Author: Jesper Andersen

  • State of the Global Workplace 2024 by Gallup

    State of the Global Workplace 2024 by Gallup

    About the paper

    The report examines the state of employee engagement, wellbeing and mental health worldwide, and argues that work quality, labour conditions and especially management quality shape both employee wellbeing and organisational performance.

    It is a mixed-methods report based primarily on Gallup World Poll survey data, supplemented by follow-up interviews with employees and a secondary Labour Rights Index; the 2023 dataset includes 128,278 employed respondents aged 15+ and the long-run trend dataset covers 2,336,570 employed respondents from 2009–2023, with global polling spanning more than 160 countries and areas.

    Length: 152 pages

    More information / download:
    https://www.scribd.com/document/758783089/state-of-the-global-workplace-2024-download

    Core Insights

    1. What is the report’s central argument about the relationship between work and employee wellbeing?

    The report’s central argument is that work is not just an economic activity but a major driver of people’s daily emotional health and overall life evaluation. Gallup frames the workplace as a key site where mental health can either worsen or improve, depending on the quality of employees’ experiences, especially their level of engagement and the way they are managed. The report explicitly links low engagement to weak wellbeing and estimates that low employee engagement costs the global economy US$8.9 trillion, equal to 9% of global GDP.

    A core idea running through the report is that poor work experiences spill into life outside work. Employees who dislike their jobs are described as having high levels of daily stress and worry, and in several cases their emotional profile is as bad as, or worse than, that of unemployed people. By contrast, employees who are engaged at work are much more likely to enjoy their daily lives and to be thriving overall. The report therefore treats employee engagement not as a soft HR metric, but as a serious indicator of human and organisational health.

    2. What does the report show about the global state of employee mental health and engagement in 2023?

    The report presents a mixed picture. Global employee engagement stalled in 2023 at 23%, while overall wellbeing declined slightly from 35% to 34% thriving. At the same time, 41% of employees reported experiencing a lot of stress the previous day, 22% sadness, 21% anger and 20% loneliness. These figures support Gallup’s broader claim that most of the world’s employees are still struggling at work and in life, even if some long-term indicators remain near record highs.

    Two patterns stand out particularly strongly. First, loneliness is a major issue: one in five employees globally report daily loneliness, and this rises to 25% among fully remote workers, compared with 16% among fully on-site workers. Second, younger workers appear to be losing ground. The drop in wellbeing in 2023 was concentrated among employees under 35, which the report treats as a significant warning sign for leaders.

    The report also shows that engagement sharply differentiates employee experience. The chart on page 8 shows that 54% of actively disengaged employees report stress, compared with 34% of engaged employees, while 50% of engaged employees are thriving versus only 17% of actively disengaged employees. That is one of the report’s clearest empirical messages: the emotional gap between engaged and disengaged employees is large and consequential.

    3. How do economics, labour protections and job-market conditions influence employee wellbeing?

    Gallup argues that employee wellbeing is shaped not only by immediate workplace experience but also by broader structural conditions. One of the clearest findings is that countries where people believe it is a good time to find a job tend to have lower active disengagement. The report interprets this to mean that workers in healthier job markets have more freedom to leave bad employment situations, whereas those in weak labour markets may feel trapped in jobs they dislike. Importantly, Gallup says this relationship is stronger for active disengagement than for engagement: better economic conditions may reduce bitterness, but they do not automatically create inspiration.

    The report also introduces the Labour Rights Index, which tracks the presence or absence of 46 labour-related statutes across 135 countries. It finds that stronger labour protections are positively associated with better present life evaluation, especially in areas such as maternity protections, fair wages, social security, employment security, fair treatment and safety. However, Gallup is careful to note that the index measures the existence of laws, not their enforcement, and that these relationships are analysed while controlling for income and demographic variables.

    At the same time, Gallup does not present labour protections as a substitute for engagement. Instead, it argues that the strongest emotional outcomes appear when supportive policy environments and engaged work experiences coincide. On page 15, the table shows that engaged employees in countries in the upper half of the Labour Rights Index report lower stress, sadness, loneliness, anger and worry than comparable employees in lower-protection settings. This supports one of the report’s more nuanced conclusions: labour law and engagement are complementary, not competing, sources of worker wellbeing.

    4. Why does the report place such strong emphasis on managers?

    The report treats the manager as the decisive lever inside organisations. Its clearest claim is that managers account for 70% of the variance in team employee engagement. That makes management quality, in Gallup’s view, more important for engagement than broad macro conditions such as economic context or labour protections. When managers are engaged, employees are more likely to be engaged too, and this relationship is visible even at the country level.

    But Gallup also adds an important complication: managers themselves are under strain. The report says managers are more likely than non-managers to be engaged and thriving, yet they are also more likely to feel stressed, angry, sad and lonely, and more likely to be looking for another job. That means managers are both the mechanism through which engagement is created and a group whose own wellbeing may be deteriorating. The implication is that organisations cannot simply ask managers to support others while ignoring managers’ own emotional load.

    The report’s practical argument follows from this. Great managers create engagement through goal-setting, meaningful feedback, accountability and an ongoing relationship grounded in respect, positivity and knowledge of each employee’s strengths. In the report’s logic, employee engagement is relational rather than procedural. That is why Gallup repeatedly returns to the manager-employee relationship as the main channel through which people move from indifference to inspiration.

    5. What conclusions does the report draw for leaders and organisations?

    The report’s overall conclusion is that organisations should stop treating wellbeing as something that can be fixed mainly with apps, perks or resilience training, and focus instead on the structural and managerial conditions of work itself. Gallup argues that poor management practices are a major source of employee stress, and that meaningful improvements come from organisation-level changes such as better management, better scheduling, better resources and better job design.

    It also argues that high-engagement organisations do not emerge by accident. On pages 20–21, Gallup says best-practice organisations reach engagement rates far above the global norm, with roughly three-fourths of managers and seven in 10 non-managers engaged. These organisations prioritise manager hiring and development, integrate engagement into the full employee and manager life cycle, and make wellbeing visible and consistent in both work and life support.

    Finally, the report ties these cultural and managerial choices to hard performance outcomes. Its conclusion cites Gallup’s 2024 meta-analysis of more than 183,000 business units across 53 industries and 90 countries, showing that highly engaged teams are associated with better wellbeing, productivity, profitability, customer loyalty, retention and safety. So the report’s final message is both human and commercial: improving engagement is not merely about making employees feel better; it is a route to stronger organisational performance.

    A point worth noting about the methodology is that, while the report is robust in scale and clear about its survey base, it combines different evidence types: original global survey research, follow-up qualitative interviews, and secondary legal-policy data from the Labour Rights Index. That makes it analytically rich, but some of its policy conclusions are associative rather than strictly causal.

  • The State of PR 2024 by Muck Rack

    The State of PR 2024 by Muck Rack

    About the paper

    Muck Rack’s State of PR 2024 is an original survey study examining PR professionals’ working conditions, priorities, media relations practices, social media use, budgets, measurement and expectations for the profession.

    It is based on 1,116 PR professionals surveyed online, primarily by email, between 4 April and 10 May 2024; 75% of respondents were based in the United States, with smaller groups from Europe, Canada and Asia.

    The report states a conservative margin of error of approximately 3%, but the sample is not geographically representative of the global PR profession.

    Length: 51 pages

    More information / download: https://media.muckrack.com/documents/Muck_Rack_-_State_of_PR_2024.pdf

    Core Insights

    1. What are the most pressing challenges facing PR professionals in 2024?

    The report presents PR as a profession caught between persistent operational pressure and growing expectations.

    The leading challenge is insufficient resources, selected by 49% of respondents. This includes both budget and staffing constraints. The problem is particularly pronounced among in-house practitioners: 58% of respondents at brands identified resources as a top concern, compared with 43% at agencies.

    The second major challenge is getting responses from journalists, cited by 46%. This challenge is more acute for agencies, where 54% selected it, compared with 42% of brand-side respondents. Other prominent concerns include managing stakeholder expectations, demonstrating the value of PR and finding relevant journalists.

    These pressures are reinforced by the findings on workload:

    • 51% worked more than 40 hours during the preceding week.
    • 76% had worked outside normal hours at least once.
    • 26% had worked after hours on three or more occasions during the week.

    The findings suggest that PR teams are expected to deliver across a widening range of responsibilities without a corresponding expansion in capacity. Although many respondents expect budgets to remain stable or rise, resource scarcity remains their most immediate practical concern. The difficulty may therefore concern not only total budget levels, but also the scale of expectations, staffing levels and the number of functions assigned to PR.

    2. How central is media relations to PR work, and how are pitching practices changing?

    Media relations remains the dominant activity in the profession. Seventy-nine per cent say it constitutes at least a quarter of their job, considerably ahead of content creation, thought leadership, measurement and corporate communications.

    However, the report also depicts earned media as increasingly difficult:

    • 72% expect securing earned coverage to become more difficult over the next five years.
    • 46% identify getting journalist responses as one of their organisation’s main PR challenges.
    • More than half of agency respondents pitch journalists at least three days per week.

    The findings strongly support relevance, research and personalisation as the foundations of successful pitching. Respondents consider subject relevance to the journalist the most important factor in securing coverage, followed by personalisation and an existing relationship. Eighty-five per cent say they always or usually research journalists before pitching them, while 75% say they personalise pitches always or usually.

    Yet the report also reveals a gap between stated best practice and actual behaviour. Although 83% regard individual email as the most effective pitching channel, only 38% typically pitch one journalist per email. Twenty-three per cent pitch 15 or more reporters in a single email. Similarly, nearly half of those who personalise pitches change only a few sentences, while only 7% personalise the entire pitch.

    The report therefore suggests that PR professionals broadly understand what effective media relations requires, but workload, volume targets or limited resources may prevent them from applying that standard consistently.

    3. What does the report reveal about PR’s value and standing within organisations?

    Most respondents believe that organisational leadership has at least some understanding of PR. Eighty-eight per cent say leadership understands their work at least somewhat well, and a majority feel that the function is valued.

    However, the results expose a considerable difference between agencies and brands. At agencies, 52% say they feel “very valued”, compared with only 22% among brand-side respondents. A further 40% of brand respondents feel “valued”, but the disparity at the highest level suggests that in-house PR teams may have greater difficulty demonstrating their strategic contribution.

    Respondents identify three principal ways of increasing PR’s value:

    1. Producing measurable results — 66%.
    2. Connecting PR activity with important business initiatives — 60%.
    3. Generating more media coverage or strengthening media relationships — 55%.

    This is an important combination. Respondents do not believe that coverage alone is sufficient. They see value as being created when communication activity produces evidence, aligns with organisational priorities and contributes to business-relevant outcomes.

    Nevertheless, the report’s own measurement findings show that practice remains relatively output-focused. The four metrics respondents rate most highly are:

    • number of stories placed;
    • reach or impressions;
    • key-message inclusion;
    • website impact.

    The first three are largely communication outputs or intermediate effects rather than evidence of organisational or stakeholder outcomes. The report therefore indicates a tension: practitioners recognise that PR must demonstrate measurable business value, but many still depend on conventional media metrics that may not establish that value convincingly.

    4. How are social platforms and digital priorities shifting?

    LinkedIn has become the dominant social platform for PR professionals.

    Half of respondents identify it as the most valuable social network for their work. It is also included in 84% of organisations’ social media and communication strategies, and 61% of respondents expect to use it more. This gives LinkedIn a considerably stronger position than any other platform in the survey.

    By contrast, X/Twitter is losing importance as an active communication and pitching platform:

    • Only 16% regard it as their most valuable platform.
    • Its inclusion in communication strategies fell by 15 percentage points from 2023.
    • More respondents plan to reduce their use of X than increase it.
    • It has declined markedly as a preferred pitching channel.

    The report contains some inconsistencies between chart labels and accompanying prose on individual percentages, but the direction is clear: LinkedIn is rising, while X is declining for active PR use.

    X nevertheless remains important for monitoring and listening. Forty-nine per cent still regard it as important for social listening, behind LinkedIn at 56% but ahead of most other platforms. This distinction suggests that a platform may remain valuable as an information environment even when it becomes less attractive for relationship-building or content distribution.

    TikTok and YouTube also show signs of growing strategic relevance, although from lower starting points. The broader implication is that PR social strategies are becoming less dependent on a single real-time public platform and more distributed across professional, visual and video-based channels.

    5. What does the report suggest about the future direction of PR?

    The report portrays a profession becoming more integrated with marketing, more technologically dependent and more analytically demanding, while still retaining media relations as a core capability.

