Correction & Refocus

With a blend of economic fragility, blanketed by the emergence from the global pandemic, we're now witnessing a stabilisation effect of current communication and corporate affairs functions, that is limiting the number of career opportunities available in the current market. ?

As Executive Director of The Making Corporation, one of my primary roles is to not only appoint the very best talent, but it's to intimately understand and provide insights to clients and candidates alike, regarding the market, projections and how to best tackle and navigate the changing landscape.

It's no secret that global inflation and COVID is having an impact on the market, as we see it today.

What's been evident, is a correction of resources and a refocus. Through the pandemic, and for good reason, we saw an over-indexed allocation of communications resources acquired or redirected, to face inwardly to drive engagement, culture, connectivity, purpose, and general wellbeing.

With this, we saw generalist and external communications practitioners (including some from marcomms) shift their focus to drive internal communications, and in some cases, it became a means of retaining personnel. With this climate, we also witnessed organisations that weren't equipped, bolster and resource their internal engagement function to bring the critical value of communications and corporate affairs, as we know it.

Now, as we've emerged from the last three years, communications and corporate affairs is at the intersection of a short-term correction combined with economic conservatism.??

What we’ve seen……

• Shift from an inwardly facing bias, back to a generalist approach, with a stronger lens to drive, enhance and protect brand and reputation through external communications.
• More heavily resourced internal communications have now corrected in size, and whilst redundancies haven’t been a feature, in many cases it’s been a case of not replacing departed resources.
• Economic instability has affected business confidence and bred a more conservative approach to resourcing which has increased demand for organisations to outsource scopes of work or projects to consultancies, rather than to hire.? This not only provides organisations with flexibility, but allows priorities to be delivered by experts without long-term impact to ‘headcount’ or budgets.
• Lower appetite for risk on both a client and candidate side, whether it be hiring resources or from a candidate perspective. Individuals are becoming increasingly hesitant to make a career move in the quest of maintaining financial security, fear of the unknown and a growing comfort of their current work / life structure.

Whilst we’re currently experiencing a challenging market, this will be short-term.? Have comfort there are opportunities out there but just not in the volume we’ve experienced in recent years. ?Importantly, it’s about knowing where to look, maximising your network, and thinking outside the box.

It’s during times like this the importance of being part of the conversation is paramount, and there are a myriad of ways you can do this.

For a confidential chat or to simply reconnect, please feel free to get in touch with me at The Making Corporation E: [email protected]? M: +61 400 713 743 or through LinkedIn.

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