VMA GROUP launched its CEO report Changing Communications – the CEO experience of communications during Covid and beyond at its Advisory Board meetings in Manchester and London last week. Communications leaders from a diverse sector mix came together to discuss the findings and share their experiences of how Covid impacted their organisation across financial services, tech, NHS, sports, nuclear and retail. Despite their very different operational challenges it was clear that hybrid working and digital transformation were the biggest changes and ongoing focus for future working strategies.
VMA GROUP Managing Director Lucy Cairncross said: “What was apparent when speaking with CEOs was their reliance on their communications leader during the pandemic – they were an integral part of the core team and helped organisations navigate through the ever-changing world that Covid thrust them into. As one CEO put it – you cannot be effective as a CEO without a trusted communicator at your side.”
The legacy of communications functions ramping up their activities to meet need, particularly employee comms, sees them now having to push back on the higher level of expected comms or get more resource to meet the demand. CEOs saw a real benefit for better employee engagement and more authentic and personal communications helped to keep people connected when they were working remotely. The CEOs interviewed said that internal communications is crucial in getting the leaderships team’s vision down into the organisation and getting people empowered and mobilised. It is now the communications leaders challenge to ensure they capitalise on this moment and ensure their business continues to prioritise and invest in this area.
Hybrid working kicked up a lively debate with no one feeling their organisation got it quite right. It continues to be a focus for future working patterns and businesses and employees have very different views on what that future should look like. Several CEOs cited the fact that digital allowed them to get around a business quicker and be more visible than in person site visits of the past but others worried that they lost energy and collaborative element that in person working enables. All are looking at how they tackle this going forward, ensuring purposeful travel and community building alongside the work / life balance that is now expected. This is more so in the newer entrants to the job market who do not want to be the workaholic, availa