    Seventy-two per cent believe the relationship between PR and marketing will become more important during the next five years. This indicates increasing organisational integration and potentially greater overlap in planning, content, digital channels, data and measurement.

    The most important future capability is strategic planning, selected by 46%. Integrating artificial-intelligence tools follows closely at 44%, rising from 31% in the previous year and narrowly exceeding media relations at 43%. Data and analytics ranks fourth at 37%.

    This does not mean media relations is disappearing. It remains the activity occupying the largest share of practitioners’ time, and respondents expect earned media to become harder rather than less relevant. Instead, the findings point towards a broader professional role in which practitioners must combine:

    • strategic judgement;
    • AI-enabled workflows;
    • media relations;
    • data and analytics;
    • multimedia communication;
    • influencer relations;
    • closer collaboration with marketing.

    The report’s underlying argument is that success will depend on adaptation rather than abandonment of traditional PR. Practitioners will still need media relationships and editorial relevance, but these must be combined with stronger strategic planning, technological competence and evidence of organisational value.

    A central limitation is that the report is produced by a PR technology company whose services include journalist discovery, pitching, monitoring and measurement. The survey data are useful, but some topic selection and interpretation naturally align with Muck Rack’s commercial field. The heavy US representation and differences in question wording between years also mean that global conclusions and year-on-year comparisons should be treated cautiously.

  • Fighting Fatigue with Focus – 2024 C-suite Perspectives Study by Padilla

    Fighting Fatigue with Focus – 2024 C-suite Perspectives Study by Padilla

    About the paper

    The paper is a mixed-methods executive insight report on how C-suite leaders’ priorities and communication challenges have shifted, especially under economic pressure, hybrid work, declining worker well-being and leadership fatigue.

    The report combines an online survey of more than 100 senior leaders and company owners, in-depth interviews with more than 30 C-suite leaders, an online survey of more than 1,000 employed adults, and desk research; the fieldwork was conducted in summer/fall 2023, but the geographic scope is not clearly specified in the report.

    Length: 12 pages

    More information / download:
    https://padillaco.com/post/fighting-fatigue-with-focus

    Core Insights

    1) What is the report’s central argument about the current mindset of C-suite leaders?

    The report’s core argument is that senior leaders have not fundamentally changed their top priorities, but those priorities have become sharper and more intense because the past 18 months have produced a sense of leadership fatigue. Padilla argues that the C-suite has moved from a more “conflicted” mindset, shaped by COVID, social issues and geopolitical uncertainty, towards a more “focused” mindset shaped by economic pressure, hybrid work, worsening well-being concerns and late-career reassessment. The recommended response is not grander rhetoric, but tighter focus: business outcomes, simpler storytelling and stronger preparation of the next generation of leaders.

    This is important because the report does not frame fatigue as mere burnout language. It presents fatigue as a strategic condition that affects decision-making, communication style and succession planning. On page 11, the recap diagram makes the shift explicit: yesterday’s response required resilience, humanity and “translucency”, whereas today’s response requires simplification, story-based communication, leadership development and, in some cases, leaders stepping down or back.

    So the report’s overall meaning is that leadership today is becoming narrower, more pragmatic and more outcome-driven. The implied message is that communicators and advisers must adapt to that reality rather than assume executives still have the appetite for broad agendas or abstract positioning.

    2) How have leaders’ priorities changed since Padilla’s earlier report, and what remains consistent?

    What remains consistent is the underlying business agenda. The report says C-suite priorities “haven’t changed”, but the most important challenges are now more pronounced. Compared with the earlier report, rising inflation is up by 15 percentage points, adapting to change or innovating the business is up by 11 points, adapting to market shifts is up by 9 points, and differentiating from competitors is up by 8 points. Achieving business performance goals is also up, though more modestly.

    What has changed is the context around those priorities. In the earlier phase, leaders were navigating COVID effects, racial reckoning, emerging social issues, unsettled employees, geopolitical uncertainty and fears of economic slowdown. That produced a “conflicted” mindset. In the current phase, the environment is described as a retracting economy, declining worker well-being, the impacts of hybrid work and leaders “entering the last lap” of their careers. This creates a more focused, but also more compressed, leadership posture.

    The report also suggests that this shift changes how leaders want communication delivered. Under today’s pressure, leaders want a clearer line from communication to business outcomes. Page 7 states that communicators should articulate the “why”, use business storytelling, begin with the story, then follow with key messages and proof points. That reveals an assumption running through the report: clarity is no longer just a stylistic virtue; it is a management necessity in an environment of fatigue and constrained attention.

    3) What does the report say about DEI, ESG and corporate responses to external social issues?

    The report presents all three areas as still relevant, but more conditional and more tightly tied to business relevance than before.

    On DEI, Padilla says more than half of both leaders and employees feel brands have made progress, yet very few see DEI as a top business priority. The report notes that only a small share of C-suite leaders list achieving DEI commitments as a top business challenge, even as employee belief that their employer prioritises DEI has risen. The interpretation is that DEI has not disappeared, but it is no longer the dominant leadership conversation. The quote on page 4 captures this: DEI is “still relevant”, but “not the main topic of conversation.” The report also flags ageism as an underappreciated issue, noting that 27% of leaders and employees over 52 say they have experienced age-related discrimination in their career.

    On ESG, the report is even more explicit about pragmatism. It says ESG as a whole remains relatively low on leaders’ priority lists, but business-critical elements still receive attention. Forty-three per cent of leaders say they do not have formal ESG initiatives, while 33% focus on ESG aspects tied to business metrics or stakeholder needs. The implication is not that ESG is over, but that it survives where it can be linked to differentiation, customer relevance and measurable organisational value.

    On external social issues, the report shows a divided and cautious stance. According to the chart on page 6, 36% of C-suite leaders avoid taking a stand because of cost, while 33% do not hesitate to take a stand on relevant issues. At the same time, 46% of employees expect brands to respond to major social issues through action. Padilla’s implication is that organisations need an internal decision framework for when to speak, rooted in company purpose, stakeholder groups and likely ripple effects.

    Taken together, these sections reveal the report’s broader perspective: values-led issues have not vanished, but the licence to act on them now depends far more on strategic fit, stakeholder logic and business pragmatism than on broad principle alone.

    4) Where does the report identify the biggest disconnects between leaders and employees?

    The clearest disconnect is around employee well-being. Leaders generally believe well-being has stayed the same or improved over the previous 18 months: 65% say it has stayed the same and 26% say it has improved. But the employee-side benchmark cited on page 8 points in the opposite direction: about two-thirds of employees say well-being has worsened or stayed the same, while leaders are much more likely to think it has improved.

    This matters because the report suggests leaders may believe that post-COVID investments in benefits, flexibility or work environment have solved more than they actually have. The phrase “My Employees Are Doing Great—Aren’t They?” is deliberately ironic. It signals that executive perception may be lagging behind lived employee experience. The implication is that organisations need more frequent pulse checks, closer examination of whether well-being programmes are actually valued, and a clearer definition of the employee experience they are trying to create.

    A second disconnect emerges around hybrid work. Leaders recognise that employees value flexibility, and many leaders value it themselves, but they also believe hybrid work carries long-term costs for culture, work quality and leadership development. The visual on page 9 is especially revealing: hybrid work creates a generational “hourglass” in leadership development, with early-career and late-career staff more likely to be present in the office, while mid-career staff are less present because of longer commutes and more home commitments. That suggests the middle layer, often crucial for mentoring and managerial continuity, may be the least physically connected.

    A third disconnect is more implicit: older leaders and employees appear to be moderating their ambitions at the same time as organisations urgently need stronger succession pipelines. Among employees over 52, 62% want their career or responsibilities to stay the same or be simplified, while only 30% want growth. Meanwhile, 30% of C-suite leaders are seeing peers step away earlier or extend their stay, and nearly 1 in 10 are considering leaving earlier themselves.

    The cumulative effect is a leadership system under strain: employees may be less well than leaders think, hybrid work may be weakening developmental bonds, and succession assumptions are becoming less reliable.

    5) What are the practical implications for leadership and communication going forward?

    The report’s practical recommendations are quite direct. First, communicators and leadership teams should anchor initiatives in business outcomes, not just activity. Page 7 explicitly urges leaders to focus on outcomes, articulate the “why” and use business storytelling. That means communication should not begin with channels, campaigns or messaging architecture. It should begin with the business story that leaders need people to understand and act on.

    Second, companies need more disciplined internal listening and more realistic culture management. The well-being disconnect suggests leaders cannot rely on assumptions or legacy investments. The report recommends pulse checks, clearer articulation of the desired culture and a more deliberate mapping of the ideal employee experience. In other words, culture should be treated less as a slogan and more as an operating system that requires measurement and adjustment.

    Third, hybrid work needs to be managed as a developmental issue, not only a flexibility issue. The page 9 diagram shows that hybrid arrangements affect collaboration, culture and especially leadership development. The recommendations therefore include improving collaboration tools, prioritising management feedback, strengthening the office’s “sense of place”, and balancing clarity with flexibility in policies and communications.

    Fourth, succession planning and leadership development need more urgency. The report argues that organisations must prepare a larger pool of future leaders and develop both classic leadership traits, such as credibility, confidence, authenticity and ethics, and newer traits such as empathy, flexibility, vulnerability and humanity. This is one of the report’s strongest conclusions: fatigue at the top is not only a personal issue, but a structural issue that can disrupt leadership continuity if firms are not preparing successors far enough down the organisation.

    My reading of the overall implication is that the report is less about trend-spotting than about managerial narrowing. Its advice is to reduce noise, tie communication to what matters commercially and organisationally, and recognise that fatigue changes what leadership can realistically absorb and deliver. That makes the report particularly useful for communicators who need to frame their work in ways that feel indispensable rather than merely desirable.

  • State of the Sector 2023-24 by Gallagher

    State of the Sector 2023-24 by Gallagher

    About the paper

    The report analyses the state of internal communication and employee experience in 2023/24, with a strong focus on strategic influence, measurement, technology, channels, manager communication and communicator wellbeing.

    It is based on Gallagher’s original global survey of more than 2,300 respondents conducted between October and November 2023 across 56 countries, supplemented by multivariate statistical analysis and calculated scoring models; the report’s scope is global, with half of respondents in North America and 41% in the UK and Europe.

    Length: 41 pages

    More information / download:
    https://www.ajg.com/employeeexperience/state-of-the-sector/

    Core Insights

    1. What is the report’s central argument about the changing role of internal communicators?

    The report’s core argument is that internal communicators are being pushed to become more strategic, more business-aware and more central to employee experience, but many organizations are still not investing in them, involving them early enough, or giving them the conditions to succeed. The report frames 2023/24 as a period in which communicators are expected to connect communication with business outcomes, culture, change, leadership visibility and employee understanding, while still dealing with familiar operational barriers such as low capacity, weak technology and limited budget.

    That tension runs throughout the report. On one hand, the purpose of internal communication is increasingly tied to strategic alignment as well as culture and belonging. On the other hand, communicators still report structural obstacles that stop them from acting strategically, including lack of time or capacity, disengaged employees, insufficient budget and channels that are not fit for purpose.

    So the report is not simply saying that internal communication has become more important. It is saying that the function is in the middle of a role redefinition: expected to drive business outcomes and employee experience, but still too often treated as a delivery function rather than a strategic one.

    2. What evidence does the report present that a more strategic communication function performs better?

    The strongest finding is that when communicators operate strategically rather than in merely advisory or supporting roles, employee understanding improves. The report explicitly states that topics handled strategically were more likely to be understood by employees at a good or excellent level. It quantifies this with an average employee-understanding rating of 10.8 for strategic communicators, compared with 10.4 for advisory and 9.7 for supporting roles, with statistical significance reported at P = .012.

    The report also links strategic working to better use of measurement. Strategic communicators are described as more likely to use measurement data as evidence of value or ROI, and 47% of strategic communicators are using measurement to influence leadership. The text argues that strategic communicators align communication with broader business goals, plan ahead, set objectives, reflect on progress and combine quantitative data with qualitative insight.

    There is also an important human dimension. The report finds that strategic communicators report higher wellbeing than advisory or supporting peers, suggesting that strategic influence is associated not just with better outcomes for organizations, but also with a stronger sense of purpose, fulfilment and control for practitioners themselves.

    Taken together, the report’s evidence suggests that strategy is not a status label. It is a practical advantage: better understanding among employees, stronger leadership influence, more effective measurement and better wellbeing for communicators.

