Five Pressures Shaping The Corporate Communications Role – II

Read Part 1 here

The pressures faced by corporate communicators today present both challenges and opportunities for growth and development. By reframing these pressures and implementing actionable steps, corporate communications can play a strategic role in driving organisational success.

Pressure 4: The growing importance of resilience

Have you noticed what kind of story appeals to you most? It is the one that has failures, grit, audacity, and courage to face adversity. These stories represent the growing importance of human resilience. 

This era of constant disruption calls for a high level of resilience to maintain stakeholder trust. Corporate communications plays a critical role in managing crises, addressing misinformation, and maintaining a positive reputation during challenging times.

What more can you do?

• Proactively address misinformation: Monitor social media and news outlets for false information and respond swiftly with accurate, fact-based messaging.
• Showcase resilience stories: Highlight examples of how the organisation has overcome past challenges to reinforce its resilience and reliability. Even stories of employee resilience has the ability to strengthen reputation and brand.

Pressure 5: The shift in workforce expectations

Employees increasingly expect organisations to align with their personal values, offer flexibility, and foster a sense of purpose. Corporate communications must ensure that internal messaging resonates with employees while also reflecting the organisation’s external brand.

What more can you do?

• Amplify purpose-driven messaging: Clearly communicate the organisation’s mission, vision, and values to employees, ensuring they understand how their work contributes to broader goals. There is never going to be a time when this is will be enough. This is one messaging that will need constant reiteration. 
• Be creative with two-way internal communication: Often intranet and town halls see low engagement by employees. Think out of the box on how to make these tools more engaging so as to encourage feedback and dialogue.

Integrating the pressures

To effectively address these pressures, corporate communications must adopt a holistic approach that integrates technology, stakeholder engagement, leadership alignment, resilience, and workforce expectations. 

1. Align communications with business strategy: Ensure that all communication efforts support the organisation’s strategic goals and priorities.
2. Leverage data-driven insights: Use data analytics to measure the impact of communication campaigns and refine strategies based on stakeholder feedback.
3. Collaborate across functions: Work closely with HR, marketing, legal, and IT teams to ensure consistent messaging and alignment across all touchpoints.
4. Embrace agility: Develop flexible communication plans that can adapt to rapidly changing circumstances and emerging trends.
5. Prioritise authenticity: Build trust with stakeholders by maintaining transparency, honesty, and authenticity in all communications.

To thrive in this era of disruption, corporate communications professionals must adopt a proactive, strategic, and values-driven approach.

These new pressure points are already here, and the role of corporate communications has never been more critical. These are not just trends to watch—they are urgent calls to action. By embracing these imperatives, communicators can transform their function from a reactive support role to a strategic powerhouse that drives organisational success.

In a world where trust is fragile, narratives are powerful, and change is constant, corporate communications professionals have the opportunity—and the responsibility—to lead. The question is not whether you can adapt to these pressures, but whether you can harness them to shape a better future for your organisation and the world. 

The time to act is now.

The views and opinions published here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the publisher.

Sarita Bahl

Sarita Bahl is an alumnus of Tata Institute of Social Sciences and the Swedish Institute of Management Program. An experienced and versatile leader, she comes with nearly four decades of professional experience. She has over the years successfully overseen the communications and public affairs function and led the corporate social responsibility strategy for Bayer South Asia, Pfizer, and Monsanto, among others. Sarita has held multiple roles across diverse industries, the public sector, trade associations, MNCs, and the not-for-profit sector. Her areas of interest include advocacy, stakeholder engagement, sustainability, and communications.

As an Associate Certified Coach (ACC) from the International Coaching Federation (ICF) and Senior Practitioner (Mentoring) from the European Council of Mentoring and Coaching (EMCC), Sarita specializes in career transition, inner engineering and life issues. Sarita enjoys writing and is passionate about animals, books, and movies.