You need to prove PR’s worth in order to influence the board, says VMA Group’s Julia Meighan

There is a “more-for-less” culture pervading through communications departments, as highlighted in our recent Business Leaders in Communications Survey 2012 and in PRmoment's recent article covering its findings. Being a communications director has always been a challenging role, but it is fast turning into a job facing extreme pressures, especially given the 24/7 demands of social media and the make-or-break role this has on a company’s reputation. With so many demands and with budgets being squeezed, you may think it is harder for comms directors to get results.

But not in the opinion of James Evans, group communications director at Shop Direct, the UK’s largest online and home shopping retailer. He says: “Less financial resource does not necessarily mean less impact: you just have to find different ways of doing things. This is where social media has really come into its own. As long as it is done well and for the right reasons, it enables you to achieve more for less.”

Having worked in this industry for over 30 years, two things are certain: communicators are a positive bunch and know how to adapt. However, in times of restraint a board still needs to make a profit and if it can’t do that through business growth it will do it by cost control. This means the only way for communications directors to get a bigger slice of the pie, or at least keep their current slice, is to demonstrate their worth.

I agree with Dominic Cheetham, director of corporate communications at services company Serco, when he says that the current climate has actually created an opportunity for communicators: “The increasingly complex world in which we live means it is harder to manage reputation. This has resulted in senior management becoming more aware of the value reputation has on opening up new markets, creating sales and attracting capital.”

However, it’s not an automatic rite of passage for communicators. If senior management is to invest in communications, they must understand its impact on the bottom line. This involves communicators taking the initiative and sitting at the board table with evidence that underpins the board’s investment in communications and strong business cases for new initiatives, all presented in commercial language they understand.

Although PR does enjoy some influence at board level, the relationship between the corporate communications director and the CEO is a complex and challenging one; with over a third of respondents to our survey saying advising the board/CEO was one of their most important roles, but fewer than half reporting any major influence on board level strategic decision-making. This needs to change.

We know that reputation management consistently features highly as a top priority for CEOs and as social media is one of the biggest challenges to managing reputation, it strikes me that this challenge is a golden opportunity to facilitate strategic co-operation and understanding at the most senior levels.

I can see a place for “reverse mentoring” at board level, whereby key directors are mentored by social media savvy corporate communicators who can show them how to harness insightful stakeholder opinion and inform strategic thinking through social media.

Another increasingly important challenge facing communications directors is the need for greater employee engagement strategies. Boards are well-tuned into the impact of ill-informed staff and high staff turnover and want to engender greater productivity and commitment through their internal communications.

Internal communications has gone way beyond managing the intranet, as evidenced by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Bernard Hogan Howe’s powerful internal communication response to allegations of racial abuse by his officers, which led many news bulletins. The lines are blurring and the skills needed to thrive in PR are changing.

There is now a shift in demand from more traditional PR generalists to specialist social media and strategic roles, but where recruiting isn’t an option, savvy communications directors need to train up their teams and redeploy. In today’s complex and changing communications landscape, austere times offer no excuse for delivering less.