The struggle continues for corporate communicators

Communicators are faced up with challenges to justify their existence and to prove that they can be trusted at operations and strategic level to advice but not to be regarded as the company's postman.

Lobbying and getting buy in of the CEO makes things easy, what the communications team needs to do is to help the CEO be more creative with their time and be more visible and listen to what the employees have to say, these are common issues that have been raised by most speakers who have spoken at the Corporate Communication Management Summit that is currently underway at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Johannesburg.

The aim of the two-day summit is to help communicators to create awareness, increase understanding and develop best practice in corporate communication within organisations and in the broader business communities in South Africa.

Local and international key experts have been sharing knowledge and expertise on topics from internal communication, employee engagement, change communication, internal branding and leadership communication. Businesses demand that communicator s demonstrate their abilities to communicate and translate business strategy and drive focus within business.

The Standard Bank revolution

Vanashree Moodley, the head of communications, personnel and business banking at Standard Bank shared some insights with the delegates on how the bank's communications team won the battle to get the recognition that it needs from all stakeholders.

The bank conducted a survey in 2006 to engage employees and find out how they retained the communicated messages, and it was discovered that there was no consistency in the communicated messages, and that high volumes of content lead to message saturation. Communication was medium driven but not message driven.

Prior to the development of the function of internal communication there was a lack of a clear definition on the functions of the communications team. The team reported to the marketing manager and worked on an ad hoc basis.

As a result of the survey, the two cousins, marketing and communications, were decentralised and moved to personal and business banking.

The communications department has since been structured to focus on communications. A head of department has been appointed and the PBB communications steering committee now meets for a monthly communications Indaba. Strategy for internal communication is linked to the PBB strategy and the strategy is approved by the board.