    3. What does the report reveal about the profession’s main operational problems in 2024?

    The report shows a profession under pressure from overload, constrained resources and weak organizational systems. The top reported barriers to success for 2024 are lack of time and capacity in the team at 35%, disengaged employees at 32%, lack of budget at 25% and internal technology or channels not fit for purpose at 24%. Volume of communication also rose in importance as a barrier, moving up to sixth place.

    This is reinforced by the findings on change communication. Although nine in ten communicators expect organizational change in 2024, only 25% are part of the team making decisions around change. Just over half, 51%, are consulted only after decisions have already been made and are then asked to build the communication strategy afterwards. The report presents this as a major strategic weakness: communicators are often expected to drive engagement with transformation without being involved early enough to shape it.

    The report also shows that topic volume and employee attention are becoming harder to manage. Strategy, vision and purpose remained the most-communicated topic, but change activity and business performance entered the top ranks as well, indicating a more business-heavy agenda. Yet employee understanding of change activity was only 36%, which points to a gap between what organizations are communicating and what employees actually grasp.

    Another operational problem is that many communicators are still not set up with sufficiently coherent channel strategies. One in three respondents are dissatisfied with their channel mix, and one in three added a channel during the year, even though communication volume is already seen as a challenge. The report argues that channel frameworks, master plans, communication strategies and employee preference data all improve channel effectiveness and satisfaction.

    So the report portrays the profession’s main practical problem as a mismatch between expectations and enabling conditions: organizations expect communication to deliver clarity, engagement and change, but often under-resource the function and involve it too late.

    4. How does the report assess measurement, listening and the use of technology, including AI?

    The report presents measurement as an improving but still constrained area. Communicators are collecting more data than in the previous year across reach, understanding, behaviour change and communication satisfaction. The share who said they “always” measure reach rose to 77%, understanding to 69%, behaviour change to 63% and communication satisfaction to 60%. The report sees this as encouraging because robust measurement appears to go hand in hand with a strategic approach.

    Measurement is also being used more actively. Respondents increasingly use measurement to provide evidence of ROI, refine channels, tailor content, adjust messaging and request investment. At the same time, 84% say they want to measure more often or more comprehensively, but the main constraints are lack of time and resources, lack of metrics, and lack of tools for collation and analysis.

    On listening, the report suggests that communicators are not abandoning qualitative insight in favour of metrics. Engagement surveys remain the most-used listening channel at 75%, but live Q&A, post-event feedback, listening sessions and focus groups are all highlighted as effective. Independent audits were the least-used method, but rated among the most effective. The report therefore advocates a balanced listening model combining formal measurement with richer qualitative channels.

    On AI, the report presents a profession that is curious but still unevenly prepared. Sixty per cent of respondents say they are using AI in some way, from experimentation to developing their own solutions. One in three are experimenting with AI, and one in five are using it to create communications. At the same time, only 29% say their organizations have guidance on when, where or how to use AI, and only around one in five say their organization provides AI training or resources. Half say there is nobody in charge of AI, while 13% do not even know whether their company is using generative AI.

    Attitudinally, the report shows guarded optimism. Forty-one per cent are “enthused” and 9% “championing”, but there remains a sizeable group marked by resignation, denial or fear. The report’s interpretation is that experimentation reduces fear and helps communicators see AI as a tool for efficiency rather than replacement, especially for high-effort, low-reward tasks.

    5. What conclusions does the report draw about people managers, communicator wellbeing and the future of the profession?

    The report concludes that people managers still matter, especially in hybrid and deskless environments, but that organizations cannot simply rely on them without support and accountability. Eighty-four per cent of respondents say they rely on managers for communication to some degree, yet three in five say manager communication is below expectations. Reliance on managers rises as the proportion of deskless employees rises, but manager performance ratings worsen in those contexts.

    The report’s answer is not to remove managers from the communication chain, but to support them better. Managers perform better when they are evaluated on communication and when internal communication teams provide them with resources. Managers evaluated on communication are twice as likely to meet or exceed expectations, and on-demand learning, written resources, managers-only forums, training and coaching are the most common support tools.

    On wellbeing, the report is notably sober. It says the post-pandemic glow around internal communication has faded. While 32% still describe the work as a passion and vocation, 44% say they love communications but could see themselves happy elsewhere. Over the past year, 38% say their wellbeing deteriorated, compared with 22% who say it improved. The report links this to weak business investment, heavy expectations and declining recognition.

    The resourcing data supports that concern. For 2024, 47% expect their budget to remain the same and 17% expect it to be cut, while average team sizes are described as stagnating or shrinking, especially in enterprise organizations. The report warns that businesses risk losing talented communicators if they continue to undervalue the function.

    Its final conclusion is therefore double-edged. Internal communication has a stronger business case than ever, and the report offers a clear action list around strategy, measurement, change, channels, manager support, AI and listening. But unless organizations back those expectations with real involvement, structure and investment, the profession’s capacity and morale will continue to erode.

  • FGS Global Radar 2024: A Year of Volatility by FGS

    FGS Global Radar 2024: A Year of Volatility by FGS

    About the paper

    The report is a mixed-methods outlook study on the political, economic, technological and social forces expected to shape 2024, with a particular focus on implications for business.

    It combines 60 stakeholder depth interviews conducted in October and November 2023 with public polling of 2,024 UK adults, weighted to be nationally representative; the geographic scope of the primary data is clearly the UK, even though many of the issues discussed are global.

    Length: 23 pages

    More information / download:
    https://a.storyblok.com/f/137553/x/db3cf37498/fgs-global-radar-report-2024.pdf

    Core Insights

    1. What is the report’s central argument about 2024, and why does it frame the year as unusually consequential?

    The report’s central argument is that 2024 will be defined by volatility, uncertainty, disruption and change, but not in a purely apocalyptic sense: it also presents openings for adaptation, resilience and selective optimism. The authors frame the year as unusually consequential because it combines an exceptional concentration of elections, continuing geopolitical conflicts, economic fragility, climate pressure, AI disruption and changing expectations of business leadership.

    The report begins by describing 2024 as a year of “known-unknowns”, with particular emphasis on the fact that more people would be involved in elections than at any other point in human history, and with the US election treated as the most consequential uncertainty. Rather than trying to predict exact outcomes, the study aims to identify the trends and debates that will affect business during the year. That is an important framing choice: this is not a forecasting model, but a strategic interpretation exercise grounded in elite interviews and public opinion data.

    Its key findings reinforce that framing. Opinion formers expect uncertainty and turbulence across geopolitics, the economy, culture and the workplace. They see volatility as more likely to intensify than fade. At the same time, they hold a mildly more positive view of the UK’s prospects than the public does, largely because they expect some political stabilisation after the UK general election and some easing in inflation and interest rates. So the report’s core argument is not simply that 2024 will be chaotic, but that business leaders will have to navigate overlapping shocks while distinguishing between background noise and genuinely strategic shifts.

    2. Which major risks and uncertainties does the report identify as most important for business leaders?

    The report identifies political instability and geopolitics as the most important risk cluster for business leaders. Stakeholders describe political instability as the biggest risk facing business in 2024, driven by major elections, continuing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and the growing influence of non-democratic states. The phrase “uncertainty is the new certainty” captures the report’s broader diagnosis: unpredictable external shocks are no longer exceptional but normalised.

    Within that broader risk picture, the potential return of Donald Trump is treated as the single most significant political threat. Stakeholders widely believe a Trump victory is a real possibility and fear that a second term would be more unconstrained than the first, with consequences for NATO, Ukraine, global trade and geopolitical stability. Importantly, the report notes that this concern is less about the resilience of the US domestic economy and more about the international effects of American foreign policy and political posture. The public polling echoes this anxiety, with large shares of UK respondents expecting another Trump presidency to destabilise the world and negatively affect their own lives.

    The report also highlights immigration as a major source of political polarisation, especially in the UK, Europe and the US. Stakeholders expect it to become an even more contentious election issue, sharpened by climate-related migration pressures and labour-market tensions. This matters for business because immigration is not presented merely as a social issue; it is bound up with economic policy, labour supply, social cohesion and electoral strategy.

    Beyond politics, the report emphasises supply-chain vulnerability, energy-price shocks and the strategic consequences of long-running conflict. Several interviewees argue that resilience now matters as much as profit, and that businesses will have to think more seriously about de-risking supply chains. The report stops short of advocating a single economic doctrine, but it clearly suggests that geopolitical risk is now a boardroom issue rather than a distant policy concern.

    3. How does the report portray the economic outlook, and where do stakeholder and public perspectives diverge most sharply?

    The report portrays the economic outlook as cautiously stable rather than buoyant. Stakeholders broadly expect a middling global year and a mildly positive UK year, shaped by falling inflation, eventual interest-rate cuts and the likelihood of a more stable UK political environment. They do not foresee dramatic economic improvement, but neither do they expect collapse. In that sense, the report’s economic lens is one of guarded pragmatism.

    For the UK specifically, stakeholders are relatively bullish. They associate an expected Labour victory with greater predictability, continuity in fiscal policy and a calmer investment environment after years of political turmoil. They also expect inflation and interest rates to decline over the course of 2024, though some note that the timing of monetary easing may be late and its effects delayed. This is not presented as a growth boom, but as a return to something closer to normality.

    The sharpest divergence appears between elite and public sentiment. The UK public is markedly more pessimistic than stakeholders, especially on the cost of living, living standards and the broader strength of the economy. The report shows net negative expectations on the cost of living, personal standard of living and the UK economy, even if job security is slightly more resilient. Public pessimism is also intensified by concern that prolonged wars will push up energy prices again. So while stakeholders see scope for stabilisation, the public sees little immediate relief.

    That divergence matters because it reveals one of the report’s underlying themes: macro-level improvement does not automatically translate into felt improvement. A steadier political environment and lower inflation may look positive from a policy or business perspective, but ordinary people may still experience stagnation, pressure and distrust. The report therefore suggests that leaders will need to communicate with much greater sensitivity to this gap between institutional optimism and lived economic insecurity.

    4. What does the report say about AI, and why does it treat it as both an opportunity and a source of backlash?

    The report treats AI as one of the defining contradictions of 2024: it is seen as a potentially transformative engine of productivity and growth, but also as a source of labour disruption, democratic risk and public unease. Stakeholders are generally more optimistic than the public. They expect AI to boost economic growth, unlock gains in medicine and science, and accelerate efficiency. At the same time, they anticipate redundancies in white-collar fields such as customer service, software development and communications, with some even arguing that entry-level roles across many industries are vulnerable.

    This combination of optimism and anxiety explains why the report expects backlash. Interviewees warn that AI could be used to distort elections through deepfakes and misinformation, undermining democratic legitimacy during an election-heavy year. They also foresee organised labour resistance, treating the 2023 actors’ strike as an early sign of broader anti-AI mobilisation. The public data supports this: a majority expects increased backlash, including further strikes, and many support faster government regulation to protect against security breaches and misinformation.

    Another important point is that the public is less confident and less informed about AI than elite stakeholders. Only a small minority say they are very confident they could explain what AI is, and attitudes differ sharply by age, gender and self-reported tech literacy. Younger people and those more confident in explaining AI are more positive; older respondents and less confident groups are notably more negative. This suggests that public opinion on AI is shaped not just by material risk, but by familiarity and perceived agency.

    The report therefore presents AI as a major battleground for 2024, not because it doubts the technology’s momentum, but because it expects a struggle over who benefits, who bears the costs and how regulation should work. That is why it frames the coming debate as not merely technological, but economic, political and social.

    5. What broader conclusions does the report draw about climate, corporate purpose and the role of business in society?

    The report suggests that businesses are entering 2024 under pressure to become more disciplined, more internally focused and more credible in how they talk about their role in society. On climate, stakeholders agree that the issue is strategically central and that no serious business leader or politician can now deny its importance. Yet they are pessimistic about actual progress towards net zero in 2024, citing weak political will, high investment requirements, election-year caution and unresolved disputes over who pays. The result is a gap between rhetorical commitment and practical momentum.

    The public broadly shares the sense that climate change matters, but the report shows limits to public willingness to absorb the cost. That creates a politically difficult environment: there is acknowledgement of urgency, but less agreement on sacrifice. The report’s interpretation is that democratic politics, especially short electoral cycles, favours short-term decisions, whereas climate action demands long-term commitment. This is one of its clearest structural arguments.

