to Medium, and become a brand leader.
By cultivating a personal brand online, you are not only enhancing your reputation but making yourself more compelling to future hiring managers.
Personal branding is a Trust Accelerator.
We need to shift our thinking to reputation building instead of personal branding. A reputation is built up by trust, and a personal brand is a trust accelerator.
A recent study found that 76% of American Millennials are more likely to buy from a person with a personal brand.
Like all skills, you cannot master personal branding overnight. It takes time, commitment & dedication to identifying what you want to be known for & build your brand authentically.
It is essential to invest in reflecting on your personal brand & how to build & maintain it.
Remember that your reputation sets you apart & continue to channel authenticity in all your interactions – both online & offline.
While this may be a question that every business eager to enhance, repair or maintain its reputation has pondered, the answer is simple. An effective PR strategy can transform your business strategy and reshape your businesses future.
So if you are considering whether to invest in PR, we’ve put together five reasons why you should.
PR generates leads
Lots of them.
Trying to land organic exposure in an overly saturated market is impossible – unless you have a PR strategy in place to attract new customers and clients. PR can introduce your organisation to a new audience that may never have discovered you by securing coverage in relevant media outlets and generating publicity about your product and services.
PR attracts investors
Getting suitable placements at appropriate times in media outlets can draw the attention of potential investors. They are likely to want to learn more about your company and how they could invest their cash in aiding the development. Without PR, this can often be a real challenge if you don’t have the contacts to get this coverage. Hiring a PR service will increase your business credibility, perfect for start-up companies looking to gain the necessary funding to expand.
PR helps recruit talent
Organisational branding came before personal branding – and it matters to talent.
PR campaigns can attract potential clients and employees, but this is all down to planning and preparation. With the proper techniques, you could increase your publicity and seek the best talent out there.
PR gives you control over publicity.
If you feel strongly about the messages conveyed about your business, then PR ensures you have a great deal more control of what is being broadcast in media outlets.
PR practitioners will also work with you and your organisation to formulate a communication strategy that highlights your positive attributes, identifies milestones or achievements that are newsworthy, and create and define your brand story.
PR Can Help With Crisis Management
The way a crisis is managed can make or break your company during a developing issue or crisis.
Organisations are vulnerable to a range of unexpected threats, any of which can harm your reputation and have a lasting impact on revenue, customer acquisition, loyalty, and other essential business outcomes.
A crisis communication plan can prevent substantial damage should the time come when your organisation faces a crisis.
By working with a PR consultancy or practitioner before an event occurs, you can substantially improve your ability to minimise the impact of negative publicity on your business.
The relationship between journalists and press officers is critical, but what the press team often wants from their promoted story and what the journalist is after are two different things.
We’ve put together the Koukash Consultancy guide to running a press office below:
BE RESPONSIVE
When a journalist calls or emails with a request, respond straight away. Sometimes this can be to acknowledge the request and let them know you’re working on it.
MEET THE DEADLINE
Always check the deadline – and if it’s unrealistic, then let the journalist know you may not be able to turn it around. It’s better to be honest from the outset rather than let them down at the last minute. If you can meet the deadline, then make sure you do with time to spare.
ASK QUESTIONS
Ask relevant questions to make sure you deliver what the journalist is looking for. The questions will vary depending on the request, but here are a few examples for a feature:
What’s the content about?
Who else will you be including?
How many words are you looking for?
What is the deadline?
IMAGES
For a product-based client, make sure you have a product bank of images – that way, you can quickly respond and sort a press office enquiry. For B2B and corporate campaigns, have images on a file of the critical spokespeople and senior management should you need them.
PROVIDING A QUOTE
If a journalist contacts you wanting a quote from your client, make sure you find out what they want, how long it needs to be and the deadline they’re working to. Be clear on who you quote from the clients’ business, get their input and make sure you get the quote signed off. Sign off is vital even if you and the journalist are working to a very tight deadline.
FOLLOW UP
Some press office enquiries will be turned around and appear within hours. Others can take months. Make sure you follow up and get the best possible outcome for your client.
