COMMUNICATION.

The Profession Has Changed, but What About the Professionals?

With all this running, are we really getting anywhere? Poet Henry David Thoreau said: "The unexamined life is not worth living." Today, who has time to examine anything?

By and large it is this writer's opinion that the golden age of communicators continues to be just over the horizon -- elusive, promising, but not quite here yet. The big salaries, big budgets, corner offices and lofty organizational status remain out of reach for most communicators who responded to IABC's most recent "Profile" study, a biennual survey of IABC members regarding their careers.

For most responding to the study, salaries have increased only about 3.5 percent per year over the past 20 (from U.S. $24, 876 in 1980 to $46,000 today). Budgets are up from $250,000 to $300,000, representing about a 1 percent annual hike. While investments in technology have helped increase productivity and keep costs down, increases in salary have barely kept up with inflation rates and budget increases clearly haven't even done that. And, for having larger staffs to help with the increased emphasis the communication function reportedly enjoys today, communication staffs have actually shrunk since 1980. To be fair, most staffs in all functional areas were downsized, especially at larger corporations.

Show Us the Money

True, some communicators have made it big, especially senior consultants with large agencies and the relatively few senior corporate types who have survived the downsizing bloodbaths. And, as has historically been the case, salaries of financial communication executives are far ahead of the rest of the pack. According to the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI), the average salary plus bonuses for men in financial communication is U.S. $154,000, and although women lag well behind them at just under $100,000, they are still way ahead of IABC's typical communicator salary.

If you take the titles that are generally associated with success --president, executive director, managing director, partner, etc. -- and add them all together, it adds to about 13 percent of all "Profile" U.S. respondents and about 11 percent of Canadian respondents. Although this is a relatively small portion of IABC's overall membership, the percentage with these titles has doubled since 1980, indicating that although progress is slow, it's at least in the right direction.

Perhaps the key to success in the communication field is to move out of North America. "Profile" tabulates respondents from the U.S., from Canada, then all others outside those two countries. Respondents outside the U.S. and Canada consistently earn more money (average salary $65,771), have better titles (25 percent have titles of managing director, president, etc.) and have more of the trappings that denote success. That was true in 1980 and it remains true today.

One thing that has changed measurably since 1980 is society's preoccupation with money -- whether it's the box office returns of the latest film, or the explosion of the newest Internet stock, the focus clearly is on the money.

IABC's rank and file members historically have been less interested in money than in the satisfaction they enjoy from doing the job. It continues to be the No. 1 factor in importance to them on the job; second on their ranked list is creative opportunity. These, it should be pointed out, are not factors that rate very high on the list for those succeeding in the tough, competitive world of business today. Next to last on the list of things important to them, "Profile" respondents marked managerial responsibility. That, too, is not a choice made by those aiming at the top rungs of business success.

Strategists and Tacticians Part Company

The communication field is more divided into two camps than it was 20 years ago: Strategists and Tacticians. The concept of being a strategist is the line in the sand drawn by management to separate themselves from the hired hands. Declaring yourself a communication tactician is tantamount to professional suicide, or at least banishment to a dusty, windowless office next to the bathrooms until they find you irrelevant to the accomplishment of organizational goals.

Indicating how hiring requirements have changed over the years, recruiter Judy Cushman, president of Judith Cushman & Associates, made the observation that for many years she has not heard any employer suggest that they should look to the local newspaper to hire someone because they need a good writer. "I used to hear that all the time 20 years ago," she said.

Because so many communicators at all levels have their roots in writing, they come across as somewhat schizophrenic in their notion of what it takes to succeed in the field. On one hand they feel that the ability to write persuasively is a fundamental skill necessary to succeed in the business; on the other, offering this talent alone to senior management is not enough to gain entry to their ranks.

Gaining entry to senior management ranks remains a problem for communicators, but gaining access to them is not. Some 97 percent of "Profile" respondents interact regularly with senior management. On average, 43 percent interact with senior management at least once a day; 32 percent once or twice a week. What do they interact about? Mostly discussing copy for publications, but not solely; next most frequent reason for the interaction is communication planning, something communicators do a lot more of today than they did 20 years ago.

In the 1980 "Profile" study we wrote: "Prospects for the future are bright, with nearly half of the respondents foreseeing a more significant role in the organization, some 53 percent predicting larger communication budgets and more than 43 percent indicating more support from top management."

Among the many admirable qualities of communicators, we are eternally optimistic.

Cliff McGoon is a business writer with offices in San Francisco and Palm Springs, Calif.

TYPICAL COMMUNICATORS: 1980 vs. 1999

Today's communicator is a woman (as was the case in 1980). She's a little older, now instead of 32, a college graduate with 12 years' experience instead of five.

Her salary of U.S. $46,000 has almost doubled from $24,876 in 1980, and now she receives a $2,500 bonus, a rare occurrence for communicators back in 1980. A 100 percent increase in salary over 20 years amounts to five percent a year, just about keeping up with inflation -- not enough to indicate communicators command any higher pay premium in the corporate pecking order than they did 20 years ago.

She has been at the company five years instead of the previously reported four, and with three years in her present position, it's exactly the same as the '80 study. She controls a budget of $300,000 compared to $250,000 in 1980. This represents a less than 1 percent annual budget increase, considerably below the level of inflation during the period.

Issues facing communicators today include: customer satisfaction, technological advances, management's perceptions of value added to the bottom line, economic competition, and ethics/accountability.

Back in 1980, the top five issues communicators faced were: employee morale/motivation, productivity, inflation/recession, government regulation and the energy shortage.