    On corporate purpose, the report argues that purpose remains important but that its public expression is changing. Many stakeholders believe external purpose messaging has become entangled with accusations of virtue signalling and greenwashing. As a result, they expect companies and CEOs to retreat from broad social commentary and focus more on purpose that is directly relevant to the business and more meaningfully communicated to employees and communities. This is not a rejection of purpose, but a repositioning of it.

    The same logic appears in workplace culture. Hybrid working is described as here to stay, though not as a case for full-time remote work becoming universal. Stakeholders and the public both expect flexibility to remain important, and the public wants even more of it. Taken together, the report’s broader conclusion is that businesses in 2024 will need to act with restraint, relevance and credibility: less grandstanding, more internal alignment; less abstract signalling, more evidence and substance.

    Overall, the report’s perspective is that business leadership in 2024 will be judged not by confidence alone, but by the ability to operate in a world of overlapping instability while making selective, defensible choices about what to engage in, what to say and how to build trust.

  • World PR Report 2023-2024 by ICCO

    World PR Report 2023-2024 by ICCO

    About the paper

    The paper is a mixed-methods industry report on the state and direction of the global PR agency sector, covering growth, AI, talent, ethics, measurement, client demands, and workplace issues.

    The core dataset is an online survey of 268 PR professionals across eight regions, supplemented by a focus group of senior leaders from PROI Worldwide agencies in a dozen countries and a short excerpt from the Global Women in PR Annual Index; the report states fieldwork for the global survey took place between August and September 2020, which is unusual for a 2023–2024 edition and should be treated as stated rather than clarified.

    Length: 67 pages

    More information / download:
    https://iccopr.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/ICCO-report-2023-interactive.pdf

    Core Insights

    1. What is the report’s central argument about the current state of the global PR industry?

    The report’s main argument is that the global PR industry remains fundamentally optimistic and growth-oriented, but that this optimism sits alongside real structural pressure. The industry believes it can grow, invest, and adapt, yet it is doing so in a context marked by economic uncertainty, fee pressure, talent strain, misinformation, and changing client expectations.

    That duality runs through the whole report. On one side, 96% of organisations say they expect to grow over the next five years, and the average optimism score for PR market growth is 7.0. On the other side, the two biggest near-term challenges are general economic conditions and clients unwilling to commit sufficient funds, both cited by 42% of respondents. The report therefore does not paint a triumphalist picture. It presents PR as a sector that is resilient and ambitious, but also under pressure to prove value, modernise its skills, and defend margins.

    The tone is especially revealing: the report repeatedly suggests that PR is moving into a more strategic and consequential role, but that this role is not guaranteed. It has to be earned through better consulting capability, stronger measurement, technological adaptation, and more credible ethical conduct. In that sense, the report is not just describing industry conditions. It is urging the profession to mature.

    2. Why does AI occupy such a dominant place in the report, and what does that suggest about the future of PR work?

    AI dominates the report because it is treated as the clearest symbol of the industry’s current transition. The report frames AI not as a niche tool or isolated trend, but as the defining force reshaping future relevance, future skills, and future operating models. 86% of respondents rank AI among the top three most relevant technologies for the future of their business, 59% say they have already integrated AI tools into everyday processes, and 96% believe AI will have a significant impact on the PR industry.

    What is especially important is that the report links AI to three different kinds of change. First, it links AI to efficiency: the top expected application of new technology is “operating more efficiently” at 55%. Second, it links AI to content and workflow change: multimedia content creation rises sharply as an area likely to be affected. Third, it links AI to capability change: “mastery of AI tools” becomes the single most important future skill set, ahead of strategic consulting.

    That suggests the future of PR work will be shaped by a tension between automation and strategic value. Routine production, analysis, and content tasks are likely to become faster and more scalable. But the report does not imply that technology replaces strategic judgement. In fact, strategic consulting remains near the top of growth areas and skill priorities. So the deeper implication is that PR professionals will need to combine technical fluency with higher-order advisory work. AI raises the floor for efficiency, but also raises the bar for strategic differentiation.

    3. What does the report identify as the main growth opportunities for PR agencies, and what do those opportunities have in common?

    The main growth opportunities cluster around three themes: strategic value, sustainability-related work, and technology-linked demand. In expected growth areas, strategic consulting ranks first at 47%, followed by corporate reputation at 40% and purpose/CSR at 38%. In expected sectors of growth, IT and technology leads at 49%, followed by financial and professional services at 40% and healthcare at 39%. In expected areas of investment, ESG comes first at 49%.

    These opportunities have a common logic: they are all areas where PR moves beyond tactical publicity and towards business-critical advisory work. Strategic consulting implies deeper involvement in organisational decision-making. Corporate reputation and purpose work imply longer-term, stakeholder-based value creation. ESG and sustainability work imply communication at the intersection of business performance, legitimacy, and public expectation. Even technology-sector growth is not presented as mere sectoral luck; it reflects where complexity, innovation, and narrative demand are highest.

    The report also makes clear that clients’ priority issues reinforce this trend. Sustainability and environment is by far the top social issue clients are likely to prioritise, at 69%. That means agencies are likely to grow where they can help organisations explain, justify, and operationalise their role in society, not just where they can generate coverage.

    So the big picture is that the strongest opportunities lie in areas where PR can claim strategic relevance to business outcomes, legitimacy, and adaptation to major external pressures.

    4. What are the report’s biggest warnings or criticisms of the industry itself?

    The report’s sharpest criticism is that the industry still too often fails to measure what matters. Measurement and analytics are clearly seen as important, and AMEC usage is growing, but outdated and invalid practices still remain. Most notably, 34% say AVE is a likely client request, even though the report explicitly describes AVE as a discredited and invalid metric. It argues that this creates a disconnect between clients’ stated objectives, such as improving reputation, increasing sales, and building brand purpose, and the weaker metrics often used in practice.

    That criticism is about more than metrics. It is really about professional credibility. The report suggests that if PR continues to rely on activity measures, media clippings, or flawed proxies, it risks looking busy rather than valuable. The language is unusually direct: there are “no excuses” for failing to demonstrate impact properly.

    A second warning concerns ethics. The report shows significant concern about misinformation and about the lack of consequences for unethical behaviour. It also shows uneven commitment to codes of conduct across regions. The message is that PR cannot claim a serious advisory role while tolerating weak ethical enforcement.

    A third criticism concerns talent and inclusion. The report notes progress in DEI policy and mental health support, but it also shows a gap between having policies and actually reflecting the diversity of the public served. That is a subtle but important critique: formal commitments are not the same as substantive change.

    Taken together, the report’s warnings are aimed inward. They suggest the industry’s external opportunity depends on internal discipline.

    5. What broader conclusion does the report reach about what PR agencies must do next to remain credible and competitive?

    The broader conclusion is that PR agencies must become more strategically useful, more technologically capable, and more professionally accountable at the same time. The report does not suggest that one of these is enough on its own. Growth will not come simply from adopting AI, or from talking about ESG, or from improving wellbeing policies in isolation. The argument is that future success depends on integrating these elements into a stronger model of agency value.

    That means, first, agencies must improve the quality of their counsel. Strategic consulting, corporate reputation, ESG, and purpose all rank highly because clients increasingly need advisors, not only executors. Second, agencies must upgrade skills, especially around AI, analytics, and advisory work. Third, they must strengthen the way they prove outcomes, because measurement is central both to reporting and to budget justification. Fourth, they must deal more seriously with ethics, misinformation, and trust. And fifth, they must look after their people, because retention, motivation, and development are major vulnerabilities.

    The report’s final implication is that PR’s future is not mainly about media relations becoming digital or content becoming faster. It is about whether agencies can position themselves as credible partners in navigating uncertainty. Economic volatility, climate pressure, AI disruption, and trust erosion all make communication more central to organisational success. But they also make superficial PR less defensible. The path ahead, as the report sees it, is open, but only for agencies that can match optimism with capability.

    One caveat worth noting from the report itself: the methodology is not fully transparent in every respect. The survey sample and regions are stated, and the report includes a separate PROI focus group contribution, but the reported survey fieldwork date appears inconsistent with the edition year. That does not invalidate the report, but it does mean the methodological framing should be treated with some caution.

  • 2023 Future of Corporate Communications Study by Edelman

    2023 Future of Corporate Communications Study by Edelman

    About the paper

    The paper is a mixed-methods corporate communications study from Edelman, combining a quantitative survey with qualitative interviews to assess how the communications function is evolving after the pandemic.

    The report states that it surveyed 218 C-level communications leaders in June 2023 and conducted 20+ in-depth interviews in July and August 2023, with respondents drawn from U.S.-based Fortune 500 and Forbes Global 1000 organisations; the sample is therefore primarily U.S.-focused, even though many of the companies have national, multinational, or global reach.

    Length: 30 pages

    More information / download:
    https://www.edelman.com/2023-future-of-corporate-comms

    Core Insights

    1. How does the report argue that the role of corporate communications has changed in recent years?

    The report’s central argument is that corporate communications has moved from being a mainly executional support function to becoming a strategic leadership function. Edelman presents this as a post-pandemic shift: communications leaders are no longer merely helping to deliver decisions once taken, but are increasingly involved in shaping enterprise decisions before they are finalised.

    The report says this shift is visible both in perception and in practice. Half of CCOs now see themselves as strategic advisers to business leaders, up from just over a third in 2021, while only 10% still feel stuck in a cost-centre position, down from 30% two years earlier. It also says that 64% are brought into major business decisions when the decision path is still tentative, compared with only 9% who are consulted after decisions have already been made.

    In other words, the function is portrayed as operating at the intersection of value creation and risk mitigation. Communications is not just reacting to reputational threats; it is being expected to anticipate them, interpret stakeholder expectations, and influence strategy across the enterprise. That is the report’s strongest framing of the profession’s future.

    2. What evidence does the report provide that communications leaders are under growing pressure, even as their strategic status rises?

    A key tension in the report is that greater influence has come with greater pressure, but not necessarily with matching support. The report says nearly 80% of communications leaders feel their role is more demanding than it was 12 months earlier, and 77% say their CEO demands more of them than a year ago. It also notes that CCOs spend nearly one-fifth of their time counselling the CEO on non-communications matters, which underlines how far the remit has stretched.

    At the same time, resources are not keeping pace. The report says 44% of communications leaders do not believe their CEO understands the resources needed to shape enterprise decision-making or execute communications programmes successfully. Budget expectations have also softened: 40% expect their budgets to increase, compared with more than half in 2021, while 28% expect flat budgets and 30% expect moderate cuts.

    This matters because the report treats communications as a function being asked to do more with uncertain backing. It is expected to cover an expanding range of stakeholders, manage a broader mandate, and prove business value more clearly, yet it still struggles to secure stable investment. One of the report’s recurring assumptions is that communications still has not fully solved the challenge of linking its work to measurable business outcomes.

    3. Why does the report place so much emphasis on data, technology, and organisational structure?

    The report argues that modern communications can no longer rely mainly on instinct, media experience, or message craft. Instead, it says an advanced communications function must be built around actionable data: stakeholder signals, behavioural insights, monitoring, analytics, and social listening. This is presented as essential because senior leadership now expects communications to bring evidence-based insight into decision-making, not just narrative support.

    That logic also drives the report’s discussion of structure. Edelman says the proportion of leaders reporting a centralised communications structure has grown sharply since 2021, because centralisation helps organisations gather intelligence more holistically, reduce silos, and respond to risk more consistently. On that basis, the report implies that organisational design is not a side issue; it is part of how communications earns strategic credibility.

    Technology sits within the same argument. The report says 56% believe AI is already affecting their business, and 44% say they are investing more heavily in communications technology than the year before. But it does not present technology as a simple productivity win. It also highlights integration problems, rapid change, and ongoing concerns around privacy, policy, and ethics. The report’s perspective is quite clear here: tools matter, but their value depends on interpretation, application, and the ability of the function to use data intelligently.

    4. How does the report explain the growing importance of employees and corporate purpose in communications?

    One of the report’s most important arguments is that reputation now begins inside the organisation. Employees are presented as the most consequential stakeholder group because they are closest to value creation, can advocate for or against the company, and shape how external stakeholders perceive the business. On the chart on page 17, employees are shown as the stakeholder group putting the most pressure on organisations to act on social issues, ahead of investors, NGOs, regulators, media, and consumers.

    The report also stresses that “employees” are not a single, uniform audience. It points to a five-generation workforce, differing expectations about work, and rising tension between leadership and younger workers, especially Gen Z. As a result, communications is increasingly held accountable for outcomes such as employee engagement, employer brand, retention, and DEI. In fact, the report says 60% expect employee engagement to be the single most important outcome their function must deliver over the next two years.

