Communications tech changes coming faster than ever

The global pandemic and the widespread move to remote work brought with it technological changes that might not have become common for years. It would have been hard to predict 15 months ago how ubiquitous Zoom (and Teams, and Google Meet, etc.) meetings have become, and how facile even tech novices have become.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The pace of technological change moved into hyperdrive in 2020, especially in the area of virtual communications, and there’s no going back. That has revolutionized the task of communicators, as they seek to effectively leverage new tools to enable virtual communications, enable measurement of their efforts, improve efficiency, and encourage engagement across the workforce.

But in a real sense, communicators themselves have been challenged merely to keep up. We are looking at a future of multiple corporate headquarters: the physical headquarters and the digital workplace headquarters.

These are among the key findings from Ragan’s third annual Communications Benchmark Report, an exclusive study from Ragan’s Communications Leadership Council. The Benchmark Report is based on responses to an online survey conducted between Jan. 13, 2021-Feb. 7, 2021. The survey yielded 755 qualified responses from internal and external communicators worldwide.