KEEP IN TOUCH
Once you have those contacts you’ve made through running an efficient press office, go back to them. Thank them for the piece when it appears and offer your client or their product out for other opportunities.
Take a look at our Media Relations courses for more information on how to run an effective press office and manage media relations.
Business leaders everywhere recognise and search for ways to fully comprehend and respond to massive changes in the modern office environment. Some of the most pressing changes revolve around communication needs in the increasingly global and remote business landscape. Many of those changes are due to the rapid and drastic generational shift within today’s workplace, which the COVID-19 pandemic has compounded.
Each generation has its approach to communication. Each one tends to approach their careers with a specific set of communication skills and comfort levels that employers find increasingly critical to acknowledge and facilitate.
Understanding the Basics of Each Generation’s Communication Style
The attitudes, outlooks and values of each generation in the workforce continue to be explored, which psychologists and HR practitioners identifying the ways the generations are similar, for example, we all share:
Traditional value structure
Trustworthy leaders who listen and act
The desire for respect and positive recognition
A dislike of change
Feedback
Today, there are more differences among the generations, as each one has changed in the wake of the 2009 recession and other cultural shifts. Further, it is natural that, as time goes on and people age — even within the context of their generation — their values shift.
Now that Generation Z has entered the workforce, it is also essential to look at their values and goals to further explore their perspective on communication and how it fits within the overall generational context of the modern workplace.
Here are some essential characteristics and communication values for each of today’s prominent generations in the workplace:
Baby Boomers. According to pop culture and academic and social research, baby boomers are notorious workaholics, demonstrated by their trend toward deferring retirement. Whether in response to losses during the late 2000s economic downturn or as a matter of work ethic, baby boomers are staying in the workforce longer. They appreciate high-quality products and services, are not afraid to question authority or the status quo, and always want friendly and accessible leaders. They believe in the value of one-on-one communications but are willing and eager to adapt to modern communications trends with the proper training and time to adapt.
Generation X. A vital feature of this generation is its members’ ability to quietly and adeptly adjust to different conditions, including communications and communications technologies. While Gen Xers are comfortable in meetings and one-on-one, face-to-face sessions, they quickly learn to take on each new technological iteration, from the laptop to the latest smartphone or tablet. As pragmatists by nature, members of Generation X seek structure and direction — always keeping an eye toward adaptability and willingness to make healthy changes — while maintaining a sceptical look toward the status quo. Autonomy is important to this generation, so it is not a core need while essential willing to hear and offer feedback.
Millennials. Also known as Generation Y, millennials have always looked for what is next on the horizon. Their parents raised them with the spirit of their baby boomer focus on work. Core traits of millennials include being goal-oriented, entrepreneurial and expert multitaskers. They thrive on electronic communications, so they are generally more likely to prefer a text, email or social media post over a face-to-face meeting or telephone call. Millennials work well with a greater range of freedom, especially with their comfort with electronic devices, but they also enjoy a collaborative approach to work.
Generation Z. Largely the children of members of Generation X, Gen Zers have grown up in the era of the Great Recession with technology as the default. Most members of Generation Z began using some technology at a very young age, so it is a highly comfortable medium for them. However, their relationship with their smartphones has not hindered their ability to connect and thrive among colleagues. They tend to be innovative and creative, with a strong desire to impact society. Again, watching the fallout from the housing bubble burst of the late 2000s — perhaps with some personal implications for their parents — Generation Z tends to feel a greater desire for mutual loyalty with employers, wanting to advance and grow professionally within an organisation. Regardless of pay, they consider lengthy professional engagements a source of professional development and stepping stones toward success.
Intergenerational Communication Differences Can Cause Complications
The reality of the generational shift in the workforce is undeniable for today’s business leaders. However, most are still learning the subtleties while working to facilitate each generation without disturbing standard operations.
One area where organisational leaders run into complications is hiring. More specifically, HR managers have learned that each generation uniquely communicates its strengths and abilities. Since they don’t want to discard someone because of a communication breakdown, they listen to and hear each age based on their own generational and personal style.
