Audience counts

At Working Week we have just completed a project for a government agency that aims to improve the quality of public sector leadership. It has raised some key issues around audiences and the importance of understanding who your primary target group is for any given piece of information.

Most organisations have multiple stakeholders so it is always tempting to be over-inclusive. But it is crazy for any organisation to think it can produce information that will be all things to all people. The likely result is that nobody reads or listens to what you have to say.

We are not advocating watering down or hyping up a message to make it more palatable for one audience compared with another. Rather, it’s about understanding what facts, information and ideas will have the most impact on changing behaviour, developing opinion or galvanising people into action.

In the case of our recent report, the primary audience was policy makers, opinion formers and funders. As a result it was full of facts and data to show that leadership can make a difference when delivering public services. It also positioned our client as a first port of call for leadership expertise and advice.

It was a very different document from one that might have been produced for another core audience – public sector managers on the frontline.

Keep on talking

One of the dangerous side effects of a recession is the sudden withdrawal of investment in workforce skills and development. It invariably means that businesses lack the expertise and commitment they need to take advantage of the upturn when it comes.

Several clients in the public and private sectors have called us in over the past few months to help them deliver campaigns to ensure that this doesn’t happen in this recession.

Figures from employers groups suggest that, to some extent, they are pushing at an open door. Training managers responding to a CIPD survey say training budgets are being cut by less than a third, while CBI research has found that only 9 per cent of businesses are cutting their training budgets at all.

However, in both cases, employers say they are targeting their training spend more effectively at interventions that will help them survive the recession and take advantage of any improvements in business conditions.

But it is still early days. As more jobs go each month, it will become ever more tempting for business leaders to slash their investment in people and hunker down in the hope that things will get better soon.

So, while the business community appears to have learnt the skills lesson, our clients know that they cannot afford to be complacent and need to continue driving the message home.

Welcome to Working Week

At Working Week we use our research, writing and editing skills to create innovative but practical content for newsletters, magazines, reports and websites.  You’ll find a bit more detail on the extra pages on this site on the work we’ve done and the organisations who work with us, so take a look.

Our work is always fresh and challenging. Whether you need long-term support, short bursts of ideas and energy or just someone to challenge old ways we have the experience to help. We are proud of our extensive client list and spread of exciting projects.

Contact us now to find out more about how we can help.

Leading our schools

One of our most interesting new clients is the National College for School Leadership. We’re part of a team of people researching and writing a report looking at the state of leadership in schools today. It’s an exciting time to be talking to those at the forefront of transforming the way schools and colleges work and there are some fantastic initiatives taking place raising standards in teaching and learning across the UK.

For Working Week it’s also a great opportunity to cement our expertise in education and learning, following the extensive writing that Lucie Carrington has been doing for some of The Guardian’s specialist education pages. http://www.guardian.co.uk/users/luciecarrington/clippings

One of our HR consultancy clients has been spending time moving thinking from education into the corporate world, helping organisations to find new ways to develop their staff. We are just starting to pull together a research and information project to help disseminate some of their findings. So more on that in the next few weeks.

Working Week’s new blog

This is Working Week’s new blog. As well as info on our latest projects,  articles and ideas, you’ll find some background on our clients past and present and the projects we’ve worked on. And there’s a bit of detail on our skills and experience.