Once again, we want to At ICPlan we’re on a mission to see the latest shifts and trends when it comes the pitfalls and barriers to planning across the Corporate Comms function. We have collaborated with author and consultant, Liam FitzPatrick, to develop a comprehensive 2022 updated study on the issues that influence the way organisations plan communications.

On that note, we’ve launched the 2022 survey aimed at communicators from across the spectrum – from internal to external. We want to hear how they plan and are asking them to take just a few minutes to tell us what influences and affects their approach to planning.

You can take the anonymous survey here: Planning in Communications Survey

Better Planning in Communications: The Necessity of Study

As communicators, for us to be able to navigate the challenges we all face in terms of planning in communications, it’s critical that we continue to understand what the common barriers and roadblocks are. The survey we have created will only take ten minutes of your time but will still cover a lot of key areas of interest. These include what kind of planning takes place in your organisation at the moment, what planning approach you apply to individual projects, and even what factors help or harm implementation. Finally, we also explore who you involve in the development of your comms plans and ultimate sign-off.

It’s not just for internal communicators exclusively. We also want to incorporate the views and experiences of every kind of comms professional from across the diverse comms spectrum. Do internal communicators view and approach strategy in the same way as those in media relations or public affairs? How tightly integrated—or disparate—are these plans? Is there overlap in the utilization of tools? Do comms teams in a company strive for consistency in their messaging?

We Learn and Grow Together 

Please also note that this research project is also open to communicators from around the world. In fact, we are hoping to get a more diverse global perspective on planning in communications. We are interested in learning how comms professionals across the world view, approach, and deal with the problems we all face as a community and a profession.

What’s in it for YOU?

We will be carefully analysing the collected data and publishing the report early next year. Respondents who want to receive a copy of the research report can leave their email address at the end of the questionnaire. Additionally, we are also making a donation of $1 for each completed survey to Befrienders International (the international charity that provides confidential support to people in emotional crisis or distress).

The world still continues to change a great deal as a result of the COVID-19 crisis, yet the challenges of effective communication planning remain. In seeking to understand what the current status is and what continues to need to be improved in terms of planning, we believe that we can make a lasting impact for the communications profession.

You can take the anonymous survey here: Planning in Communications Survey

The post Our 2022 Planning in Communications Survey is Open appeared first on ICPlan.

I can’t remember where the conversation started but it eventually reached the point of “well how many communicators really take planning seriously?”

Throughout the Spring of 2020, I’d been chatting on Zoom with Dan and Maddy of ICPlan. We’re old friends and been sharing the highs and lows of lockdowns, home schooling and debating what the new world would look like for us; them as communication software providers and me as an advisor on good practice in communications teams.

So, we thought we’d ask our friends and contacts to fill in a survey. It seemed to resonate with many people – the questionnaire got shared around the world and eventually, hundreds of practitioners from every communications sub-discipline took part. And in the second half of 2020 we started sharing the raw results in a series of 1:1 conversations and virtual discussion groups with experienced professionals.

You can download the full report here:
Communications Planning Report 2021

No masterplan

The most striking message was that many communicators do not have a masterplan for what they are trying to activate with their operations. They may have specific timelines and tactics for individual projects but an overall view of why they exist and how to develop is not universal.

The people we spoke to linked this to another fact emerging from the data; people who plan are more likely to report having an educated set of internal stakeholders who appreciate what communications can do for them.

In short, if you work in an organisation that doesn’t value communications why bother thinking ahead or trying to implement a vision of reputation management or employee engagement? You’ll always be involved too late in the day to make a real difference on projects and getting leaders to engage with messaging will be a struggle.

Educating stakeholders

In contrast, communications teams that can align with organisational goals and strategies find they are more likely to be consulted and appreciated by their peers in the organisation.

The message seems to be that if you want to be valued you need to educate your stakeholders about what you can do; and you need to be educated yourself about the strategic goals and plans of your organisation.

Initially, this feels like a fairly obvious statement, but the data suggests that it’s a message that as many as four in ten communicators need to hear.

And it’s an observation that is reinforced by the finding that barely half of communications plans include anything much about audience insight or evaluation let alone links to detail about underlying business goals. However, the probability that many practitioners were still concerned with tactics rather than results did not entirely surprise our expert consultees.