A June 2019 Forbes article titled “How Intergenerational Communication Failure Is Causing Chaos in the Interview Process” stated that interviewees in their late 30s and older expect meaningful one-on-one conversations from the beginning to the end of the interview process. Highly engaged older millennials, Gen Xers and baby boomers regularly feel that HR should have thoroughly reviewed their resumes before the advanced screening process.
Further, they think they should discuss the contents and background of their work lives in more detail. It is also important to these candidates to know the general climate of the interview, such as how many people they will meet within a given interview session and how many individualised sessions they may face in a single day. Generation X members report not having these desires met generally. Generation Z seems more adaptable on these matters, allowing for a more fluid approach to the interview process.
While there are many additional communication-based aspects to hiring and employment, these interview expectations reveal a fair amount of prediction versus reality that business leaders may consider exploring for hiring and beyond.
Why Is Communication So Crucial for Company Leaders in a Time of Generational Transition?
It is only natural that each generation explores and ultimately lands on its communication style. However, this ever-rapidly emerging multigenerational workforce requires everyone to alter how they interact and relate to achieve goals and enjoy a shared corporate culture together in harmony. Business communication leaders carefully monitor each generation’s respective personality, and communication needs better to understand values and requirements for ideal workplace communication.
By trying to understand key communication styles and fundamental human values — irrespective of and including their generation — employers gain a better sense of how to communicate ideas to each other, as well as how to effectively express opinions about how work performance can improve, how everyone can collaborate more efficiently and much more. Business leaders who focus on the nature of communication — especially during a generational shift — can create new pathways to understanding for their management teams and employees for all types of positive outcomes, such as improved productivity and more substantial profits.
If you aspire to become a leader in the workplace, communication is an essential skill. Learn more about the Essential Business Skills for Communication Practitioners and Communication Courses from KC Academy.
Successful companies are strategic with the way they communicate. Developing a corporate communications strategy can be one of the most important ways to build a stronger brand.
Trust is created by how businesses share authentically about themselves and how they respond to challenging situations.
Communications teams benefit from putting a lot of effort into crafting messaging and telling stories about their brand. And those that are most equipped to handle challenges and adapt to change are the ones that have plans in place.
At Koukash Consultancy, we’ve shortlisted what successful corporate communications plans include and have in common and how they can benefit your organisation.
What is a Corporate Communications Plan?
A corporate communications plan is the framework for how a business shares messages internally and externally. You can think of it as the roadmap for how a company communicates with their stakeholders, employees, customers, the media, and regulators.
Part of the plan includes what information to share, who the target audience is, how frequently to provide updates, and what channels are the best to relay these messages.
Having a plan in place shapes how a company will handle communications during a crisis, change, and launches of campaigns and new products.
What Are the Types of Corporate Communications?
The two main types of corporate communications are:
Internal Communications: How a business shares information with its employees, leadership teams, managers, and board members.
The interactions can be formal modes of communications such as all-hands meetings to discuss strategic initiatives and performance, updates about organisational changes, company newsletters, and internal memos about policy changes.
They can also include more informal communication like messaging apps to collaborate, welcome new hires, celebrate work anniversaries, or share details on winning new business.
External Communications: Any information shared outside of the organisation.
Whether it is a formal press release or branded content on social media, these communications build the company’s public image and impact the perception of a brand and its products or services.
The company’s marketing, content, and advertising to promote it are included as external communication methods.
Press releases and financial reporting are another way companies share messaging about the organisation with the outside world.
Why is Having a Corporate Communications Plan Important?
Corporate communications plans lead to sharing more explicit and better messages with your target audience.
Whether that audience includes your employees or potential customers, you want to be heard in the right place and at the right time. Setting up a framework to achieve that is essential.
Sometimes you might be thrown a curveball, and a communications plan will help your business prepare for any unexpected changes or crises that come your way.
Surprisingly, a JOTW Communications Survey showed that 59% of communicators say they have a communications strategy drafted, but only 45% admit to having a documented crisis communications plan.
Having a plan in place will also allow for speedier recovery to any public relations issues. For example, responding to negative feedback and being open about mistakes can build trust with your brand and get you back on the right track in the eyes of customers and potential clients.
Communicating effectively and transparently shows that your brand values engagement by taking a proactive approach to conversations about your brand or industry.