    Corporate purpose is then positioned as the framework that helps organisations navigate this more complex internal environment. The report says communications teams are heavily involved in clearly communicating purpose, fostering meaning among employees, and, in some cases, ensuring purpose shapes strategy itself. So purpose is not treated here as branding language alone; it is framed as a practical decision-making compass and a guardrail for when companies should act on social or socioeconomic issues.

    5. What does the report suggest will define the future agenda for corporate communications?

    The future agenda, according to the report, will be defined by three overlapping pressures: technology and AI, ESG and sustainability politics, and geopolitical volatility. On AI, the report suggests communicators must help build the business case for adoption while understanding the operational and ethical risks. On ESG, it argues that despite political backlash, especially in the U.S., integration of ESG into communications strategy remains strong, with 76% saying ESG is mostly or fully integrated.

    On geopolitics, the report is especially forward-looking. It argues that elections, polarisation, disinformation, labour activism, and broader geopolitical instability will all have growing reputational and business consequences. That is why it repeatedly calls for stronger cross-functional working, especially with sustainability, investor relations, HR, legal, and government affairs.

    The broader conclusion is that tomorrow’s CCO will have to be a cross-enterprise integrator: someone who can read stakeholder dynamics, translate them into business implications, and help the organisation act with clarity and credibility. The report assumes that winning trust, internally and externally, will be the defining competitive task for communications. But it also implies that success will depend on whether the function can prove value, secure resources, and combine judgement with data more effectively than in the past.

  • Future of Professionals Report 2023 by Thomson Reuters

    Future of Professionals Report 2023 by Thomson Reuters

    About the paper

    Thomson Reuters’ Future of Professionals Report 2023 examines how AI, especially generative AI, is expected to transform professional work across legal, tax and accounting, risk, compliance, corporate and government settings.

    It is original survey research based on a web survey conducted in May–June 2023 among more than 1,200 professionals, with about half based in the US and most of the rest in the UK, Canada and Latin America.

    The report combines survey findings with Thomson Reuters’ own interpretive commentary, so it should be read as a research-based thought leadership report rather than a neutral academic study.

    Length: 36 pages

    More information / download:
    https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en-us/posts/technology/future-of-professionals-2023/

    Core Insights

    1. What is the central argument of the report?

    The report’s central argument is that AI will not merely make professional work faster; it will reshape the value proposition of professional services. Thomson Reuters presents AI as a catalyst for transformation across three linked dimensions: productivity, professional value, and responsible adoption.

    The productivity argument is the most immediate. Professionals expect AI to help with operational efficiency, research, document review, drafting, administrative work, risk identification, regulatory monitoring and client communication. The report repeatedly frames AI as a way to remove repetitive or low-value work so that professionals can spend more time on higher-value advisory tasks.

    The deeper argument is about the future role of professionals. The report suggests that “Professional 2.0” will be less defined by routine technical execution and more by judgement, strategic advice, client service, specialisation, and the ability to use AI effectively. It argues that AI will shift professionals from doing more work manually to orchestrating, checking, interpreting and adding value to AI-enabled work.

    The report is optimistic, but not naïvely so. It recognises fears around accuracy, job loss, ethics, data security, regulation, work-life balance and professional identity. However, Thomson Reuters’ overall position is clear: AI will not replace highly trained professionals wholesale, but professionals who use AI will outcompete those who do not.

    2. How do professionals expect AI to affect productivity, client service and business performance?

    Professionals in the report are broadly positive about AI’s operational potential. A key headline finding is that 67% expect AI or generative AI to have a transformational or high impact on their profession over the next five years. That makes AI the most significant trend tested in the study, ahead of economic recession and the cost-of-living crisis.

    The report identifies several productivity gains. In law firms, AI is expected to help with large-scale data analysis, non-billable administrative work, time recording, research and document-related tasks. In tax and accounting, respondents see potential in analysing deductions, income streams, tax scenarios and future tax results. In corporate and government departments, AI is expected to streamline internal processes, reduce external spend, improve research and speed up document review.

    Client service is another major theme. Respondents expect AI to improve the speed, clarity and consistency of communication. The report mentions AI helping draft and edit client communications, translate complex ideas into plain language, identify client needs arising from regulatory change, and support faster internal advice. For in-house teams, the report suggests that AI may strengthen their role as business partners by helping them provide more consultative, growth-oriented advice.

    However, the financial consequences are less clear. Firms may become more profitable if AI reduces costs and frees professionals for higher-value work. At the same time, clients may use AI as a reason to push fees down, move more work in-house, or turn to alternative legal service providers. The report does not claim certainty here; it explicitly notes that the “financial victor” remains uncertain.

    3. What evidence does the report provide that AI will change professional roles, skills and career paths?

    The report argues that AI will fundamentally alter who does professional work, what skills are valued, and how people enter and progress within the professions.

    One of the strongest findings is that 64% of professionals believe AI will make their professional skills more highly valued, while 33% fear that AI could contribute to the demise of their profession or reduce demand for their skills. This tension runs throughout the report: professionals see opportunity, but also existential risk.

    The report expects new career paths to emerge. It suggests that some work currently performed by credentialed professionals may shift to paralegals, junior professionals, enrolled agents, legal tech consultants, operations specialists or other non-traditional roles. It also anticipates more hybrid roles combining professional expertise with technology, data science, IT, security, regulatory and AI skills.

    Training is presented as one of the clearest areas of change. Almost 90% of respondents expect basic mandatory AI training for all professionals within five years, and 87% expect everyone to need training in new skills. The report also predicts changes in how junior professionals are trained and in the nature of university or college education.

    A particularly important nuance is that AI may reduce traditional entry-level work. More than half of respondents expect a decline in entry-level roles over the next five years, yet a majority also expect the total number of professionals in their firm or department to increase. In other words, the report does not predict simple job destruction. It predicts a reshaping of the professional labour market: fewer traditional junior tasks, more specialised or AI-enabled roles, and greater need for adaptability.

    4. What are the main concerns, risks and barriers identified in the report?

    The report identifies several overlapping concerns.

    The biggest fear is accuracy. A quarter of respondents cite compromised accuracy as their greatest concern. This is especially important because professionals work in fields where errors can have legal, financial, ethical or regulatory consequences. The report stresses that AI outputs must be checked by humans rather than accepted at face value.

    Job loss and professional displacement are also major concerns. Nineteen per cent cite widespread job loss as their biggest fear, while 17% cite the demise of the profession. Some respondents fear that AI may “dumb down” professional judgement if people rely on machine-generated answers without understanding the underlying reasoning.

    Ethics and data security are also prominent. Fifteen per cent cite data security as their biggest fear, and another 15% cite loss of ethics. The report connects these concerns to the need for transparency, explainability, trustworthy sources, professional standards and regulation.

    The biggest barrier to change is cultural rather than technical. The report says 83% of professionals cite risk aversion or fear of change as a top-three barrier within the professions. Lack of technology skills, lack of investment, partnership models, and lack of diversity of thought are also identified as obstacles.

    Finally, the report is ambivalent on wellbeing. AI could reduce long hours, lower the risk of errors, and remove mundane work. But some respondents fear it could increase pressure, reduce human connection, worsen engagement, or create anxiety about disposability. The report therefore treats wellbeing as both a potential benefit and a risk depending on how AI is implemented.

    5. What is Thomson Reuters’ perspective, and what are the implications of the report?

    Thomson Reuters’ perspective is strongly pro-adoption, but framed around responsible implementation. The company argues that AI should be embraced decisively, but with guardrails around trust, ethics, transparency, accuracy, regulation and human oversight.

    Its assumptions are visible throughout the report. Thomson Reuters assumes that AI adoption is inevitable, that productivity gains will be substantial, and that the professions will be reshaped rather than destroyed. It also assumes that the highest-value professional work will remain human-centred: advice, judgement, client relationships, ethics, interpretation and strategic thinking.

    The report’s implications are significant. For firms, it suggests a need to rethink pricing, services, staffing models, training and competitive advantage. For in-house departments, it suggests an opportunity to move from cost centres to growth enablers, particularly if AI helps them deliver more consultative advice and bring more work in-house. For individual professionals, the implication is that passive adaptation will not be enough. They will need to develop AI literacy, deepen expertise, understand their own value proposition, and learn how to work with AI rather than around it.

    The broader conclusion is that trust will be the decisive condition for AI adoption in professional work. Without confidence in accuracy, data security, ethics and explainability, the promised productivity gains may not materialise. With the right governance, however, the report argues that AI can improve productivity, increase professional value, create new roles, support better client service and potentially improve wellbeing.

  • IC Index 2023 by Institute of Internal Communication

    IC Index 2023 by Institute of Internal Communication

    About the paper

    The paper is a piece of original survey research about what employees in the UK want and need from internal communication, produced by Ipsos Karian and Box for the Institute of Internal Communication.

    The methodology is clearly stated: a stratified survey of 3,000 UK workers, fielded from 6–20 March 2023, covering employees in organisations with more than 500 staff across the UK; the report also says the question set was developed with an expert working group of IC practitioners.

    Length: 35 pages

    More information / download:
    https://www.ioic.org.uk/resource/ic-index-report-2023.html

    Core Insights

    1. What is the central argument of the report about the value of internal communication?

    The report’s main argument is that internal communication is not a soft or secondary function but a business-critical one that materially improves the employee experience and broader organisational health. The report explicitly says that employees in organisations with a dedicated internal communication team are more likely to rate communication as excellent, more engaged, less likely to plan to leave, and more likely to trust CEO communications. In other words, the presence of an IC function is associated not just with better messaging, but with stronger trust, engagement and retention indicators.

    That argument is strengthened by one of the report’s clearest contrasts: 69% of workers in organisations with an IC function rate communications as excellent, compared with 37% where there is no such team. Engagement is reported as 59% versus 43%, intention to leave within two years as 29% versus 42%, and trust in CEO communications as 60% versus 46%. These are not minor differences. The report uses them to make the case that IC teams “make a positive difference” and should be seen as a fundamental organisational requirement rather than a nice-to-have.

    A second layer of the argument is that internal communication creates value when it helps employees feel informed, connected, respected and heard. The report links good communication to advocacy, belonging and belief in strategy. So the underlying claim is not merely that IC improves information flow, but that it shapes how people experience work itself.

    2. What does the report show employees most want to hear about, and where are organisations under-communicating?

    The strongest demand is for communication about pay and benefits, with 44% saying they receive too little information on this topic. But the report is especially insistent that strategy and career development matter because under-communication here has a particularly negative effect on engagement. Strategy and direction show a net demand score of 21, while career and personal development opportunities score 23. The report explicitly flags strategy and development as topics that need a lot more attention in communication planning.

    This matters because the report finds that clarity on strategic issues is still weak for a sizeable minority. Only 57% say their employer has been clear on strategy and business priorities, while 63% say they believe the strategy is the right one for success. That gap is one of the report’s most interesting findings: belief slightly exceeds understanding. The authors treat that as a warning sign, suggesting some employees may support the strategy in general terms without truly understanding it in practical terms.

    The report turns this into a segmentation model. It says 45% of UK workers are “ambassadors”, meaning they both understand and believe in the strategy, while 25% are “passengers”, meaning they neither understand nor believe in it. Another 17% are “loose cannons”, who believe but do not understand, and 12% are “bystanders”, who understand but do not believe. This is one of the report’s most useful conceptual contributions, because it shows that strategic communication is not simply about broadcasting more information; it is about moving people from confusion or detachment into informed belief.

    3. What patterns does the report identify around channels, attention and communication preferences?

    A major finding is that employee attention is scarce. Nearly seven in ten workers spend 15 minutes or less per day reading or viewing employer updates, and a quarter spend hardly any time at all. The report therefore argues that internal communication operates in a very constrained attention environment. Employees “snack rather than binge”, often consuming updates during or between meetings rather than in long, focused periods.

    In terms of format, the report finds that written communication still dominates. More than half of respondents say they would prefer to read information about employer priorities and plans, compared with 20% who prefer to talk about it and only 12% each who prefer audio or visual formats. Email remains both the most relied-on and the most preferred channel overall. 59% rely on emails for general news and updates, and 57% say they prefer them. Team meetings, 1-to-1s with line managers, and newsletters also remain important.

