Miriam is joined by guests:

• Sarah Key, leader of the content team at NHS Blood and Transplant, and
• Tim Ridgway Chart.PR, the Strategic Stakeholder Engagement Manager at Surrey County Council.

Drawing on campaigns delivered across healthcare, local government, policing, and the charity sector, the panel discuss how practitioners can identify objectives, segment and map audiences to tailor messaging, and secure stakeholder buy-in. Listeners will hear about established planning approaches including the OASIS framework and PESO model, and the case for establishing strategies before reaching for tactics.

The panel concludes by examining how communicators can test novel approaches in their campaigns without chasing trends, what audiences reaction to influencer and AI-generated content reveals about the value of credible voices, and why evaluation and measurable indicators of performance belong in a campaign from its outset.

• Listen to the episode on Spotify
• Find out more about the CIPR Engage Podcast
• CIPR members can log 5 CPD points for listening to this episode

The report – The Inside Story: Investigating Internal Communication in Organisations with Fewer than 500 Employees – was funded by the CIPR Research Fund and conducted by John Clegg Chart.PR, FCIPR. Drawing on a survey of 74 respondents and 10 in-depth interviews, it offers new insight into how smaller organisations manage communication, culture, and connection as they grow.

The findings reveal that as organisations expand beyond around 150 employees, informal communication networks break down. Yet few businesses of this size invest in the structure, strategy, or leadership alignment needed to sustain clarity and trust. While 92% of organisations say they prioritise building trust in leadership, only 62% believe they do it well.

The study highlighted several recurring challenges:

• Under-resourced internal communication functions, often thin, fractional or managed part-time at mid-level
• A weak link between communication and senior leadership
• Email, intranet, and virtual town halls now forming the back bone of internal communication
• Limited focus on measurement, governance, and strategic planning

A companion Skills Guide – Internal Communication Beyond Big Corporates – provides practical advice for smaller organisations on establishing effective communication structures, delivering them strategically, and measuring their impact.

• Download the full report - The Inside Story: Investigating Internal Communication in Organisations with Fewer than 500 Employees
• Download the companion Skills Guide - Internal Communication Beyond Big Corporates

Yesterday, we published our first Professional Practice Review entitled 'Research, Measurement and Evaluation in Public Relations and Communication Management'. Unfortunately, the published version of this document did not correctly credit the respective roles of the different contributors who produced the work. 

Today, following a discussion with all three contributors, we are republishing it with updated credits to Dr Heather Yaxley as Editor and Dr Jon White and Andrew Bruce Smith as key contributors.

When we publish content as valuable as this document, it is important for us to ensure that proper credit is given to the members and other contributors who make our work possible. Yesterday we failed to do this properly and we are glad to be able to put it right.

I am very sorry that this has caused embarrassment to our contributors and that our error marred what should have been a positive launch for the publication.

I’d like to thank Heather, Jon and Andrew for helping us to resolve the matter swiftly.  

Alastair McCapra, Chief Executive 

This initiative aims to create a different conversation between professionals about the measurement of public relations activity, in response to the frequent complaint that AVEs are often requested by members of the management or accounting professions, among others. The new guidance will be presented to CIPR Council in September.

The new easy-to-use model will offer CIPR members and the wider public relations community an effective way of putting the Barcelona Principles into practice. 

According to the CIPR's State of the Profession 2015/16 research, 55% of practitioners spend most or some of their time on measurement and evaluation, but only 5% ranked the practices amongst their strongest competencies.

Over sixty leading global communications speakers from major brands and organisations are confirmed for the AMEC Summit in June.

To book your place and for further information, visit the AMEC website. CIPR members are entitled to a 10% discount.

Other key messages and outcomes to emerge from the conference include:

• the need to emphasise public relations 'outcomes' as opposed to 'outputs'
• public relations is not media relations and there is an important distinction to be made here
• the adoption of a 'transparency table' which will allow public relations professionals to compare and contrast different approaches to measurement and evaluation in a meaningful way
• the launch of an AMEC public relations 'glossary' developed by members of the CIPR and designed to help secure consistent use of terminology and encourage plain speaking in public relations.

The conference was the annual European meeting of top communicators wishing to discuss bold ideas and vigorously debate issues surrounding improving measurement and ran over three days.