They said that the profession still has a way to go to catch up with other professional disciplines in working to a structured plan.

Size matters

The research also found that size of team seems to matter in how people approach planning.

We found that the smallest and the largest teams seem to be better at planning and being aligned with each other. For the former it is probably a matter of living in a simpler world and for the latter it’s a question of necessity.

Yet mid-sized teams seem to struggle to gather intelligence, get involved in projects at an early stage or align communications.

Five key questions

After listening to the views and experiences of senior communications leaders it seems that there are five essential questions to test how planful a comms team is. There may be more but the consensus from our research is that the most universal issues are covered in these five questions:

• Do we have a master vision of communications that is aligned to business or organisational goals?
• Is there a clear methodology for planning communications – and does it involve our internal stakeholders?
• Have we a governance process which tracks the plan, keeps messages, audiences and projects aligned, and reflects on successes and failures?
• Have we the skills and mindset of planners who can engage with stakeholders, cope with change and overcome inevitable barriers?
• Is our planning driven by data, insight, evaluation and tracking?
Please download the report – we hope it proves useful to making your communications operation more effective.

And of course, if you need help to make your communications more planful get in touch!

You can download the full report here:
Communications Planning Report 2021

The post If you don’t know where you’re going any road will take you there appeared first on ICPlan.

Work Life After COVID-19: Speculation and Reality

While China was the first country to fully face the devastating effects of what was then yet-to-be a global pandemic, it’s now become the best indicator of what work life after COVID-19 could look like. In late March of 2020, it began to lift its strict quarantine in the city of Wuhan when, finally, no new infections were being reported. While their efforts have been met with mixed results, the rest of the world is watching with anticipation as the country tries to restart its economy—doubtless taking notes for their own attempts down the line.

However long or short that “line” will be remains to be seen. If the recent spate of lockdown protests in the United States are any indication, many are itching to get back to “business as usual”. While the global Coronavirus recovery numbers are encouraging (at the time of writing they sit at around 1,159,000), it’s clear that it will be a long time before everything—especially in the workplace—will be anywhere close to the normalcy we once knew. The physical, emotional, and psychological toll is simply too great to be batted away.

More than likely much of work life after COVID-19 will resonate facets of our life today that have become the “new” normal. People will be generally wary of large gatherings—as they should be—manned checkpoints armed with portable temperature “guns”, and face masks are going to be in place until a reliable and accessible antibody test and —ultimately— a vaccine is in place. For those who soon return to offices will see much change in the foreseeable future.

The Changes That Might Be: Work Life After COVID-19

The World Health Organization has already released a set of guidelines covering work life after COVID-19 in anticipation of the inevitable return. In it, they cover in great detail many of the things that will likely feature in your workplace when people return. The first of these is a focus on sanitation and cleanliness. Whether by colleagues, cleaning teams or both, your workplace is going to be cleaned more regularly than before.

Although fumigation—which was very popular at the start of the outbreak—has been proven by the US EPA to be ineffective for cleaning contaminated surfaces, wiping them down with liquid cleaning products is. Expect to have your workstations regularly wiped down.

Keeping the (Social) Distance in Work Life After COVID-19

As for the actual look of the offices themselves, commercial real estate firm, Cushman & Wakefield have developed what they call the Six Foot Office. Given the experience, they had aiding over 10,000 companies and organizations in China move a one million-strong workforce back to work, their ideas are interesting to see. Much of the redesign ideas for work life after COVID-19 ready office comes from their own experimentation and testing.

The central guiding principles for the Six Feet Office revolve around concepts familiar to us already: social distancing and better hygiene. To the first end, they call for a reorganization of office workspaces to enforce that distance. The physical spacing of workstations is reinforced by visual signals—like clear and obvious circles embedded on the floor to subconsciously prompt people to keep a distance from their co-workers. Separation is further enforced by barriers between desks.

This they further support by the idea of a clockwise direction-only movement policy in lanes marked by arrows on the floors to get around the office. They cribbed the idea from hospitals they’ve worked with where the policy ensures that—even in the hustle and bustle of a work day—people don’t bump into each other, inadvertently breaking social distancing rules. The challenge, of course, is in shifting “very ingrained behaviours and expectations”, according to their head of Occupier Business Performance, Despina Katsikakis.

