Most dircoms recognise that their role is becoming more important.
The Spanish business community has taken note of the crisis and is making an effort to adapt to the new political, economic and social scenario, but “companies have to speed up the changes if they do not want to be left behind”. This is the opinion of 75% of the communication directors consulted in the third wave of the Pulse Dircom EY Insights & Harmon, to which DIRCOMFIDENCIAL has had access.
According to the conclusions of this report, dircoms identify three main factors of change for organisations in the short term: changes in the working environment, rising prices and political instability.
Regarding the role of the dircom and corporate communications departments in Spanish companies, the provisional results of the survey organised by the consultancy firms EY and Harmon offer an optimistic and confident view of the function. Thus, up to 75% say that, in the last two years, the activity of their department in the relationship with the different stakeholders has increased due to the pandemic crises or the war in Ukraine.
Closer to the CEO
In this regard, 67% say that their role in the company “is more relevant because communication has become more important” and that, reflecting this trend, their role has changed and they are now “closer to the CEO and senior management”. In the same vein, 58% of dircoms surveyed believe that their role will be “increasingly relevant” in matters essential to sustainability, such as reputation, risks, intangibles and dialogue with stakeholders (compared to 25% who believe that the role will be the same in sustainability, and 17% who believe that the role of the dircom in this field will diminish).
These are the preliminary data from the third wave of the survey, recently presented by the authors to the working and reflection group in preparation for the final report at the end of the year. The specialists from EY Insights and Harmon conclude that the scope of activity of the corporate communications manager is growing, that his or her sphere of influence is expanding and that his or her role is increasingly closer to the CEO and senior management.
“In the current context, corporate communications managers must move from being mere scriptwriters of the storytelling to acting as producers of the storydoing of the companies in which they work,” said Goyo Panadero, Brand, Marketing & Communications director at EY, during the working group’s discussion and reflection session, held last week at Harmon’s offices.
“In the economy of intangibles, companies face the life and death challenge of knowing how to connect with the transformations that are taking place in society and, for that, the role of the communications director must evolve to be the loudspeaker of corporate issues such as reputation, sustainability, values and influence,” said Eduardo Madina, Strategy partner at Harmon.
“Corporate communication managers must move from being mere scriptwriters of storytelling to acting as producers of storydoing.
In this edition of the survey, which is based on a regular survey of a population of more than 300 relevant and representative dircoms from all sectors of activity, the authors sought opinions on mental health. Almost 80% of the dircoms say that “mental health is not talked about much” and that it is “a taboo subject” that should be more relevant in companies. Thus, 72% say that more attention needs to be paid to this issue. However, when it comes to taking action, only 28% say that specific measures are already being discussed or adopted, while 38% say that “we are reflecting” and 27% recognise that “it is not a priority issue” in their organisations.
