The CASACOM Elevate Study | Comparison, Projection and Inspiration To Elevate our Industry

At CASACOM, we are always seeking to elevate our employees, our clients and our profession. To celebrate our 20th anniversary, we thought about the contribution we wanted to make to our community. We asked ourselves what we could do to stay true to our mission and further elevate our industry. For this is the reason we decided to launch the CASACOM Elevate Study. In collaboration with Léger, we surveyed nearly 300 public relations and communications leaders in organizations within Ontario  and Quebec to detail their realities. 

Our aim is to provide industry professionals an overview of trends in our sector to inspire them to better communicate, lead, and influence.

Curious to learn more about the state of the PR and communications industry in 2021? Here are a few key takeaways from this first edition. 

An Increasingly Strategic Role

Audiences are more informed, savvy, and demanding thanks to the advent of social media and the digital revolution. Public relations and communications professionals play a key role like never before to ensure that the right messages reach the right audiences. What’s at stake is more than an organization’s performance and impact: it’s also its reputation and survival.

Below is key data that caught our attention:

• More than half (58%) of respondents have seen their level of responsibility in the strategic positioning of their organizations increase over the past year.
• A majority of respondents report directly to the CEO (52%) and sit on the board of directors (58%).
• There are more and more PR and communications professionals and teams are growing. In the past two years, half (50%) of organizations surveyed increased the size of their teams.

These promising results testify to the growing importance of our expertise within companies; an indication that our profession is doing quite well!

Employer branding, ESG, and CSR: Crucial Concepts to Develop

Employer branding, diversity and inclusion, and ESG and CSR are full of opportunities to strengthen an organization’s community presence and communications strategies. However, many companies are missing out on the benefits of these practices.

Deploying effective strategies for employee recruitment and retention is crucial for employers who are looking to stand out as the labour shortage rages on.

As for ESG and CSR, we see that most organizations are still in the very early stages of implementing such strategies despite stakeholder demands and the ubiquity of the words “climate change,” “governance,” “diversity,” and “inclusion” in public discourse.

The following data contrasts with the industry’s reality:

• The majority (68%) of surveyed organizations don’t have an employer branding expert on their team.
• Few teams (26%) have diversity and inclusion specialists on staff.
• ESG and CSR are often applied loosely and largely, with only half (48%) of the companies with an ESG/CSR strategy publishing a report. 

Our study also covers internal resources, external consultation, tools used and the influence of public relations and communications.

While it allows us to admire the strong growth in our industry, it also forces us to recognize the amount of work ahead to continue to strategically support organizations. As this will be an annual study, we are already looking forward to observing the evolution of practices and priorities and to exploring additional questions in future editions. 

To learn more about the reality of public relations and communications leaders in 2021, download the CASACOM Elevate Study now!