I have a theory that Covid focused the minds of many a management team to the point that some of the daft and less important comms requests went away. And guess what – comms teams across the sectors delivered some outstanding work delivering for their communities, their patients, their residents and their vulnerable citizens. Serious hours have been worked but with a laser-like determination of supporting our communities through the pandemic.

by Darren Caveney

It’s been an incredible effort and when you see, for example, local government recording its highest recorded trust and satisfaction scores I’m convinced there is a link in concentrating on the big ticket items.

But as sure as day follows night the requests to deliver other work on top of Covid will return, if they haven’t already.

“I know you’re busy but…” requests will return to the (Zoom) meeting rooms of comms teams across the UK.

But fear not – a tiny bit of help is at hand…

Now you may have one already but if you don’t a business case asking services to request and set out why their request is an organisational must

Of course it may not make you very popular with everyone internally but you’re the ones pulling 60 hours weeks. You have your mental health and wellbeing to consider here, and we know Covid isn’t going away anytime soon. So, being proactive here is sensible way of managing the risk whilst also allowing you more space to deliver the truly important work.

The business case will ask your colleagues to set out how, why and where their request is an organisational priority, along with other key pieces of insight and rationale.

I’ve tested it with 20+ comms pros and it’s met with their approval so hopefully it may work for you too.

So, download this new business case template, put your own logo on it, and get your senior leadership team to sign off on this new approach.

An innocuous little Word document might just save you a lot of non-priority demand, meetings, emails and activity. And that has to be worth a try.