A corporate communications plan for internal communications will also help define and build a transparent company culture. This plan can improve employee engagement by keeping team members included in conversations about where the company is heading and its values.
Suppose there are sudden changes on a team. In that case, you’ll be better able to communicate the changes in a way that makes employees feel comfortable and cared for if you have a plan for how to share that information first for those immediately affected and then across the company.
What Should A Corporate Communications Plan Include?
An effective corporate communications plan will include details for your messaging goals’ objectives, approach, and tracking measures.
In simple terms, you’ll want to include the who, what, when, where, why, and how.
Here are the elements your corporate communications plan needs:
Target Audiences – these are the groups of stakeholders that will be receiving the messages. They could be employees, customers, media members, investors, leadership teams, and managers. Age, location, job level, interests, and lifestyle are all helpful to know about the receivers of your messaging.
Objectives – most communications are created with a call to action or a desired outcome in mind — these are your ultimate objectives or goals. They should be tied to your overall organisational goals to drive business outcomes.
Message content – what you want to say and what you are trying to help your readers understand. Tone and personality are essential to formulate in your message to get your reader’s attention.
Distribution strategy – the channels and venues that your communications will deliver are an essential aspect of the communications plan. Paid, earned, owned, and shared media channels have different benefits for reaching audiences.
Frequency – how often you will be sharing or updating content to reach your target audience. This will depend on your team’s budget and resources and an understanding of your target audience, and being mindful of attention fatigue.
Measures of evaluation – how you’ll know if your communications were successful. These should be highly attached to your objectives and goals to track progress and understand areas for improvement.
By including these 5 elements in your corporate communication strategy, you are ensuring that your plan is cohesive and aligned with your organisational objectives.
Taking a seat at the negotiation table can be nerve-wracking for even the most seasoned professionals. There’s inevitably something significant at stake — be that new business, a working relationship or achieving your policy objectives. You never know for sure how the individual opposite you perceives the situation and whether they are open to engaging in a conversation with you, and the power dynamics at play.
According to Dacher Keltner of the University of California at Berkeley and his colleagues, powerful negotiators demonstrate “approach related” behaviours such as expressing positive moods and searching for rewards in their environment.
By contrast, powerless individuals tend to experience a great deal of self-inhibition, triggered by fear of potential threats. At KC Academy, we’ve outlined three critical ways you can use power to your advantage in negotiations.
1. Powerful Negotiators Take Action
Whether generated by a strong Best Alternative To Negotiated Agreement or “BATNA” a decisive role, or a sense of confidence, power leads negotiators to behave more proactively throughout the negotiation process.
Powerful negotiators are more inclined than less powerful negotiators to make the first offer. In fact, in one study, having a solid alternative to a negotiated agreement led negotiators to be three times more likely to make the first offer. Notably, making the first offer leads to a significant bargaining advantage.
Those in this position of power are also more persistent than other negotiators, less likely to give up when confronted with setbacks and obstacles, and more likely to strive toward more aggressive goals. As long as they have something to gain, high power negotiators typically will not accept an impasse. This assertiveness produces gains for the powerful negotiator and enables mutually beneficial tradeoffs that can benefit both sides.
2. Powerful Negotiators are Protected
Power offers protective armour against the treacherous behaviour of your opponents; the powerful are not easily manipulated.
Immediately before negotiating with someone you know to be emotional and demanding, reflect on a time you arranged with a strong BATNA. Recall your sense of confidence and control. Generating psychological power can immunise you from your opponent’s angry tactics.
3. Powerful Negotiators Lose Perspective
One of the most crucial skills that negotiators can develop is perspective-taking or appreciating and understanding the world from another perspective.
However, there is a negative effect of power on negotiation behaviour and outcomes: powerful negotiators often fail to take their counterpart’s perspectives.
Power leads individuals to overlook what the other party wants and needs and why he needs it.
Power in negotiation is most effective at the bargaining table when combined with perspective-taking. When the powerful take time to consider their counterpart’s points of view, they harness the positive benefits of power (including making first offers and persistence) without succumbing to excessive risk-taking.
