A view on strategic comms from the winners of Best Communications Team, and Best Small Team at the UnAwards 2022.
by Rob McCleary and Helena Hornby
Winning awards is brilliant.
Whether you’re a team of two or twenty-two, being recognised by your peers is a massive badge of honour, and who doesn’t love a badge? Awards feel like validation that you’re doing the right things, achieving results, and that the daily grind is worth it.
It’s also an opportunity to put yourself out there, connect with people and find kindred comms spirits. That’s what we felt when we got chatting about our UnAwards entries, and why we’re writing this blog together.
When the shortlist was announced, Rob messaged me to say that our entry had a lot of similarities to the way he approaches the work with his team. And after proudly bagging our gongs in Birmingham, we got talking more about what we’ve got in common despite the very different teams we have. Rob nailed it: we speak the same language.
For us both, that language is strategy. It doesn’t matter if there are two or 22 in the team, having a strategic plan for communications means everyone can understand what’s going on.
Yeah, yeah, easier said than done, you might think. And that’s true. It’s not always easy to develop and stick to a strategy. They can be hard work to research, write, and keep fresh with frequent reviews and updates. But once you’ve done the hard work and got one, it makes the rest of your work much more straightforward.
It becomes your point of reference, your handbook for the job, it gets your team, the senior leaders, and the rest of the organisation, on the same page. Your strategy says, ‘this is how we do things round here’ and makes sure everyone knows what you do and, crucially, why.
Ah but what about those inevitable crises? That panic job that comes in (at 4pm on a Friday afternoon) or heck, a global pandemic? Even when being reactive you can be strategic about it – you approach it using the principles in your strategy and it helps you handle things with structure and purpose.
What else do we share in our approach?
Using insight to inform our work – that helps us to understand what our audiences are saying to us and allows us to communicate with them in their language. It also helps us to say no more often. No, you don’t need a poster. No, a video isn’t the right way to talk with these people. No, don’t just do a quick tweet.
Cracking those SMART objectives – tangible goals that focus our efforts and gives them meaning and direction. With all the stuff that gets flung at comms it’s so easy to fall into the fire-fighting trap but turning our attention back to the real objectives helps to prioritise and deliver what’s important.
Being hot on evaluation – it’s crucial to show the impact we’re having on the communities we serve. Ultimately that’s what we’re here for – to make a difference to people’s lives. We show the business why comms is worth it, and evaluating our work gives us evidence to inform our future strategy, and yep – it is great in awards entries! It’s also great for the team to stop, look back at what they’ve achieved and recognise the good work they’re doing.
And now I’ll hand the mic to Rob!
Helena is right. Winning is great and I must admit, I was completely surprised but incredibly pleased when Gedling Borough Council was announced as the winner of the Small Team of the Year UnAwards winners, it was a great moment for our little team. As a team of two comms officers, supporting the organisation across every area of communications is a challenge so how do we do it and, why did we win this award? And, more importantly, why are we doing an Elton John and Kiki Dee duet with Staffordshire County Council on this joint blog?
As Helena said, our two organisations speak the same language. I read every submission for the Big Communications Team of the Year UnAward, attempting to steal and borrow every good idea in this treasure trove of information, and it was Staffordshire’s that stopped me in my tracks. It validated what I have been doing at Gedling. Their submission talked about strategy, OASIS planning, evaluation and creating an annual plan, which is exactly what we have been doing and is the reason why we won the award. Our submission, like Helena’s, showed a strategic direction and a clear pathway to be able to show ‘what good looks like’.
The key thing to note was that both our submissions talked about asking why! If it’s not in the plan, why are we doing it? If you don’t have clear SMART objectives, then it’s a no, we’re busy. Don’t go breaking my heart asking for help with a project that is happening next week, we aren’t doing it.
It doesn’t matter how big or small you are, if you are doing this, you will succeed. You can show your worth, free up your valuable time and, hell yeah, you can win awards no matter your size!
If you would like to hear more from us, why not join us at this year’s UnAwards Winners Masterclass.
The first batch of Masterclass tickets are being released on Friday 3 March to eMag subscribers. You can SIGN UP HERE to be in with a chance.
Rob McCleary is communications manager at Gedling Borough Council. You can say hello on Twitter at @RobSpotlight
Helena Hornby is communications manager at Staffordshire County Council. You can say hello on Twitter at @HelenaHellie