The New Face of Meetings

Of course, social distancing for work life after COVID-19 is one thing when people are sitting at their desks. It’s not so easy when you think about how meetings used to be conducted prior to the lockdowns. These were gatherings of varying sizes of people, often cramped in small spaces within the office. Many companies have recognized the danger should work resume and some have taken drastic measures.

When you think about it, however, the solution has been staring us right in the face. For the past weeks, the remote work setups adopted by many companies have paved the way for virtual meetings—as seen in increased usage of platforms like Microsoft Teams and Zoom. It wasn’t easy for some but necessity is the mother of invention and online meetings are pretty much the norm nowadays.

There’s really no reason why a modified form of this setup can’t be utilized even when people are back in the office. Conference rooms can serve as main communications hubs from which those who are initiating a meeting can safely base themselves with all the materials they need. Employee-attendees, in the meantime, can stream meetings via the company’s preferred platform from the safety and comfort of their workstations. The arrangement doesn’t take away the need for connection and interaction, neither does it compromise safety.

Comms Teams Will Take The Lead in Work Life After COVID-19

Apart from their very obvious role in facilitating effective meetings as previously discussed, internal communications teams will have a big role to play in work life after COVID-19. We’ve talked previously about how critical they have been at the start of and through this current crisis, as well as in the ongoing adoption of remote work by many companies. That’s likely to be further built on when we start transitioning back into the office.

Much of the work that communications teams can expect to be doing has to do with ensuring new setups and policies are disseminated and reinforced constantly. Remember the difficulty people experienced in getting used to remote work to begin with? It’s because the accepted way of doing things was turned on its head. This will be the same experience when office life returns.

So visually rich and engaging collateral like infographics, digital signage, training, and videos—are going to be necessary to ensure that everyone knows the rules and what they need to do. There are already highly creative examples like the ones posted in this post that make effective use of eye-catching visuals and easy-to-remember text to get a point across. All of this will then have to be carefully scheduled and planned so as not to overwhelm.

Testing The Waters With Technology

Of course, any information campaign is only as effective as how many people actually action what is being asked. This challenge is in changing embedded behaviour—a difficult task if there ever was one. For Cushman & Wakefield and their Six Feet Office, it’s all about leveraging existing technology. Beacons are installed throughout their office to track their employee’s movements via their phones.

Apart from allowing for a more comprehensive audit of their design, those same beacons can send out warnings to those who are breaking the six-foot limitations in place. This technology and its application are not completely new. They have been used before to gather so-called “people analytics” to aid in the refinement of diversity and inclusion programs within a company. It’s a noble aim, but the application of the technology isn’t without controversy.

Many have likened the application to Orwell’s 1984 and the breach of privacy is certainly something to note. Given the gravity of the risks in work life after COVID-19, the technology might warrant revisiting, but companies need to tread carefully. Besides, with careful communication planning and reinforcement, there might not be a need to go overboard and spend time and resource on tracking technology. Effective communication can reinforce the required behaviour without extra cost.

More Emphasis on Remote Work Options

The COVID-19 pandemic and its associated lockdowns globally has revealed for many companies how business does not stop when it goes remote. While that might not signal a grand shift towards wholly remote work setups, work life after COVID-19 will likely feature at least limited integration of the option for remote work within many companies. After all, the benefits of the model for employers and employees alike is one that has been proven time and time again.

In order to do this, companies need to invest in communication platforms and be clear on what is used for what. Comms heads can and should work alongside their counterparts in IT in uncovering which platforms meet the needs of their company when it comes to remote working. Microsoft and other leaders in the field have stepped up the development of their platforms to provide for the communications and collaboration needs of companies through the crisis and beyond.

Without doubt communications will have a strong part to play in work life after COVID-19. Initially, this will be centered on the education of employees in the shifts in policy that companies are making, and the continuous reinforcement of it. On a wider scale however, comms heads are becoming the go-to people for executives who are starting to realise that a knowledgeable, engaged and aware workforce is key to the survival, growth and prosperity of the organisation post COVID-19.

The post Work Life After COVID-19: New Realities, New Possibilities appeared first on ICPlan.