How is your comms plan looking right now? Time for a post-Lockdown refresh maybe?
By Darren Caveney
August: Traditionally the time of holidays, quieter offices, fewer email and even fewer meetings.
But, what will August 2020 look like?
Well, if you’re Grant Shapps half of it will be spent in quarantine.
But seriously it will feel very different this year.
Most in-house teams and their wider colleagues will no doubt have unused annual leave coming out of their ears so there could be the chance of a slightly less frantic month for many in terms of work demand (yes, I’m touching wood for you as I say those words).
With a journey into the comms unknown as we head into autumn and winter it makes August your best bet for a little creative thinking time to check your comms plan is still fit for purpose.
As my pal and esteemed comms pro, Fran Collingham puts it, look at your plans through a Covid-lens and assess how they stack up.
Non-priority demand – is it returning?
One of the things I’m hearing from the teams I work with is that work demand for non-priority work is beginning to seep back in. Sound familiar?
If so there’s even more reason to strike in August to ensure you have a plan for the remainder of 2020 based on the known priorities, with a little flexibility built in for the unknowns certain to land this year.
Don’t leave this to chance. If you haven’t already take a fresh look at your comms plan and make recommendations on it’s priorities for the remainder of the year to your senior management team.
AND help is at hand. If you’re finding those requests – some daft, some fair – returning put in place a business case for all comms activity requests across your organisations. I’ve developed and tested an all-new work demand business case which will be dropping to comms2point0 eMag subscribers very soon – you can sign up here to receive a copy.
5 top tips to lighten your comms load
1. Regroup. Check in with the whole team and talk about your wellbeing, the pressures and your concerns. Make this an open and honest opportunity. It may well be that on one else will do this for you so take the initiative and put you and yours first for an extended video call. And don’t forget your head of comms or comms lead in this equation – they feel this just as much as everyone else in the team
2. Burn-out. This is a very real risk for teams who have had an incredibly tough 5-months with little let up. Score the risk for you personally and for your team. Is it a concern? If so, flag it to your leaders and HR team to look for additional support. If you feel there is a chance of a problem kicking in it would be sensible to add this to your corporate risk register. If you need an extra pair of interim hands for a couple of months say so. Of course budgets are an issue but the health and wellbeing of you and yours is more important.
3. Review your comms plan. Through a Covid-lens how is it looking? 3-year strategies are important and very useful. But right now you need a practical, realistic and deliverable plan for the next 3-6 months. Your focus for this new plan is to declutter and lighten wherever possible. Less really is more right now as opposed to being spread too thin. Use my comms2point0 essential comms planning guide to establish a fit for purpose 10 step comms plan. But create it and agree it as a team – don’t leave it to one person to develop. It will be better, more creative and much more fun developing it as a team.
4. Signed in blood. Once you’re happy with your refreshed plan arrange a video call with your leadership team to present your recommendations to them. You’re probably in a really good place with them right now given your efforts through Covid. So make use of that goodwill and get your new plan signed off by them in blood if needs be.
5. Say no to daft requests. You have to give your team a chance to succeed, and importantly, not go under. Use my new business case template internally to ask colleagues to establish why the comms team should be taken away from your newly agreed priorities for the remainder of 2020. Those requests will return as sure as day follows night so plan for it and put a simple process in place if you don’t already have one.
Good luck. And most of all try to get some downtime with family and loved ones this August. Get your plans together and agreed first and it may be a little more chilled than you originally feared.
Darren Caveney is creator of comms2point0 and owner of creative communicators ltd
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Image via Tullio Saba
