In a recent webinar, Richard Edney, the Communication Manager for Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service, shared valuable insights on communications team demonstrating their worth to senior leaders and the wider organisation.
Background and importance
“Did you know about the event happening in the morning?”
“Can someone create a video tomorrow for the launch of new project?”
“Why haven’t comms sent something out about such and such?”
These are just some of the comments that we can hear when communications is an after-thought, the importance of communications professionals isn’t considered, or leaders don’t see the value that communications teams can bring to their organisation.
By allowing senior leaders and other members of staff to see the value that communications teams can bring to their organisation is one way to overcome the issues with these comments.
By effectively showcasing the value of communication teams, we can build trust and credibility with stakeholders, including senior leaders, firefighters, support staff, and partner agencies.
Strategic communication not only promotes accountability but also informs better decision-making within the organisation, ultimately helping fire and rescue services to achieve their priorities such as enhancing the safety and well-being of the community.
Lancashire’s approach
We have tried to develop a comprehensive approach to evaluating and communicating our value over the last 20 years or so. When I first joined the Service in 2007, communication was largely tactical with activities such as sending out press releases, responding to journalist enquiries, organising press events and producing a quarterly magazine.
Through the events of the Head of Communications over the years, the team has evolved as well as our responsibilities to include strategic communication, focusing on consultations, staff surveys, community risk management plans and culture change.
One significant change was the inclusion of the head of communications as a non-voting member of the executive board, which later evolved into a voting position and the Head of Communications recently becoming the Assistant Director of Communications and Engagement. Over the years, these changes have allowed the communication team to have direct access to senior leaders and demonstrate their value more effectively.
Monthly and annual reports
To showcase our work, we produce detailed monthly and annual reports. These reports include metrics on media coverage, social media performance, email marketing, website analytics, internal communications, and campaign effectiveness. The monthly reports are compiled using data from various software tools and are shared with the executive board for review.
The annual report provides a more comprehensive overview, including demographic information about website visitors and social media followers. This data helps us to tailor our communications to reach target audiences more effectively
Reflections and next steps
By continuously evaluating and improving their methods, we have successfully shown our worth to stakeholders and secured a more prominent role within the organisation. Like all of the work we do, there is still more that can be done and we care keen to hear what other fire and rescue services do, so we can learn from their approach and adapt and develop further.
Contact information
For those interested in learning more about our work, please feel free to email me – [email protected] or send me a message on LinkedIn or Facebook.
Finally, a committee member, if there is anything you would like to share with the sector, either through a blog or a webinar, please get in touch, we would love to hear from you.
