14 WEEKS. 14 WEEKS!

I was doing a little bit of prep for the latest Comms Unplugged podcast recently. It’s amazing what can emerge when you have time and space to let your mind take a little wander.

by Darren Caveney

It was during this quality thinking time that I got to thinking about the number of extra hours your average comms person worked during 2020.

So I crunched a few numbers.

We can assume that most full time in-house comms people are contracted for 37 hour weeks.

Most will work more than this, in reality.

But in a Covid year?

Based on the many comms teams and individuals I know and have spoken with we can conservatively say that they were averaging 50 hours a week in 2020.

Before you throw rotten fruit and your unwanted leftover coconut Quality Street my way, I know many of you have exceeded that figure. I regularly heard reports of 60-70 hour weeks.

Even on days off for leave many still logged into team calls, gold commands, leadership briefings and the like. I’ve also heard of people saying it’s not worth taking leave – because there’s not a lot to do and they will have to call into meetings and check their emails anyway.

But we’ll stick with 50 hours per weeks as a conservative and realistic average - that’s an additional 13 hours of work per week.

If we work back from Lockdown 1 until the end of 2020 that’s 40 weeks.

40 weeks x 13 hours = 520 hours.

Which equates to 14 weeks.

Which is over a quarter of a year.

That’s how much extra work you likely did in 2020.

So if you were feeling worn out at any point there are your 520 reasons why.

What’s my point?

Well the way 2021 is shaping up it’ll be no different for most comms people.

We can expect more of the same.

What can we do to counter this?

I’ve talked before about having a mental health and wellbeing checklist for comms teams. That’s easy to suggest, of course, but sometimes harder to achieve. And it’s easy to slip out of good habits and into poorer ones. We all do it.

So, we need to carry on working towards getting a better balance as we navigate Lockdown 3, however long this one will last.

But I do also think that these hours should be being reported. By which I mean in your monthly reports which get circulated internally.

Not in a showy ‘look at me’ way. But to keep on reminding people of the invaluable work and very long hours which are still being put in. Because people do forget, or never noticed in the first place.

Across your team – whether you’re a team of two or a team of 15 – this is highly significant extra work, pressure, stress and deliverables each week and month.

Comms doesn’t have an exclusive cartel on this, of course, but I am convinced that as a profession we do work longer hours than most of the other professional services in our organisations.

Is that your experience too?

So report back these figures each month and then when you turn down those lunchtime meeting requests (and you 100% should) you can remind people that you worked an extra quarter of a year last year as it is.

And that your lunchtime stroll is the most important part of your working day.

So there.

Darren Caveney is creator of comms2point0 and owner of specialist consultancy Creative Communicators Ltd

Image via SADSM Archives

BE FIERCE - WHAT OLIVER REED AND AXL ROSE TEACH US ABOUT BEING BRAVE

As good friends for years, the late, great Oliver Reed often liked to invite the equally late, great Keith Moon over for afternoon drinkypoos at his sprawling country estate. 

by Richard Elwell

In keeping with rock god status, Moon liked to travel by helicopter to Reed's imposingly grand Broome Hall. He'd land on the quad to be welcomed by the first of many lead crystal clad large ones (one would need to line their stomach ahead of drinks with those pair).

On hearing the approaching rotors, Reed would excitedly bound outside, raise his shotgun to the skies and attempt to rattle his airborne mucka by taking pot shots at the incoming craft as the downdraft blasted the heaps of rhododendron. 

'I'm shooting at the moon' boomed the celebrated film star as high velocity ball bearings buzzed the tail rotor and fuselage. Reed thought all this absolutely hilarious (he also once climbed the chimney of his local naked pretending to be Santa and got barred). Astonishingly, no actors or rock stars were harmed during this jovial discharge of lethal weaponry.

Perhaps that's what Reed meant when he mentioned having a few shots round at his.

From great actors to great bands.

At the height of Guns & Roses implosion with band members in court and millions of dollars in dispute, it's said that Axl Rose attempted to buy his own army. 