    At the same time, the report complicates any simple “email still wins” conclusion. It identifies two communication “tribes”: 82% are “traditionalists”, relying mainly on channels such as email, line-manager 1-to-1s and team meetings; 18% are “non-conformists”, who are more likely to rely on channels such as Instagram, LinkedIn and enterprise social media. These non-conformists are more common among younger workers, senior leaders and employees in somewhat smaller organisations. So the report’s broader message is that the default should still be clarity and utility through familiar channels, but channel strategy needs to evolve around audience differences rather than novelty for its own sake.

    4. What does the report suggest about leadership and manager communication?

    One of the clearest conclusions is that leadership visibility matters, but different leaders should communicate in different ways. Employees generally prefer to hear from CEOs by email, whereas they have stronger demand for face-to-face interaction with departmental leaders or senior managers. The report describes this as “horses for courses”: employees distinguish between CEOs and nearer leaders, and their channel preferences reflect that difference in proximity.

    The report also shows that frequency matters. Engagement is highest when CEOs communicate every few days and falls steadily as communication becomes less frequent, dropping from 69% engagement at the highest frequency to 30% when CEOs communicate rarely, if at all. The authors are careful not to imply that CEOs should simply send more emails; rather, they argue for a consistent rhythm of meaningful leadership visibility across channels.

    Direct managers emerge as the most trusted messengers. 65% trust communications from their direct manager, compared with 54% for CEO communications. That trust gap widens in larger organisations. Employees also say they want more from managers, especially updates on team priorities and goals, information on how the organisation is performing, and explanations of how team work supports wider priorities. But there is a constraint: one in three line managers do not feel equipped to lead conversations with their teams about what is happening across the organisation. Managers want more and clearer information on what to communicate, and around a quarter say they want more training. The report therefore makes a double argument: managers matter enormously, but they cannot be expected to carry the communication load without structured support.

    5. What does the report conclude about listening, feedback and the overall implications for internal communication strategy?

    The report is quite critical here. It says that around half of UK workers do not feel listened to by their employer. While 53% say their organisation welcomes open and honest feedback, only 45% say their organisation is good at showing how feedback is used to inform decisions and actions. These scores are even lower in the largest organisations. The implication is that many organisations may have listening mechanisms in place, but employees do not experience those mechanisms as meaningful.

    Importantly, the report shows that listening is strongly associated with better outcomes. Where employees say their organisation both welcomes feedback and acts on it, advocacy and engagement rise sharply. The report also argues that annual staff surveys on their own are not enough. The best balance of effort and results comes from combining an annual survey with at least two other listening channels, especially pulse surveys and two-way manager conversations. That is a notable finding because it shifts the emphasis from periodic measurement to ongoing dialogue.

    The broader implication is that effective internal communication strategy should rest on four pillars. First, clearer communication about strategy, priorities and performance. Second, stronger leadership visibility, with the right leaders using the right channels. Third, better-enabled line managers, since they are both trusted and central to sense-making. Fourth, a more credible listening system that closes the loop visibly. Taken together, the report’s perspective is practical rather than theoretical: internal communication works best when it helps people understand where the organisation is going, trust the people leading it, connect that direction to their own team reality, and see that their voice has consequences.

  • Global CommTech Report 2023 by Purposeful Relations

    Global CommTech Report 2023 by Purposeful Relations

    About the paper

    The report examines how public relations and communications professionals think about, use, and plan to invest in communication technology and AI.

    It is based on original research from an online survey run between December 2022 and March 2023 using the Stickybeak chatbot research tool, with 329 PR and communications professionals surveyed and 160 completing all questions.

    The data is global in scope, covering respondents from Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, North America, and Latin America, although the sample was recruited through the organisers’ and partners’ networks, so it is not presented as a representative global sample.

    Length: 55 pages

    More information / download:
    https://purposefulrelations.com/global-commtech-report-2023/

    Core Insights

    1. What is the report’s central argument about the current state of comms technology in PR and communications?

    The report’s central argument is that there is a substantial gap between how competent PR and communications professionals believe they are with technology and how they actually use it in practice. The authors repeatedly suggest that many teams overestimate their digital maturity while still relying on basic, often inefficient tools for core work.

    This “reality gap” is the backbone of the report. More than half of respondents say they are very or extremely competent with their current communication technology, yet the underlying usage data points to widespread under-adoption of fit-for-purpose systems. The report highlights, for example, that 41% use spreadsheets to manage project tasks, only 46% use CRM software, and 39% use spreadsheets to manage contacts. That pattern implies that many teams are still handling critical workflows through improvised or outdated methods rather than through dedicated platforms.

    The broader meaning is that PR and communications has not yet modernised to the extent its own practitioners may believe. The report argues that the profession has missed earlier waves of innovation, including SEO and social media, and now risks falling behind again unless it improves its grasp of data, analytics, workflow systems, and AI. In that sense, the report is both a diagnostic study and a call for acceleration.

    2. What does the study show about how PR teams actually use technology, and where are the biggest weaknesses?

    The study shows that adoption is strongest in traditional, familiar categories and weakest in areas that support workflow discipline, relationship management, and integrated operations. Respondents rate media monitoring and social listening, collaboration and messaging, content creation and production, and social media publishing as highly important. By contrast, planning, project and task management, and especially CRM, appear much less embedded in practice.

    Three weaknesses stand out in particular. First, project and task management is underdeveloped. Almost half of respondents are not using proper project management software, with 41% relying on spreadsheets and 6% on paper. That suggests a profession still managing complex, collaborative work through tools not designed for that purpose.

    Second, contact and relationship management is weak. Fewer than half use CRM software, while nearly four in ten use spreadsheets as a pseudo-database for contacts. For a field built around relationships with journalists, stakeholders, communities, regulators, and others, the report treats this as a particularly telling weakness.

    Third, there is a fragmentation problem. Teams use a wide mix of tools, and the report identifies integration difficulties as one of the biggest barriers to effective use of technology. This matters because even when tools are present, disconnected systems can prevent efficiency gains. The report’s implicit point is that digital maturity is not just about buying more tools; it is about coherent systems, trained teams, and better workflows.

    3. How does the report portray the role of AI, data, analytics, and measurement in the future of the profession?

    The report presents AI, data, analytics, and measurement as central to the future of PR and communications, not as side issues. AI is seen overwhelmingly as an opportunity rather than a threat, while analytics and data are rated as the strongest opportunity area of all. Measurement and evaluation is identified as the most important emerging skill for the future, followed closely by data science and analytics.

    This is important because the report ties future relevance not just to faster content production, but to better insight, better planning, and better decision-making. Several sections argue that communications teams need to move beyond using technology only for monitoring, publishing, and content support. The more strategic opportunity lies in using technology to generate insight, improve accountability, model outcomes, and support governance and reputation management.

    At the same time, the report suggests that the profession is not fully ready. Although respondents recognise the importance of these capabilities, recruitment is difficult in precisely these areas, and many teams still struggle with basic data use, technology adoption, and evaluation practice. The report also notes that understanding of the ethics of AI and communication technology is uneven. So while the future direction is clear, the transition remains incomplete.

    4. What differences does the study identify between agency and in-house respondents?

    The most striking difference is the contrast between confidence and actual practice. Agency respondents rate themselves more highly than in-house respondents when it comes to using existing technology and identifying new tools. However, the report suggests that this confidence is not always matched by stronger adoption in practice. In some areas, in-house teams appear more advanced.

    For example, 64% of agency respondents say they are very or extremely competent in using their current technology stack, compared with 44% of in-house respondents. Similarly, 67% of agency respondents say they are competent at identifying and adopting new communication technology, against 52% of in-house respondents. Yet when specific use cases are examined, agencies are not clearly ahead. In-house practitioners are shown as more likely to recognise the importance of project planning and task management, for instance.

    There are also differences in spending patterns and organisational context. In-house teams face more complex decision-making, with procurement, finance, and IT more involved in technology investment. They are also more likely to be increasing investment in owned media and content creation, and 23% are cutting spending on external agencies. That hints at a structural shift: in-house functions may be building more capability internally, which could put pressure on agency fee models, particularly in content-related services.

    5. What are the report’s main implications for the PR and communications industry?

    The report’s main implication is that the profession needs a broader and more disciplined approach to digital transformation. Its message is not simply “buy more tech.” Instead, it argues that teams need to audit existing tools, improve training, integrate systems, build a better measurement culture, and treat data and analytics as core capabilities rather than specialist extras.

    A second implication is that efficiency pressures are becoming strategic pressures. Budget is seen as the biggest challenge facing teams, yet the report argues that better use of technology can help address budget pressure by improving productivity and effectiveness. In that sense, comms technology is framed ոչ only as an operational aid but as a lever for resilience in tougher economic conditions.

    A third implication concerns the evolving shape of professional value. The report suggests that automation and AI will reduce time spent on routine tasks and may weaken traditional agency billing models based on labour time, especially in content creation. That pushes both in-house teams and agencies towards higher-value work rooted in insight, prediction, relationship management, and strategic counsel. Several contributors describe a future in which communications professionals must become more analytical, more technologically fluent, and more ethically confident.

    Finally, the report implies that culture matters as much as software. One of its consistent themes is that adoption barriers often come down to skills, training, resistance to change, and weak governance rather than lack of tools alone. The industry therefore needs not just new platforms, but new habits, clearer frameworks, and stronger professional development.

  • The State of PR 2023 by Muck Rack

    The State of PR 2023 by Muck Rack

    About the paper

    Muck Rack’s State of PR 2023 is an original survey of 1,034 PR professionals, conducted online from 31 March to 25 April 2023 and distributed primarily by email.

    The sample is heavily US-based: 89% of respondents were in the United States, while Europe and Canada each accounted for 3% and Asia for 1%; 55% worked at agencies and 23% at brands.

    The stated margin of error is approximately 3%.

    Length: 54 pages

    More information / download: https://media.muckrack.com/documents/Muck_Rack_-_State_of_PR_2023.pdf

    Core Insights

    1. What does the report reveal about the main pressures facing PR professionals?

    The most immediate pressure is the increasing difficulty of media relations. More than half of respondents, 53%, selected getting responses from journalists as one of their three biggest current challenges. This concern was particularly pronounced among agency respondents, at 59%, compared with 46% among people working at brands.

    Resource pressure is nearly as significant. Some 48% identified insufficient budget or staffing as a leading challenge. Here the pattern was reversed: 55% of brand-side respondents were concerned about resources, compared with 42% at agencies.

    A third major challenge is demonstrating value. Forty per cent selected justifying or showcasing the PR team’s value to stakeholders, while 37% pointed to the difficulty of identifying relevant journalists. These figures suggest that PR teams are under pressure at both ends of the process: they struggle to secure media attention and must then prove internally that their activities have created meaningful value.

    The workload data reinforces this picture. Fifty-one per cent reported working 41–50 hours in the preceding week, while 6% worked more than 50 hours. Seventy-eight per cent had worked outside normal hours at least once during that week, and 26% had done so three or more times.

    At the same time, respondents were not generally alienated from senior management. Ninety per cent felt that leadership understood their work at least “somewhat well”, and most felt that the communications function was valued. The problem therefore appears less to be outright organisational rejection of PR than a combination of high expectations, constrained resources, difficult media conditions and persistent demands for evidence of impact.

    2. How is the role and scope of PR changing?

    The report presents PR as a profession that remains strongly centred on media relations but is becoming broader and more integrated with other organisational functions.

    Media relations still dominates practitioners’ work: 85% said it constituted at least a quarter of their job. However, thought leadership was cited by 51%, measurement and reporting by 47%, events by 34%, corporate communications by 27%, and both internal and executive communications by 23%.

    Internal communication appears to be expanding. Forty-four per cent said their teams were spending more time on it, while only 4% said the amount of time was decreasing. This is particularly noteworthy because brands also regard internal communications and counsel as highly unsuitable for outsourcing: 73% said they would be very unlikely to assign this work to an agency.

    The profession’s boundaries are also becoming less clear. Sixty-one per cent believed that the term “public relations” would need to be defined more broadly within five years, while another 15% thought it would need to be renamed. Only 22% expected the existing term to continue describing their work accurately.

    The relationship between PR and marketing is another sign of convergence. Seventy-one per cent expected this relationship to become more important during the following five years, although the report notes that this expectation had declined slightly from the previous year.

    Taken together, the findings suggest that PR is evolving from a relatively distinct media-relations discipline into a broader communications function encompassing internal communication, thought leadership, executive communication, measurement, digital channels and closer coordination with marketing.

    3. What does the study say about media relations and the future of earned media?

    The report portrays earned media as both central to PR and increasingly difficult to obtain.

    Seventy-one per cent expected securing earned media to become more difficult over the next five years: 44% anticipated that it would become somewhat more difficult, and 27% much more difficult. Only 8% expected it to become easier.

