Evolution, Revolution or Adaptation is focused on the trends and developments in the communications profession in Belgium and the Netherlands. It is based on the responses of 100 in-house communications leaders in those countries who told us what their day-to-day looks like and the challenges they face.
Transparency, consistency, alignment, new technologies, leadership, trust, proactiveness, agile working, financial communications, M&A, CEO change, big data, employer branding and market communications -no-one can say the job of a Communications Director is getting less complicated!
The key conclusions from the report are:
Despite the best of intentions, day-to-day activities in constantly changing structures make it difficult to develop the proactiveness required for effective leadership.
Safeguarding brand authenticity and leadership transparency are still challenges, and as such, the evolution from trusted advisor to transformation leader, and from reputation manager to change driver is still work in progress.
The level of involvement in defining business strategy can still be improved.
The changing dynamic in today's workplace, including more agile and remote working, calls for much greater internal engagement and a strong employer brand. There is a clear need to close the gap between an organisation's stated values and the reality of day-to-day.
There is a clear call for the development of new team skills to handle the changing requirements of the function and/or the hiring of additional staff to bring these new skills into the organisation.
