COMMUNICATIONS
The top five issues that government communicators face
From an outside and inside perspective, we have compiled the top five challenges that government communicators face daily in their work lives.
The Approvals Process
One of the biggest issues that government communicators have is that once they prepare messaging for a particular program or initiative, the messages are altered by subject matter specialists in the program areas often rendering the messages ineffective. In some departments, the altered messaging is forwarded to senior officials and on to Deputy Ministers and then to Ministers’ offices without further scrutiny by the communications professionals. Little wonder there is a lack of confidence in messages prepared by the bureaucracy at the political level. The solution is to have all messaging approved by Communications before it goes beyond the program area.
Tighter Budgets
In the wake of the 2009 economic meltdown, the government is now in deficit mode. There is increased pressure to deliver more for less. To stave off deep cuts, government communications shops must regularly demonstrate their worth. If you aren’t already publishing your performance measurements internally, get started quickly. Assess your performance against planned targets. If you don’t know where to start, hire a consultant or book some time with the department’s financial analysts to find out what to count.
Keeping Talent
As in the private sector, the Government of Canada is hungry for experienced professional, bilingual communicators. Finding communications professionals that have the necessary education, experience, energy, languages and other skills is a perennial problem for all employers. Keeping talented people is quite another challenge. While some headway has been made in terms of the Public Service staffing process, an investment in professional development – through in-service training and/or participation in a professional association – goes a long way to showing an employee their contributions are truly valued and you want them to stick around.
Transferring Knowledge
While a number of departments and agencies have good plans on paper to facilitate knowledge transfer from one generation to the next, veteran talent is often lured away by higher salaries or early retirement before they can pass on the valuable intelligence they possess. The organizations that succeed in transferring knowledge make it an ongoing process rather than a one-time exercise. They welcome student interns, invest in orientation and career planning, and make professional development and training integral parts of the organization’s business plan.
Official Languages
The Commissioner of Official Languages regularly reports on bilingualism in the Public Service. Apart from a few pockets of the country and a few agencies, by and large, Canadians are well served by government in the language of their choice. The government has a duty to write and prepare clear, concise and grammatically correct French and English language materials. Engaging professional proofreaders and editors is becoming increasingly important, as is establishing ongoing relationships with translators, speechwriters and other communication professionals who regularly work in both official languages.
Martin Leroux is a Senior Consultant with Delta Media and an expert media analyst.
martin@deltamedia.ca