The ultimate lesson? Strive to possess power in your next negotiation – or feel powerful – and follow up with perspective-taking to ensure you achieve your desired BATNA.
Organisational change is imminent for all businesses; new management styles, stakeholders, or even a modified mission statement can make a difference in a work environment.
Altering any business component will lead to an organisational change. It is part of a PR practitioner’s duty to improve internal and external communications to foster a safe and positive change within the work culture.
WHAT IS ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE?
Organisational change is when a significant business component undergoes an alteration or change for any reason. The difficulty with converting a business component is that not every employee within the business will adjust to the modification. A PR practitioner’s role is to ensure that company’s values are being used to promote positive change within the work culture and promote the response externally to the public.
HOW DO PR PRACTITIONERS INFLUENCE ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE?
Influencing organisational change is not an easy feat – communication is one of the most challenging aspects to maintain within an organisation. The change also brings on resistance from employees, so it is crucial to start the idea of change internally before the news is made public.
Open-ended communication throughout the company is crucial from the perspective of a PR practitioner. They have to create a dialogue between the highest executives and the employees working on everyday business functions. Since communication is multi-fold, the role of the PR practitioner is to ensure that the conversation is open for anyone and everyone to participate.
Start conversations by creating, facilitating, and moderating discussions. These discussions can take the form of town hall meetings, live forums, and employee-run committees. Encourage board-level members and other executives to participate.
When employees see that higher-ups are involved and interested in their discussions, they are more likely to be motivated and are receptive to changes. Employees should be aware of these open discussions, as this is one of their best ways to voice their concerns about any difficulties or challenges within the work culture.
DEVELOP SPECIFIC MESSAGES FOR INTERNAL COMMUNICATION
Internal communications are inarguably the most essential form of communication within an organisation. Employees may feel untrusting of the hierarchy and need to be reassured that their concerns are still a priority to the organisation. Whether company values have changed or not, the PR practitioner must evaluate the situation and encourage these values within the employees.
The change will bring resistance, and great PR practitioners are aware of this fact. To prevent this, train team leads, managers and supervisors, to explain the reason behind the upcoming changes. Not only does this make employees aware of the situation, but it also ensures that the message is unified and spreads throughout the organisational body. By reiterating company values, employees will feel more confident and trusting that their company values them.
CHANGE AND IMPACT STARTS WITH INCLUSIVITY
Inclusivity is an empowering way to build trust and confidence amongst all levels of the organisation. Influencing organisational change means maximising the positive impact of the change. PR practitioners must excel at fostering a safe, healthy, and sustainable workforce. Otherwise, the employees are less trustworthy of the executives and management.
Inclusivity can mean supporting employee-run committees, creating a designated space for employees to voice their concerns, and making resources available to employees (such as an anonymous feedback tool, like a “suggestions & concerns box”).
KC Academy’s 5-day intensive course on Critical Business Skills for Communications Practitioners trains PR and communications professionals on business essentials. The course aims to teach PR practitioners an in-depth understanding of critical business skills necessary to lead an organisation to an impactful, positive structural change. For more information on this course, please contact [email protected].
Most organisations possess plans for their business operations to run essential functions. However, what separates a standard organisation, and a successful organisation is a well-thought-out strategic communication plan that delivers results and drives the business towards a successful path.
The breakdown of a strategic communications plan is that it is detailed, with clear and concise objectives, has strict deadlines for everyone to achieve, specific & regularly scheduled deliverables, measurable steps & results with analysis, and, most importantly, a leader who can delegate and provide feedback throughout the project.
While the above is much easier said rather than done, Koukash Consultancy has come up with five ways to create a strategic communications plan that will help you achieve your organisational objectives:
Objectives: Planned objectives are imperative for any strategic communications plan. Without objectives, projects cannot be measured or delivered. Therefore, when reviewing results at the end of a project or campaign, your question should be, “was the objective achieved?”
Pro-tip: Dreaming big is good, but your objectives should be realistic and achievable.
Audience: Your plan should be specific for your target person yet tailored to the same objective. For example, someone on the marketing team will have a different strategy than someone on the executive team, but both will be working towards the same shared purpose. At the end of the project, other teams will have worked together to reach the same result.
