Research shows state of IC in professional services

At Gatehouse we recently undertook some basic research to look at the state of internal comms within the professional services sector, a world that remains close to our hearts as former senior communicators from one of the Big 4 accountancy firms.

Undertaken in conjunction the Managing Partners' Forum, the members' association for professional services leaders, and award-winning print and digital publishing agency, Summersault, the State of the Sector research set out to investigate how professional services firms are communicating with and engaging their people during these turbulent times.

With responses from more than 50 individual firms in the UK and overseas, the findings provide some useful benchmark data, showing what channels and tactics are currently being deployed, how well employees are thought to understand key strategic topics, how internal communication is resourced and what issues and challenges practitioners are facing.

Key findings at a glance

The survey was structured around four key themes - channels, content, infrastructure and issues. Channels concerns the 'how' of internal communication and looks at the print and electronic tools firms use to communicate with their people, as well as exploring their use of face-to-face methods. Content looks at the 'what' of communication - the messages firms are trying to convey to their employees and the aims and objectives of their formal communications. Infrastructure reviewed the structuring and resourcing of internal communications, whilst issues sought to highlight the current and future challenges firms are facing.

1. Channels - how firms communicate

State of the Sector 2009 underlined that face-to-face remains the dominant form of communication used within the professional services sector, with most firms deploying a healthy mix of team, departmental and all-employee forums.

This is good news. Face-to-face communication is the single most powerful way to engage employees at all levels - as long as the meetings are focused on the right topics, facilitated in the right way and involve the right people. Our research did not probe deeply into these issues, but my sense is that although most firms are committing a huge amount of time to face-to-face communication, many of them are not making the most of this critical channel. In part because of their partnership and matrix-based structure, professional services firms suffer more than others from having line managers and leaders who are not always on the same page.

On the digital front, central emails are still being used by the vast majority (92%) to convey messages to employees. How effective these emails are, however, is questionable, with many employees now choosing to cope with email overload by ignoring anything but the most obviously relevant or critically important. More sophisticated use of the intranet as a news channel, together with regular 'push' emails can be found inside most of the large firms.

When it comes to new and emerging digital channels, some firms have been faster than others to catch on, with 20% of respondents claiming to be using blogs, and 18% currently podcasting. There was little evidence of other social media channels, such as wikis, being used internally, though this may be down to terminology - not all wikis are labelled or known as wikis!

Although face-to-face and electronic channels dominate the internal landscape in 2009, it appears print is still favoured by many firms. Internal memos and posters are used by the majority of respondent firms, with newsletters and magazines utilised by upwards of a third.

2. Content - what firms communicate

When it comes to employee understanding of key strategic topics, the research found that appreciation of the firm's mission and vision and corporate strategy were rated positively for over half the firms surveyed. A worrying 50% of respondents felt employee understanding of corporate strategy was at best average or poor, whilst a similar number (41%) rated understanding of the short-term business plan as average or poor. Without a clear sense of direction and purpose and an understanding of immediate business priorities, there is a risk that employees will lack perspective and be unable to make the connection between their day-to-day actions and the success of their team and wider organisation. The good news is that respondents were rather more confident about organisational values, with an impressive 70% of firms rating employee understanding in this area highly.

When it comes to listening to employees, it was the traditional channels that dominated once again - one-to-ones with a manager, team meetings and email were named by the vast majority of firms. The annual employee survey also scored highly. Purpose built feedback channels, like incorporating an 'ask the boss' feature on the intranet - were also utilized by around a quarter of firms.

When asked whether firms have specific programs targeting partners, a sizable 42% said they do not. This is a potentially big miss and suggests that many firms are adopting a 'one size fits all' approach to internal communication and, as a result, may be failing to equip this vitally important leadership group with the information they need to communicate, manage and lead teams effectively and consistently.

3. Infrastructure - how firms resource internal communications

The story here is mixed, as we find in many sectors. Some firms - particularly the larger international operations - are investing heavily in engaging their people, building sizable teams of communication professionals and allocating significant budgets, while others have few strategic channels in place and rely largely 'enthusiastic amateurs' to make things happen.

The research highlighted that just over half (55%) of the firms surveyed have no dedicated internal communication professional in place. Further, a third of respondents say they have not earmarked a dedicated budget for internal communication. These tend to be the smaller practices, but this is not always the case.

More worrying, however, is that fact that nearly 40% of firms surveyed did not have a documented IC strategy in place, suggesting that communication may be unplanned and, potentially, haphazard. This applies to firms of all shapes and sizes.

For those organisations that do have a dedicated function, there is little consensus about where best to house the IC function with marketing (30%), the office of the Managing Partner, CEO or equivalent (26%) and corporate communication/PR (18%) being the most popular choices. Only 6% of respondents currently locate internal communication within the HR function, which is unusual given firms' increasing focus on employee engagement.

Budgets also varied widely. A third of those we surveyed have no budget allocated to internal communication, with a similar number (27%) allocating less than £10,000. At the other extreme, a lucky 8% of firms have a budget of between £50,000 and £500,000.

4.Issues & challenges

Finally, when asked where they will be focusing their time and resources over the next 12 months, three areas leapt out of the survey results - leadership communication (70%), improving face-to-face communication (64%) and improving electronic channels (60%). These three challenges are not unique to professional services and are areas many complex organizations will be grappling with as they begin to re-engage their people and prepare for recovery.

If you're a communicator or leader working in professional services please contact me by email (lee.smith@gatehousegroup.co.uk) for a copy of the full research report.

Lee Smith on Sep 7 2009

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