    Respondents nevertheless remained highly focused on traditional pitching. Eighty-nine per cent considered individual, one-to-one email the most effective channel for approaching journalists. No alternative came close: Twitter and mass email were each selected by 18%, while phone and LinkedIn were selected by 15%.

    Relevance was regarded as the most important ingredient in a successful pitch. Thirty-three per cent chose whether the subject was relevant to the journalist as the single most important factor. Existing relationships and personalised pitches were each chosen by 20%. Elements such as executive quotations, brevity, visual content and statistics in the headline were rated much lower.

    The report’s practical summary of pitching habits shows a fairly conventional workflow: almost 90% preferred one-to-one emails, 92% kept pitches below 300 words, 81% preferred pitching before noon, and Tuesday was the most popular day. Respondents were divided over whether one or two follow-ups were acceptable.

    The media mix itself is broadening. Ninety per cent commonly pitched online or digital media, 66% magazines, 63% printed newspapers, 52% television and 50% podcasts. This indicates that earned media is not disappearing, but the number of relevant formats and outlets is increasing while journalist responsiveness is declining.

    The underlying implication is that PR practitioners will need to combine better targeting, stronger relevance and broader media knowledge rather than relying on higher volumes of outreach.

    4. How are technology, AI and social platforms reshaping PR practice?

    Technology is becoming a strategic capability, although adoption remains uneven.

    Generative AI had already gained substantial attention when the survey was conducted in spring 2023. Twenty-eight per cent said they were already using tools such as ChatGPT or DALL-E, while 33% planned to explore them. A further 24% were unsure, and 15% had no plans to use them.

    AI also entered the list of important future skills. Thirty-one per cent said that integrating new AI tools into workflows would be one of the capabilities their organisation needed to develop over the following five years. It ranked below media relations, strategic planning and data and analytics, but roughly alongside social media, multimedia production, influencer marketing and diversity, equity and inclusion.

    Technology use was not universally sophisticated. Media lists were commonly stored in spreadsheets, cited by 68%, as well as dedicated PR software, cited by 64%. Only small minorities used sales CRM or marketing automation platforms for this purpose. Social-listening practices were also fragmented: 34% used such tools daily, but another 34% used them only case by case.

    Social-media priorities were shifting noticeably. LinkedIn had become the most widely used social network in communications strategies, selected by 84%, followed by Instagram at 75%, Twitter at 72% and Facebook at 71%. LinkedIn had risen by 11 percentage points from the previous year, while Twitter had fallen by five points.

    Looking forward, 53% planned to use LinkedIn more and 40% expected to increase their use of TikTok. Facebook was the only major platform where considerably more respondents expected to reduce rather than increase usage.

    The report therefore depicts a profession moving towards AI, analytics, LinkedIn and multimedia communication, but still relying extensively on spreadsheets, email and relatively conventional workflow systems.

    5. What are the report’s most important implications for PR leadership and measurement?

    The central leadership implication is that PR teams believe their value depends increasingly on demonstrating results linked to organisational priorities.

    When asked what would increase PR’s value among stakeholders, 66% chose producing measurable results and 62% selected connecting PR activities to key business initiatives. Fifty-seven per cent also cited securing more media coverage or relationships.

    There was, however, a tension between this aspiration and the metrics respondents considered most useful. The four highest-ranked measures were the number of stories placed, reach or impressions, key-message pull-through and website impact. These are largely outputs and intermediate outcomes rather than direct evidence of organisational or stakeholder impact.

    The report notes an important difference between agencies and brands. Agencies were more likely to prioritise the number of stories placed, whereas brand-side practitioners were more likely to rank revenue impact highly. Brand respondents were also more likely to say that connecting PR to business initiatives, improving internal reporting and mitigating reputational risk increased the function’s value.

    This points to a structural difference in how the two sides define success. Agencies appear more focused on deliverables and media performance, while in-house teams are somewhat more concerned with organisational consequences and business alignment.

    Leadership involvement remains strong. Forty-two per cent said the executive team was briefed about PR activities weekly, 16% monthly and 12% daily. CEOs were also the most commonly identified decision-makers for PR and earned-media spending, at 38%.

    The report’s broader implication is that PR’s future credibility will depend on closing the gap between the desire to demonstrate business value and the continued reliance on exposure-based metrics. As media coverage becomes harder to secure, counting placements and impressions alone is unlikely to be sufficient. PR teams will need stronger connections between communication activity, stakeholder response, reputation, digital behaviour and organisational outcomes.

  • Future of Jobs Report 2023 by World Economic Forum

    Future of Jobs Report 2023 by World Economic Forum

    About the paper

    The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2023 analyses how macro-trends, technology adoption, skills disruption and workforce strategies are expected to reshape labour markets from 2023 to 2027.

    It is a mixed-methods report built primarily on the fourth Future of Jobs Survey of 803 companies employing more than 11.3 million workers, across 27 industry clusters and 45 economies from all world regions, supplemented with data collaborations from Coursera, Indeed and LinkedIn.

    Length: 296 pages

    More information / download:
    https://www.weforum.org/publications/the-future-of-jobs-report-2023/

    Core Insights

    1. What is the central labour-market outlook presented in the report?

    The report’s central argument is that the global labour market is entering a period of significant structural churn rather than simple expansion or contraction. Employers expect major reconfiguration of roles, driven by technology, the green transition, economic pressure, supply-chain shifts and changing worker expectations.

    The headline estimate is that 23% of jobs will change structurally between 2023 and 2027. In the dataset covering 673 million jobs, employers expect 69 million jobs to be created and 83 million to be displaced, resulting in a net decrease of 14 million jobs, or about 2% of current employment.

    This is not presented as a uniform jobs crisis. The report’s more nuanced claim is that losses and gains will be unevenly distributed. Some roles, especially clerical, administrative and record-keeping jobs, are expected to decline sharply, while roles linked to technology, sustainability, education, agriculture and digital commerce are expected to grow.

    2. Which forces are expected to transform businesses and jobs most strongly?

    The report identifies technology adoption as the most widely expected driver of business transformation. More than 85% of surveyed organisations expect increased adoption of new and frontier technologies and broader digital access to transform their organisations.

    However, the report broadens the analysis beyond technology. It also highlights the green transition, ESG standards, climate adaptation, localisation of supply chains, slow economic growth, inflation, rising costs and geopolitical fragmentation.

    The strongest expected net job-creation effects come from green-transition investment, broader ESG adoption and more localised supply chains. By contrast, the strongest expected net job-destruction effects come from slower economic growth, supply shortages, rising input costs and the rising cost of living.

    So the report’s view is not “technology destroys jobs” or “technology creates jobs”. It argues that technology, climate, economics and geopolitics are interacting, producing both new demand and significant displacement.

    3. Which jobs are expected to grow, and which are expected to decline?

    The fastest-growing roles relative to their current size are mainly technology- and sustainability-related. AI and Machine Learning Specialists are at the top, followed by Sustainability Specialists, Business Intelligence Analysts, Information Security Analysts, Renewable Energy Engineers and related roles.

    Large-scale job growth is also expected in education, agriculture and digitally enabled commerce. The report projects growth in roles such as Vocational Education Teachers, University and Higher Education Teachers, Agricultural Equipment Operators, E-commerce Specialists, Digital Transformation Specialists and Digital Marketing and Strategy Specialists.

    The steepest declines are expected in clerical and administrative work. Bank Tellers, Postal Service Clerks, Cashiers and Ticket Clerks, Data Entry Clerks, Accounting and Payroll Clerks, and Administrative and Executive Secretaries are among the roles expected to decline most.

    The report estimates that 26 million fewer jobs may exist by 2027 in record-keeping and administrative roles alone. This makes administrative work one of the clearest areas of projected displacement.

    4. What does the report say about skills disruption and future skill needs?

    The report estimates that 44% of workers’ skills will be disrupted over the next five years. This is lower than the 57% disruption forecast in the 2020 edition, but still signals substantial pressure on workers and employers.

    Analytical thinking is identified as the most important core skill in 2023, followed by creative thinking. The report also places strong emphasis on resilience, flexibility, agility, motivation, self-awareness, curiosity, lifelong learning and technological literacy.

    The fastest-rising skills include creative thinking, analytical thinking, technological literacy, curiosity and lifelong learning, resilience, systems thinking, AI and big data, talent management and customer-service orientation.

    A key point is that companies’ training priorities do not simply mirror current skill importance. AI and big data rank only 15th as a current core skill, but third as a corporate training priority. This suggests that employers see AI capability as strategically urgent, even where it is not yet embedded across the workforce.

    5. What workforce strategies do companies expect to use, and what are the implications?

    The report finds that employers see skills gaps and difficulty attracting talent as the two biggest barriers to business transformation. Skills gaps in local labour markets are identified by 60% of surveyed companies, while 53% cite inability to attract talent.

    The most common workforce strategies are investing in learning and training on the job, and accelerating automation. Around four in five companies expect to use each of these strategies.

    The report estimates that six in 10 workers will need training before 2027, but only about half currently have access to adequate training opportunities. Companies expect much of this training to happen internally, through on-the-job training, coaching and internal training departments, rather than mainly through external providers.

    The implication is that the future of work will depend heavily on whether organisations can move from abstract concern about skills to practical, scaled workforce development. The report’s underlying assumption is that labour-market disruption is not fully predetermined: policy choices, business investment and talent strategies will shape whether the transition becomes exclusionary or opportunity-generating.

  • State of the Sector 2022-23 by Gallagher

    State of the Sector 2022-23 by Gallagher

    About the paper

    The report analyses the state of internal communication and employee experience in 2022/23 using original survey research conducted from October to November 2022.

    It draws on responses from more than 2,000 organisations across 53 countries, making it a global survey-based benchmark study; the report clearly states the respondent mix and geography, though some methodological details beyond the survey design are not specified in detail.

    Length: 59 pages

    More information / download:
    https://www.ajg.com/employeeexperience/state-of-the-sector/

    Core Insights

    1. How does the report define the changing purpose of internal communication in 2022/23?

    The report’s core argument is that internal communication is no longer defined primarily as a vehicle for top-down strategic alignment. That still matters, but it now competes with a broader, more human-centred purpose: shaping culture and belonging. On page 10, 74% say the purpose of internal communication is to support culture and belonging, while 67% point to strategic alignment. That is a significant shift in emphasis, especially for smaller organisations, where culture and belonging outrank strategy more clearly.

    This matters because it shows the profession moving from a transmission model to a relational model. Internal communication is presented less as a tool for informing employees and more as a mechanism for helping people feel valued, included and connected to the organisation. The report explicitly links this shift to diversity, equity and inclusion, values and behaviours, and physical and emotional wellbeing. Those themes sit at the centre of the report’s framing of what communication is now for.

    The topic data reinforces that interpretation. On page 11, the most communicated topic is still strategy, vision and purpose at 45%, but DEI follows at 29%, and both values, behaviours and culture and wellbeing and mental health stand at 27%. So the report is not saying strategy has disappeared. It is saying strategy now sits alongside a stronger expectation that communication should help create meaning, belonging and organisational cohesion.

    The executive summary also frames this as a recalibration. The report argues that after years of disruption, organisations are moving beyond short-term channel adaptation and asking bigger questions about the “why” and “what” of internal communication, not only the “how”. That is one of the report’s clearest underlying messages.

    2. What does the study reveal about the relationship between internal communication, culture, belonging and employee experience?

    The report presents culture and employee experience as the two strongest growth areas in the remit of internal communication. It argues that communicators are increasingly expected to influence how work feels, not just how information flows. That includes belonging, inclusion, trust, wellbeing, EVP understanding and the quality of everyday employee interactions.

    On culture and belonging, the report finds that DEI is widely communicated but not always strategically embedded. On page 17, only a little over 4 in 10 respondents say they have a clearly defined DEI strategy, even though DEI is the second most communicated topic. Tactics such as awareness days, employee resource groups and training are common, especially in larger organisations, but the report suggests many organisations are still using disconnected activities rather than integrated, behaviour-shaping communication.

    The report is especially sceptical about authenticity. On page 18, only 45% say they have a say in what gets communicated and how, 35% feel able to inject more personality into communications, and just 26% say their organisation is open to creativity and humour. This is one of the report’s strongest interpretive threads: employees increasingly want candour, humanity and personality, but many organisations still default to sanitised corporate language. The report’s own commentary on page 21 is blunt: people want authenticity, yet internal communication still tends to be led by “corporate speak”.