Yep, an army.

Growing ever more eccentric by the day and disillusioned by his band's demise, Axl's 'people' apparently rang several departments of defence around the world asking if they'd consider offloading a battalion or two - maybe chucking in a bit of artillery with the deal too. 

They'd be well paid and well equipped. A penchant for Rock & Roll was considered more important than fitness or stamina. General Rose needs you. Apply here.

Quite what Axl and his Defence Secretary elect planned to do with an army if they were successful in their bidding still remains unknown to this day.

Bigger Guns but same sized Roses. You can have that one. 

Truth is, the world needs the likes of Oli' and Axl. People talk of disruption nowadays because they tweaked a logo or sponsored a whole break instead of running the obligatory 30'.

That's just playing at it. After such a shitty year, agencies, brands and organisations should make a noise like never before in 2021. Do something that becomes folklore. Be famous. 

So, aim high and you can win the battle AND the war - but don't wait for others to pick up sticks. 

Richard Elwell is owner and creative partner at One Black Bear

Image via Silver Screen

WHY ENGAGING WITH YOUNG PEOPLE IS NO LONGER NEEDED BUT NECESSARY

We all felt the challenge of 2020 but for children and young people, last year could mark a generation.

by Rebecca Roberts

It’s always hard to picture your younger years through any perspective other than the one you experienced. It’s what makes speaking with youth audiences a tricky balance of effective audience engagement, ignoring pre-conceived assumptions on “young people today” and the avoidance of parent-dancing (perhaps dad-dancing should be replaced with ‘parent TikToks’ now…)

But whilst many of us want to improve our youth engagement within our work, when it comes to youth audiences it’s the default to ‘tell’ them, group them into a massive audience bracket and hope that some young people checking work will help us achieve a better tone. If anything can be learnt from the messaging to youth audiences during the pandemic it’s that this categorically does not empower young people or influence their behaviour.

Whilst many predicted the exponential impact on young people of stopping then restricting their normal school lives, limiting how they experienced further and higher education, shifting their social environment and then blaming them frequently in the media, COVID-19 has had a very real and widespread impact on every aspect of their lives and future prospects.

Lockdown Life of Young People 2020 – is a paper I’ve just put out drawing on some of the key data being shared about children and young people in the UK. What lockdown meant, the impact on their mental, emotional and physical wellbeing, the widening educational gap and undeniable social inequality that underpins all of this, plus some of the media habits as a result of learning at home and being cut off from wider friends and family.

As one guest on the Hear It Podcast told me recently – we know that young people find it a lot harder than adults to process living life in such a restricted way. They’re returning to school less active and with wider rates of mental health issues. And let’s not even start on how bleak the future economy may look to a graduate hoping to get a job, because youth unemployment rates are the highest they’ve ever been and graduate schemes were some of the first to be trimmed by large companies.

Some of the data coming out on how youth audiences see their future was some of the hardest to read doing this paper. Large proportions of young people are lowering their aspirations and expectations in life because of the pandemic. And younger children have been hardest hit in terms of their overall development at school, often regressing and struggling to cope.

Whilst the data highlights how bleak much of this picture looks, it’s something that is important to be conscious of as we pave a way to broader our conversation with younger audiences, in whatever aspect of our work. Not least due to the changing habits and ways in which their ecosystem has changed, some of which showing immense opportunity and shifts in expectations.

comms2point0 and Thread & Fable’s Youth Matters Workshop has had a refresh for 2021 - we’re really excited to have come up with a three-part virtual programme.

We’ll equip you with the tools, insights and practice needed to better engage young people within your work.

Sound useful? You can book your place HERE.

We’re offering reduced price tickets for public, third, charity and voluntary sector people.

Looking forward to seeing some of you there.

Rebecca Roberts is founder of Thread & Fable. You can say hello on Twitter at @rebecca7roberts

Image via Archivo Historico Sinaloa