Dummies Guide to Hiring for Corporate Communications Roles

(Preface: In the evening on May 5, 2018, I posted a small query/observation/a-tongue-in-cheek-statement-of-disbelief on LinkedIn. Within the next 24 hours, nearly 30,000 people had viewed it, with a few leaving interesting comments. Looking at the composition of those viewing and reacting to the post, I felt the issue was important to many and spent the rest of evening writing down this article - for whatever it is worth. Happy reading!)

If you think you are clever (and worse, know it), this essay is not for you. You can continue to make your headlines. For the rest of the normal people (or should I say, the new normal people?) who would not want to sit in judgment on things without having (read and) understood the perspectives first, here is an attempt to squeeze three decades of experience in a capsule.

Why Corporate Communications

First up, some reality. Most organizations view the corporate communications function as a source of low cost publicity. And for good reason too. Marketing has its costs and reaching out to the maximum number of potential customers/clients is directly linked to your marketing spend. So there is no harm if you want to get a few more eyeballs using low cost communications resources.

The problem arises when you forget the needs of the media you want to use to send out your corporate messages. There are many reasons as to why several people in the top management and in the HR function may develop such amnesia.

More often than not, these worthies only focus on earned media and ignore the power of owned and paid media. If you are coming across this concept for the first time, it might do well to remember that your website and scores of other internal communication opportunities represent the owned media, while advertorials and advertising (or marketing) constitute paid media. Earned media refers to whatever third party exposure you receive without having to pay for it.

When earned media is the only focus, you churn out press releases (now also video releases) to share your corporate news with all kinds of media outlets. What you define as news, however, may not always be seen as news by the recipient of your press release. But all that in another article, another time.

Just remember that media can also get tired of your 'news', especially if you are repackaging. To see things in perspective, simply compare your organization's contribution to the industry and, at a larger scale, to the country's GDP. If you play internationally… you get the drift.

Now, see how much of total media reporting (print, electronic and web-based) space and time is dedicated to your industry segment. Then compare your organization's total share in this universe to the overall media space and time devoted to your industry. Such analysis can be highly sobering for those who have unrealistic ‘media exposure’ expectations from their communication teams. Yes, you can be in the media all the time, for all the wrong reasons. But none I know wants to consciously attract such attention.

How do you then define your communication needs?

Define the outcomes you expect from your communications team. Do you want to regularly communicate with your employees? Instill a strong sense of pride and loyalty in your employees? Do you want to get someone to keep your website and intranet up to date? Get some help with some writing? Do you want your communications team to produce fantastic marketing and product collateral? Do you want someone to prepare your speeches? Engage employees through internal functions / initiatives / get-together opportunities? Recognize your employees? Train your senior management in the art of communication? Improve linguistic ability of your senior management? Be seen at various industry forums as a thought leader? Pitch in for awards? Make films? Run magazines? Write whitepapers? Prepare and send out Press Releases? Get media interviews, print and electronic? Participate in media stories? Be known as a leader of integrity? Have ambitious plans to grow 10-fold in 5-10 years? Ensure IPR protection? Ensure legal compliance with regulatory authorities? Track your competition? Do some serious CSR work and be known for it? Do pre-IPO publicity? Seamlessly manage major change? Or, all of it!

At what point in your business' journey of growth do you start hiring communicators? How do you budget for your communication initiatives?

Frankly, if you are the Owner or the CEO, you want every one of those outcomes from your communications team at some stage. Let me also suggest an arbitrary (not too arbitrary actually) figure for what you should spend and a timeline when you should start investing in the communications role in the Indian context. (There are several research findings by organizations such as the Corporate Executive Board and McKinsey’s but more about this too in another article)

For budgeting, use the thumb rule of spending a third of what you would spend on marketing your product or service, as long as you are spending around 10% of your turnover on marketing (Which seems to be the market standard). Say, you have a turnover of Rs 100-crore and you are spending around 10-crore on marketing activities (includes advertising, salaries of marketing staff, customer and distributor schemes, related travels, collateral, etc), you should be factoring in 3-3.5-crore for your communications needs.

You can then go back to the list above and see what you can realistically achieve for those kind of resources in your kitty and draw up a communication plan accordingly. As organizations grow bigger and bigger, these figures get calibrated in tune with your new marketing spends. These budgets increase slightly in absolute terms over the years but significantly come down by way of percentage points.

What types of roles in communication are you required to play? It is not about rocket science; it is about money, Mr CEO!

According to a Harvard study, as the owner / CEO of your organization, you spend more than 50% of your time communicating any which way. You obviously know what is best for your organization and you are in its main communications role in the early stages of growth. As is rightly believed, the managerial (material) aspects of the communications role do not require specialization, so long as you have a fair amount of language skills, have decent business exposure, are willing to learn from experts and have some patience for trial and error. There are far too many agencies and freelancers who can also provide value for money.

But when it comes to strategic and advisory roles, you need experts to manage these. These roles require deep level business exposure, expertise in communication psychology, understanding of social nuances and political realities, deep knowledge of branding and advertising, and the works. I have seen several outstanding professionals from top institutions such as IITs and IIMs struggling, and sometimes lagging in growth just because they have assumed for themselves such roles in addition to other key roles at the helm of their organizations.

Can’t they quickly learn about these roles when they are so brilliant? Yes, of course, they can. If they are willing to devote a couple of years to full time study of these roles, they can certainly master them. The question is, do they want to become communicators and devote, post-learning, a lot of time managing junior level communicators to save money, or would they want to focus on growing their business?

It is all about money. The people cited in the examples above are not willing to spend on communications roles, and to that extent, they are still not ready for entertaining communications roles in their organizations. Just because communicators partly operate in a nebulous zone, you cannot get topnotch talent by paying peanuts. They are as good as any other HR Head or Marketing Head you are willing to pay for – and in fact, often times better than them because of their multi-faceted exposure.

Who do you hire and for what?

If you have carefully read the paragraphs above, it is should be easy. May be you just need a good writer to begin with? May be you need a youngster proficient in Social Media to carry out your messages? May be you need a mid-level manager to take care of multiple things. If you are clear about the role, you will have a better chance of getting the right fit. And yes, always pay a little extra to your writers. This breed is quickly vanishing and saving them is important for your own image. (Very difficult to find flawless use of language these days!)

Be careful about giving them fancy designations though, unless their exposure and market norms dictate so. The problem with fancy designations is that both the occupant of the position and everyone else can see through them. Being conservative about designations does not hurt anyone except the vain. In fact, big designations combined with useless roles can leave a bad impression on your organization’s external stakeholders. You never want to overhear, “Oh that organization from where a kid came, claiming to be the Head of Communications, or something!” You are using a communications role to enhance your image, not downgrade it.

How do you go about your hiring process?

No matter how hard you try, getting top talent in this field means spending good money. You can always cut corners, get ordinary people to manage your communications function and you will survive. Even grow as before.

For the ‘thrive mindset' CEO/Owner who wants to hire a seasoned professional to act as an extra set of eyes for him/her, my earnest advice is to go to seasoned recruiters and headhunters. Don’t cringe on their fee. They are also shrewd HR professionals, and free from the biases of your internal HR team. Remember, there might be times when your Head of Communication and Head of HR do not see eye-to-eye on certain issues. You can always play the arbiter in such cases, because you know what is best for your organization. However, some thinkers support the idea of hiring a Head of Communications through external agencies, especially if an organization is hiring him or her in a top advisory role.