    On employee experience, the report suggests that organisations have recognised the issue more than they have solved it. On pages 22–25, it shows that 57% have taken steps to revisit their EVP, but only 26% have formalised it in writing. Just 53% rate employee understanding of pay, rewards and benefits as excellent or good, and only 34% say the same for career development opportunities. At leadership level, 72% believe employee experience is on the executive radar, yet only around a third report a clear formal mandate from the top. In other words, employee experience is widely acknowledged but still insufficiently structured.

    The report also shows that some parts of employee experience are much more developed than others. Purpose and strategy, rewards, learning and development, and wellbeing are comparatively more likely to have clear strategies, while digital experience, environmental and social impact, and workplace experience lag behind. That suggests a patchy and uneven employee experience agenda rather than a coherent one.

    3. Which practical weaknesses are most limiting organisations’ internal communication efforts?

    The report identifies a cluster of operational weaknesses that keep appearing across the data: lack of time and capacity, disengagement, budget constraints, weak measurement, poor people manager enablement, and underdeveloped change communication.

    The most immediate constraint is resourcing. On page 14, lack of time and capacity is the top challenge for 2023 at 34%, ahead of disengaged employees at 30% and lack of budget at 24%. That is important because it changes the story from one of ambition to one of delivery pressure. The report repeatedly suggests that internal communication teams are being asked to cover more ground, especially across culture, wellbeing, experience and change, without enough additional support.

    People managers are another weak point. On page 19, 34% still view people managers mainly as a cascade channel. While 56% say managers are expected to reinforce and adapt corporate messages for their teams, preparedness is middling rather than strong: 58% say managers are well equipped to support wellbeing, 56% to connect employees to purpose, and 53% to create an inclusive workplace. The report’s implication is that managers are central to culture and experience, but most organisations are not enabling them robustly enough.

    Change communication is a particularly notable weak spot. On pages 33 and 34, almost 90% of organisations report planned change programmes for 2023, yet performance on key change communication practices is poor. Only two ingredients stand out as reasonably well handled: visual identity and long-term vision. Clear change narratives, communication calendars, audience understanding, behaviour insight and advocate networks all score weakly. The executive summary states that 58% fail to articulate a clear change narrative or design a consistent calendar of activities. That is a serious gap given how much change organisations are navigating.

    Measurement is another area where the profession looks stuck between aspiration and maturity. On pages 47 and 48, reach and employee understanding are measured more often than business outcomes or overall satisfaction, and the top reason for measuring is to show ROI to leaders rather than to improve communication for employees. The main barriers are lack of time and resource, lack of clear objectives, and technology limitations. The report clearly sees this as a problem: measurement exists, but it is not yet consistently outcome-focused or improvement-led.

    4. What does the report say about channels, technology and the digital employee experience?

    The report argues that channels and technology remain a major frustration, but not simply because there are too many tools. Its position is more nuanced: many organisations still lack a coherent channel strategy, sufficient investment and the data sophistication needed to make channels work well together.

    Overall channel satisfaction is mediocre rather than strong. On page 37, 63% are satisfied or very satisfied with their current channel mix, which still leaves more than a third dissatisfied. At the same time, 46% say their organisation is not investing enough in communication technology. The report treats this as evidence of a widening gap between what digital tools could enable and what employees actually experience.

    The value ratings on page 38 show where the main problems lie. Channels perform best at basic reach, with 73% saying they help reach people wherever they are based. But only 60% say they connect people on a human level, 59% say they create a consistent experience, 55% say they help gather employee feedback, 52% say they drive collaboration, and just 45% say they let employees share their own content. So the digital environment is relatively better at distributing information than at fostering participation, dialogue or belonging.

    The report also points to structural immaturity behind that dissatisfaction. Only 31% have a channel framework, only 33% have channel-specific editorial calendars, and segmentation and personalisation remain limited. On pages 39 and 40, segmentation tends to focus on basic criteria such as management responsibility, job role and location, while more sophisticated targeting based on interests, attitudes or response to change remains weak. Personalisation is even less mature. This supports one of the report’s broader conclusions: the profession talks about digital sophistication, but the operational foundations are often still basic.

    Interestingly, the report does not say all channel types are failing equally. It shows strong use and effectiveness for broadcast staples such as email and town halls, and high effectiveness ratings for collaboration channels such as team meetings and enterprise chat tools. Intranets remain common but attract criticism for analytics, integration and social functionality, while employee apps are seen as effective but not yet dominant. AI, meanwhile, appears more as an emerging aspiration than an established practice, with only 9% reporting current use.

    So the report’s position is not anti-technology. It is that technology alone has not solved the communication problem. Without clearer governance, sharper purpose, better content and stronger audience insight, more tools will not automatically create a better employee experience.

    5. What are the report’s main strategic implications for communication leaders in 2023 and beyond?

    The report’s strategic message is that internal communication leaders need to think bigger than channels and bolder than messaging. They are being asked to shape culture, strengthen belonging, improve employee experience, support change, and demonstrate value in measurable terms. That requires a more strategic, integrated and evidence-led function.

    First, communication leaders need to clarify the function’s purpose. The conclusion on page 55 begins with the need to have a defined purpose and strategy, aligned to what the business needs and what value communication provides. That recommendation follows directly from the report’s evidence that many teams still operate with campaign plans and tactics, but without an overarching long-term strategy.

    Second, they need to build a stronger narrative capability. The report shows that only 30% have a written strategic narrative, and fewer than half believe employees understand how they contribute to strategy. That makes narrative not a stylistic extra, but a strategic necessity. Communicators are being urged to articulate purpose, change and meaning more clearly and consistently.

    Third, the report strongly implies that authenticity is becoming a competitive communication capability. Employees want open, human and credible communication, yet many organisations still resist humour, creativity and personality. The report’s commentary repeatedly frames authenticity as necessary to trust, relevance and memory. For leaders, that means not just polishing leadership messages, but helping leaders communicate more like real people.

    Fourth, communication leaders need to shift from output metrics to impact thinking. The report explicitly says the focus should move from outputs to outcomes. If culture, belonging and employee experience are the new frontier, then success cannot be assessed only through open rates or attendance. It has to include understanding, behaviour, sentiment and business-relevant effects.

    Finally, the report suggests that internal communication is at a turning point. Its remit has expanded, its influence appears higher than in the past, but its operating model has not fully caught up. Teams are under pressure, technology is underperforming, and measurement remains imperfect. The opportunity is clear: communicators who can connect purpose, experience, change and evidence will be better placed to become trusted advisers rather than content distributors. That is the report’s underlying vision of what world-class internal communication now looks like.

  • The Changing Face of Leadership Communication by Padilla

    The Changing Face of Leadership Communication by Padilla

    About the paper

    The report examines how leadership communication is changing under sustained pressure from pandemic disruption, employee volatility, social issues and economic uncertainty.

    It is a mixed-methods report drawing on an online survey of 100+ C-suite executives and company owners, an online survey of more than 1,000 employed adults, and nearly 20 one-to-one depth interviews with C-suite leaders; the geographic scope is not clearly specified in the report.

    Length: 58 pages

    More information / download:
    https://padillaco.com/post/the-changing-face-of-leadership-communications

    Core Insights

    1. Why does the report argue that leadership communication has changed so sharply?

    The report’s core argument is that the context around leadership has become far more unstable, emotionally charged and publicly scrutinised than the environment many senior leaders came up in. It describes the past “2½ years of chaos” as shaped by COVID-19, polarised politics, unsettled employees, gun violence and other social issues, geopolitical uncertainty, supply chain shortages, whiplash economics, racial reckoning and stagflation. That combination has made it “not an easy time to be in the C-suite”.

    The report also shows that these pressures are not abstract. In the survey, the top reported leadership challenges were coping with economic uncertainty at 42%, rising inflation at 33%, public health incidents at 32%, supporting employee well-being at 29%, and attracting and retaining talent at 27%. That puts emotional, operational and reputational strain into the same leadership frame.

    In other words, the change in communication is presented as a response to a changed operating environment. Leaders are no longer communicating in relatively stable conditions; they are communicating amid overlapping crises, faster feedback loops and heightened stakeholder expectations. That is why the report treats communication change as structural rather than cosmetic.

    2. How does the report characterise what leaders are feeling, and why does that matter?

    The report’s clearest single-word diagnosis is that leaders feel “conflicted”. That matters because it frames leadership communication not as a polished top-down exercise, but as something shaped by genuine internal tension.

    That tension shows up repeatedly in the interview material. Leaders describe feeling helpless during COVID, uncertain about what the next day would bring, and torn between different employee needs: flexibility versus certainty, empathy versus business discipline, transparency versus reassurance. The report also argues that many leaders were rewarded earlier in their careers for confidence, infallibility, competitiveness and prioritising work over personal life, but are now being asked to lead in a very different climate.

    This matters because the report sees conflict not as weakness, but as the defining emotional condition of contemporary leadership. The better leaders recognise that conflict, rather than pretending it does not exist. That becomes the basis for a more adaptive communication style: less rigid certainty, more judgement, and more conscious balancing of competing demands.

    3. Which leadership qualities does the report say have become more important, and what does that reveal about the new leadership model?

    The report shows that credibility and authenticity top the list of qualities ranked “extremely important” for effective employee communication, at 74% and 73% respectively. Confidence follows at 66%, then ethics at 65% and transparency at 63%. Empathy sits at 52%, humility at 51%, while vulnerability and stoicism are both much lower at 26%.

    But the more revealing finding is the change over time. The qualities seen as more important than two years ago are led by social issue advocacy at 80%, empathy at 76%, flexibility at 73%, vulnerability at 70% and a growth mindset at 68%. That suggests the leadership model is shifting away from simple command-and-control confidence towards a more complex mix of moral positioning, emotional intelligence and adaptability.

    The report does not argue that traditional strengths disappear. Confidence, credibility and certainty still matter. Instead, it suggests leaders are having to combine older expectations of competence with newer demands for candour, empathy and social awareness. That is why the report repeatedly presents today’s leadership as a balancing act rather than a clean replacement of one model by another.

    4. What communication dilemmas are leaders now trying to manage in practice?

    The report identifies several recurring dilemmas. One is the challenge of creating a “change comfortable” culture. Leaders describe shorter planning cycles, the need to keep returning to the “why”, and a growing focus on resilience, interconnections and comfort with ambiguity. Long-term direction still matters, but detailed long-range plans are presented as far less reliable than before.

    A second dilemma is transparency. The report explicitly labels this the “transparency dilemma”, framing competency and confidence against transparency and candour as potentially conflicting leadership attributes. Interviewees say they are getting more comfortable saying “I don’t know”, but not stopping there; they must acknowledge uncertainty without undermining reassurance.

    A third dilemma concerns humanity. At company level, that means expanded benefits, flexible work, culture-building and taking stands on social issues. At leader level, it means more empathy, more visible personal openness, more kindness and more acknowledgement of blind spots. Yet even here the report stresses boundaries: leaders may need to show that they have feelings without fully exposing those feelings.

    Finally, there is the dilemma of criticism. Because leaders are listening more, they are hearing more dissent from employees, customers, investors and communities. The report argues that criticism is now a given, not an exception. Negative feedback no longer automatically signals a bad decision; it is part of the new communications environment.

    5. What are the report’s main implications for communication advisers and teams?

    The report’s practical conclusion is that communicators need to evolve from message crafters into strategic advisers. It contrasts old requests such as “Go say this for me” or “How do I say this?” with broader questions such as “What are the consequences of what I say and do?” and “What should I do?” That signals a move from tactical execution to leadership counsel.

    According to the report, today’s strategic communications adviser must be in tune with the complexities of the business, highly attentive to stakeholder groups and subgroups, able to think about the message, the messenger and the methods, and capable of listening to and interpreting feedback.

    The broader implication is that communicators are no longer just helping leaders express decisions. They are helping leaders navigate ambiguity, stakeholder conflict, social expectations and organisational change. The report ends by saying that strategic communications professionals have “never been more essential as advisors and transformers”. That is the document’s clearest statement of purpose: it is making the case for a bigger, more embedded and more strategic role for communication counsel.

  • The new shape of measurement in 2022

    The new shape of measurement in 2022

    Early in 2022, CoverageBook was kind enough to ask me to share my perspective on how communication would be measured differently in 2022.

    You can find my humble contribution along with predictions by Alex Judd, Sarah Mawji and Brian Wallace in the article ‘The new shape of measurement in 2022: PR experts predict how you’ll evaluate success this year’ here.