University of Derby: designing a future-focused communications team
What will university communication and PR teams look like in the future? And what changes do we need to make now to start preparing for that? These were two big questions that the University of Derby was exploring. And so they partnered with us to answer them.
From the advent of AI, to the continued dominance of influencer marketing, and constant changes in how the “traditional” media work and tell stories, hand in hand with the growing need for international PR and public affairs to lead strategic change, there are big shifts across the PR sector as a whole.
For decades the PR and communications profession has argued that it needs to be seen as a strategic leadership function, helping to guide and steer business and policy decisions. This has evolved in recent years in the higher education sector, with more and more universities recognising this and demanding strategic leadership from their communications team.
At the University of Derby, they felt that they were on the cusp of an opportunity to reshape the vision for the future of their communications activity. Pickle Jar Communications was commissioned to help them understand what that future might look like and create recommendations for their next steps.
Our work included:
Consulting with senior stakeholders and the University’s leadership team to better understand their vision and the role that they hoped communications could play in bringing it to life
Consulting with the communications team and related stakeholders to understand how they currently work, what they produce, what they would love to see change and what barriers they were facing
Conducting a thorough review and report on future trends in communications that the University needs to prepare for, embrace and adapt to
Digging beneath the surface with our consultations to better understand the cultural factors at play that have things be the way they are and that might need to evolve.
Our final report included recommendations for the future work areas of the communications team, suggestions for how to position them more as strategic leaders, and suggestions for roles and structures that could be adopted. We also defined a guiding vision for the team, with eight key components that would guide how the team should work, behave and be valued by the University.
“The work Pickle Jar Communications completed for us was detailed, insightful and thought-provoking. The report shaped our direction of travel, helping us to create better unity between our marketing and communications functions, and make more intelligent decisions”
Image credit, University of Derby Flickr page.
