The two-day forum ‘Strategic Communication for Professional Services’ that I attended in Sydney this week (May 19/20) provided a lot of food for thought for those PR Directors and Managers who could afford the time to get there. Above all it showed that this specialised area of PR and corporate communication, long regarded as not that interesting, is growing in its sophistication.
Run by Ark Group the forum had a dozen formal presentations from leading professional service firms and groups such as Allens Arthur Robinson, Deloitte, CPA Australia, Maddocks, Mercer, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Henry Davis York.
As well there were fascinating insights into how other professional service firms are handling their corporate PR and communications with two firms – Woods Bagot a global architectural firm based out of Adelaide and Cardno a Brisbane-based firm with 100 offices worldwide delivering a diverse range of infrastructure services – giving excellent case studies as to how they re-organised (and re-energised!) their internal communications.
I took three major themes from the forum:
1. PR and communication, while growing as a management or corporate support function within professional service firms, is still struggling to the recognition it deserves for the contribution its makes to the businesses.
2. A big focus for the PR and communication expert inside professional service firms is still internal communications. It’s the foundation from which everything else flows. It’s a ‘must get right’ proposition.
3. Professional service firms are more progressive in their adoption of new media channels that many might think. Some are doing some innovative work in the use of technology and social media channels to communicate both internally and externally.
On the social media front it was clear from Louise Denver, Director Corporate Affairs and Communciation at Deloitte that this firm is pushing the social media boundaries as far, if not further, than most in the professional service firms in Australia.
Importantly they are using social media as much for listening as for communicating!
Katie Reid, National Communications Manager for PricewaterhouseCoopers, as part of her presentation gave her guidelines for getting buy-in for PR and communication projects.
Her fundamentals to influencing partners were:
1) Don’t forget the numbers
2) Acknowledge the true issues
3) Include input from other leaders
4) Demonstrate understanding of the market
5) Always align with the firm’s strategy
6) Provide a practical solution
Not surprisingly considerable insight was given to how some of Australia’s largest professional service firms coped through the GFC and how they handled their corporate PR and communication during those challenging times.
So what was the most courageous PR or communication effort that came out during the two days?
It went to Deloitte. They ran an online internal program encouraging their 4000+ Australian staff to tell management “the dumbest things we do”. Run over just two weeks it resulted in 390 blogs, 500 comments and over 41,000 hits. And contrary to initial management fears of its being seen as negative because of the way it was handled it ended up being positive. Most importantly it led to some real streamlining of systems and procedures and better client service.
PricewaterhouseCoopers also deserve credit for producing an Annual Review that is more outward looking and transparent than many would expect from the country’s largest accounting firm. It even goes so far as to publish internal PWC employee morale statistics for the world to see!
What I found really interesting was the really great stuff being done by these professionals in internal communications. That’s not my area of expertise . I’m strictly an external communicator, so it was enlightening to see the other side of the fence.
As I said in previous blog those who work in PR and communication within this sector have a tough job. But if the Ark Group conference did anything it surely gave those present confidence that the corporate PR and communications function within Australian professional service firms is coming of age. The challenge for those working within it is to promote themselves, and their work, a little better to their bosses!
|
|
|
|
|
 |