Pro-tip: Create a broader plan for the organisation, but different yet specific measurables for each team in the organisation.
Measurables: To promote the objectives of a strategic communication plan, results must be measured throughout the project. Whether through an increase in conversions or increased engagement, your team will not perform if there are no numerical goals to react adequately.
Pro-tip: Use last year’s results as a basis for this year. Part of a strategic plan is to increase those results by a fraction and perform better for the future.
Feedback: Feedback is essential for all levels of planning. Your organisation relies on you to let them know how they are performing. Therefore, regular feedback should be implemented in the planning process. Feedback can come from you and your organisation; they can inform you of any upcoming or unforeseen challenges during this time.
Pro-tip: Space the feedback meetings further for your employees to work on the projects confidently but short enough to minimise running into complex challenges.
Wins: Remember to celebrate all wins throughout the project! Strategic communications begin with communication, so for any ‘small’ success, celebrate with the team or team lead. Your organisation will be happy to know that their work has not gone unnoticed, even through difficult times, and they will be able to support you in the future with other projects confidently.
With these five points, creating a strategic communication plan certainly takes dedication and constant communication with the entire team to achieve success.
KC Academy’s 5-day intensive course onStrategic Communication: Thinking, Planning, and Execution trains leaders and professionals on how to define the aim, tactics and objectives of a strategic plan; how to identify the audiences for a strategic plan; and how to plan for various levels of potential risks and how to manage them. For more information on this course, please contact[email protected].
The rise of social media has changed the way many industries communicate to the public.
From Instagram to Twitter and corporate announcements on LinkedIn, social media and the emergence of digital journalism has transformed the way public relations practitioners relay information – regardless of the industry or sector.
STAYING ON MESSAGE
For defence and law enforcement communication and PR practitioners, the ability to connect with diverse audiences on various platforms is an opportunity to hone your narrative and warn of the importance of having a cohesive communication strategy that does not pose a risk to the public and active missions.
The power of social media is long-lasting, and as everyone knows, it isn’t easy to come back once you decide to share a tweet or send a Facebook post.
Yet, with the correct strategy and techniques, it can be maintained to effectively communicate with stakeholders, the media, and the public.
So how do you prepare high-ranking officials and media strategists within defence bodies and law enforcement organisations?
It begins with understanding the overall purpose of the communication and organisation and how social media can benefit the overall brand.
Practitioners must ask themselves three questions:
What should be shared with the public?
What should stay confidential?
How should messages be delivered, and on which platforms?
Once these fundamental questions have been addressed, media strategists and defence body officials must relay the defence body’s strategic objectives and ensure content itself is clear and concise for the public to consume.
RISK AND REWARD – HOW TO COMMUNICATE ON SOCIAL MEDIA
Perhaps one of the most critical aspects of social media is how high-ranking officials and employees alike use it. Despite disclaimers that “views are my own”, many people take to social media to follow influential figures.
Yet a spur of the moment re-tweet, improper use of Instagram, or simply having a poorly executed strategy can hinder and damage your organisations’ reputation.
When looking at the potential risks of engaging on social media, PR and communication strategists must ensure they are operating with authenticity despite having access to restricted information and maintaining limited transparency with the public.
By identifying risk – a crucial part of developing a communication strategy for a public relations strategist – a defence or law enforcement communications strategist can remain aware of what can be shared publicly on social media, stay internal or remain classified – and communicate that to employees throughout the organisation.
IMPLEMENTING YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY
Since social media platforms are the fastest way to relay messages, it would only be helpful for strategists to use them as a source of delivery rather than the only delivery mechanism. Posting press release links from government official websites on social media would give the public a clear, official and formal idea of the situation.
With the right tools and techniques, social media is beneficial overall: a quick and easy way to deliver messages in times of need and spread information in a larger capacity and range.
KC Academy’s exclusive course on Defence & Law Enforcement Communicationsexamines the fundamentals of media & communication. In addition, it explores how PR strategists can optimise their plans to support organisations’ strategic objectives. For more information on this course and our specialist communication courses, please contact [email protected]
