The role of a Communications Manager

A communications manager may carry out a number of different roles, and naturally these will vary on the organisation in which they are working. To highlight a few:

Design of communications structure

Define communications objectives

Monitor and manage all communication

Organise crisis communications if/when necessary

Organise relevant staff training

There is a very straightforward and popular communications method called the weekly reporting method: this involves every employee and requires them to compose an e-mail report, once a week, including information on their activities in the preceding week, their plans for the following week, and any other information deemed relevant to the larger group. The reports are sent to managers to summarise. This will eventually lead to an overall summary led by the CEO, which is then sent to the board of directors. The CEO then sends the board's summary back down the ladder, where each manager can append an additional summary or note before referring it to their employees.

Eventually, each employee will receive a long e-mail, containing many or all of the above-mentioned summaries, from every level of management.