What will 2020 bring for CIPR?

Next year I will take over the role of President for CIPR following on from the wonderful Emma Leech and Sarah Waddington who have been before me and are currently President and Vice President respectfully.

There wasn’t an election in 2018 as no one else stood for the role, which is why many of you will have seen little about my ideas and my plans. I shared them when I stood and over the last six months, I have been fleshing these out based on the CIPR draft strategy, the work before me and what I’m passionate about. Now that these have been shared with the CIPR Council and the Board, I wanted to share them with the wider members and non-members so you can see what’s on the agenda.

I have been a volunteer with CIPR since 2012 and I have been involved in lots of projects – from running the Inside (internal comms) group to chairing PDMC and changing some of our processes.

There are three things I said I would focus on in 2020:

·      To grow membership and increase volunteer engagement

·      To improve the understanding of PR as a strategic function

·      To have a training and development programme for everyone

But what does this really mean and what will you see?

-       We will start talking to those outside our profession. We have done some great work in the last two years to raise the profile of PR in business/organisations and I want to do more of this so that we are talking to specific audiences about specific topics to really make an impact

-       We will be looking at the content on our CPD database. We will be working with a specialist to review all the contents, amends skills guides and also ensure we have any gaps filled. In addition, we will create a knowledge panel who will review anything that goes onto the database to ensure it is to the standard of a Chartered body

-       I want there to be a more consistent member experience. I would like all our members to have the same base level of support with events, content and opportunities. This means better working together across CIPR HQ and our volunteers. For the first time, we will be hosting a volunteer conference (in the first quarter) to explore lots of things, one of them being how we do this once and for all

-       I’d like there to be more accessible training. Our digital offer is not as strong as it could be and our agility to respond to the market is not quite where it needs to be either. I have already started working with the team so that we have things ready to go in early 2020

Those are a few things on the list. In addition, I’d like us to stop talking about PR with a sole focus on media and campaigns. PR is the “planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics.”

Publics includes many stakeholders and is not the general public. So I want to see more content and more equal weight given to Public Affairs, Internal Communication, Marketing Communication and more.

I don’t want to talk about whether we are a profession, a craft or an industry. I want to talk about our professional conduct and make sure that our members have everything they need to demonstrate high levels of skill, knowledge, competence and standards of practise and professional conduct.

Professional conduct is the key phrase for me. I would like to see more members looking at their plans to enhance their skills, taking their development seriously and ensuring they have everything they need to advise, coach and support organisations.

From January I will be in the CIPR office one day a week, available on the phone for any member. I am keen to come to the regions and meet as many members and non-members as I can. I spent an evening in Belfast in September and it was lovely to chat about strategic internal communications alongside some of my presidential commitments.

As Will McEvoy from the Newsroom said in 2012, “I’m on a mission to civilise, progress is slow but I’m in it for the long haul”. I am on a mission to civilise the workplace, to help organisational leaders understand the importance of PR and communications and I know that our army of volunteers are the key to unlocking the potential and the impact we can have when we all work together.