Is your communication department getting the resources it deserves?

Every so often, we get asked those eternal questions for internal communicators such as:

'Where should the internal comms department report to? HR, Corporate Comms or somewhere else'

or

'What's the recommended structure for my comms department? Centralized, decentralized, shared service?

or

'How much budget should I be getting?'

So, we’re making some of the key findings from Melcrum’s tri-annual international research into communication budgets, salaries, and structure available to download free as a pdf to help you start building your business case for more resources today.

Highlights from the free chapter include:

Where does internal communication sit in your organization?
44% of respondents selected corporate communication (up 16% from 2003/4)
18% said HR (up 10% from 2003/4)
8% said PR (down 7% from 2003/4)
9% said Marketing (down 6% from 2003/4)

We think it’s great news that the internal comms function is moving into corporate communications or HR. Why? Because both provide an opportunity to build a more powerful, joined-up proposition, whether as part of an integrated communication strategy within corporate comms, or an employee engagement strategy within HR.

How would you describe the structure of your internal communication function?
Highly centralized was the most popular choice with 87% but only 53% predicted this would be the structure in 1-5 years time.
64% predicted that a shared service model would be the most popular structure in 1-5 years time (respondents could vote for more than one choice for current and future structure).

And what are the reasons for these structural changes? 40% of respondents said they were planning to restructure to become more value adding, 26% said to reduce costs, and 29% said this was part of a wider organizational restructure.

How many employees are there in your internal communication function?
The average number of employees in respondents’ IC departments was 13.8. With an increased emphasis on internal communication being cited as the major reason for growth.
34% reported increases or dramatic increases in headcount over the past year
Asia Pacific organizations saw the largest growth with 43% of respondents reporting increases.

The chapter includes data tables of all the above and is available to download free (registration required).

Elsewhere in the full report, highlights include:

What’s the average internal communication budget by region and industry?
Survey respondents in North America reported an average budget in the range $400,001 to $500,000 compared to $300,001 to $400,000 for their European counterparts.
25% of UK respondents reported a budget of less than $100k compared to just 11% of North American respondents.
The largest budgets for internal comms were reported in the media industry, with 33% reporting more than $1.1m, followed by 25% of consulting and professional services firms reporting budgets in the range of $1.1m to $5m.

With 38% of respondents reporting increases in budgets, it seems many organizations are finally recognizing the importance of internal comms, and they’re prepared to invest in it.

What are the average salary levels by region and industry?
North America comes out top with an average salary of $80k-$90k
UK came next with $70k to $80k
Asia Pacific and Rest of World reported averages in the range $60k-$70k
Highest average salaries (in the range $90k-$100k) were reported in the UK in finance, insurance and real estate and in North America in consulting and professional services and media, telecoms and technology.

In terms of experience, the average starting salary in the UK was high, reflecting the fact that many internal communicators gain experience elsewhere, normally HR or PR, before moving across.

The full $99 report contains 58 graphs and data tables including comprehensive data collected from 1,149 communicators worldwide, so if you want to skip the freebie and buy the full report, you can.

Care to comment on the above results? Strongly agree or disagree? What's your view?