Getting our priorities straight

Earlier this week I was asked to give my opinion on what the priorities/big issues will be for internal communicators over the next year or so.  These were my three offerings:

1. Change communication - mindful of what's happening in Western economies, surely this has now has to be firmly at the top of the list. Even the 'safest of the safe' companies no longer seem to be, and whilst redundancies and restructures have been a fact of life for years, at a time of rising prices and the prospect of not being able to walk straight into a job somewhere else, suddenly they seem a fair bit more ominous than than there were before.
2. Doing more with less - I'm talking about the internal communicators themselves, here. Again, it's nothing new to be asked to juggle more balls, wear more hats, work more miracles, but the current environment must surely be making more demands on people, I'm hearing of lots of internal comms teams going through their own restructures and cost-saving exercises, and I'm mindful of the emails I'm getting from people about workloads and coping mechanisms.
3. Leadership communication - this is not a new one, and it's probably on here more because it happens to be a personal passion of mine. Why did we ever think (and yes, let's not kid ourselves, we DID think, once upon a time) that we could take on the mantle of all communication ourselves? And even if we now know that it's a leadership responsibility, how can we expect them to do it without the proper support?  Leaders will be having to step up a gear around (1) and (2) just as much as internal communicators, and they will need the right support to do it.

So that was my humble opinion. What do you think? Like to agree, disagree or suggest some more? What do you expect to be focusing on over the next 12 months?

Sue

Comments

[Liam]

For what it's worth I'm thinking that getting basics right could make a lot of sense right now...

Making sure that you've got channels that get news out to people, and ensure that managers can deliver real context seems like a worthwhile focus.

[UK Hot Deals]

I do wonder why more merchants / networks make a stance on this? I think with alot of the smaller sites doing it, its a case of looking at a couple of the more established sites and just copying the methods...