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CONNECTIONS
 An Edelman perspective on making meaningful employee connections that deepen engagement, build trust and accelerate business performance.
 
JUNE 2014
 
HOW
 
DOES YOUR CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS TEAM COMPARE
INSIGHTS FROM THE EDELMAN CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS BENCHMARKING STUDY
 
Corporate Communications is integral to driving company reputation objectives and ensuring a cohesive strategy to engage stakeholders
 and the function is raising its profile among business leadership as the C-suite recognizes the importance of two-way dialogue. As a result, Corporate Communications teams continue to evolve. To better understand how companies organize the function, Edelman executed a Corporate Communications Benchmarking Study, surveying 36 companies and exploring headcount, reporting lines and areas of improvement. Findings suggest that these functional teams have been shaped by multiple factors impacting strategic choices around structure and function, including size, industry dynamics, and b-to-b vs. b-to-c focus, and internal factors, such as organizational culture, leadership changes, transformation initiatives and operational constraints.
LET’S DIVE IN: CORPO
RATE COMMUNICATIONS STUDY HIGHLIGHTS
 
Headcount averages 35.
Of companies surveyed, there was a wide range of team sizes
 from a headcount of 1 to 159, with the average being 35
 and this number varied by industry. Financial Services companies tend to over-index on headcount, likely due to both regulatory and reputation issues of the industry; they are also among the largest participants by revenue. In contrast, Retail tends to have far fewer than average total communicators. When it comes to external vs. internal communication headcount, external communicators generally outnumber internal communicators by a ratio of about 1.5-to-1. There are some notable exceptions; for example, in b-to-c companies there is a 4-to-1 ratio of external communicators to internal communicators. In contrast, Services companies demonstrate a higher average number of internal communicators, with an almost equal 1-to-1 ratio of external to internal.
 
PR & Media Relations and Internal Communications comprise most of that headcount.
 PR & Media Relations and Internal Communications are the functions that most often anchor Corporate Communication teams. The most notable exceptions to this finding are in b-to-c, Manufacturing and Pharma companies, which have more headcount in Stakeholder Relations than in Internal Communications. CSR & Philanthropy and Corporate Brand & Identity play a strong secondary role, particularly in segments like b-to-c companies and the retail industry.
 
 
2 For more information, please contact Edelman Employee Engagement at employee.engagement@edelman.com. 
Examining companies across the size spectrum, the Corporate Communications team becomes more concentrated by function in larger organizations. In companies under $5 billion revenue, the range of activities represented in Corporate Communications spans all 13 functions in the study; however, in larger companies with more headcount, Corporate Communications teams tend to cover fewer functions. Dedicated Digital & Social Media resources seem to be under-represented across the board, with only the largest companies (over $50 billion) and the Financial Services industry dedicating more than 5% of their headcount digital communications.
 
34 report to the CEO.
The most common reporting line for the Corporate Communications function is to the CEO
 about 34% of the time
 
followed by the CMO and “Other” leaders. The “Other” category
includes a variety of leaders such as Human Resources, Corporate Strategy, Corporate Development, Brand Custodian and business unit Presidents. Pharmaceutical and other companies, such as conglomerates and defense contractors, stand out as exceptions, as the Corporate Communications function in these industries are twice as likely to report to the CEO. From a size perspective, there is more variability in smaller companies (under $5 billion), as 6 of the 13 Corporate Communications teams surveyed report to a leader outside of the CEO and CMO.
 
Communications-
rel ted work doesn’t lw ys
feed into Corporate Communications.
 Going a level deeper, functions related to Corporate Communications often report into other functions. Of the survey respondents with investor relations functions, 60% indicated direct reporting lines to the CFO, rather than Corporate Communications. Stakeholder Relations (including government relations and public affairs) and Digital & Social Media often report into other functions as well.
 
Immediate focus areas are digital capabilities, content and company narrative.
Surveyed companies are planning to invest in many areas over the next 12 months, with a major focus on digital capability enhancement, content creation and better alignment to a consistent narrative across functions and geographies. Most are interested in developing new capabilities or putting more effective processes in place, with top priorities being enhancing content creation with story-mining and visual storytelling, optimizing digital and other channels for executive and employee communications, and adding CSR communication. Corporate Communication teams are seeking better alignment with regional and country teams through information flows, accountability and improved planning. There is a desire to drive consistency of strategy by centralizing decision-making in areas like master narrative and shifting from a reactive to a proactive approach. Many companies are planning to increase Corporate Communications headcount, both in HQ and in-country, to support new business growth or to decrease dependence on agencies.
 
 
3 For more information, please contact Edelman Employee Engagement at employee.engagement@edelman.com. 
WHERE DO YOU FIT IN?
So how does your Corporate Communications function compare? Do your numbers, breakdowns and reporting lines coincide with the trends identified? Are your plans for improvement over the next year in line with those surveyed? Take some time to consider how your Corporate Communications team would fit in among study participants. Is this where you want to be? Does it make sense? We hope these benchmarks and valuable industry insights will help guide you in making strategic improvements to your function structure and focus areas to say competitive among your industry peers.
WANT TO SEE THE FULL REPORT?
Contact us for a copy of the full Edelman Corporate Communications Benchmarking Study Participant Summary Report, including interviewee quotes, percentage breakdowns and more.
ABOUT US
Edelman’s Employee Engagement Practice helps organizations
accelerate business performance
,
 delivered by highly engaged and trusted employees. We do this by making meaningful, trust-building connections
 connecting employees with the company, connecting employees with each other
,
 and connecting employees with the outside world
.
 We have a global network of employee engagement specialists who can develop engagement strategy; deploy the tools and processes to deliver it; create the multimedia channels and content that support it; and design the insight mechanisms to measure it. For more information, visit us at ee.edelman.com, follow us on Twitter at @EdelmanEE or email us at employee.engagement@edelman.com. 

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