A lot has been written about building a great team: Trust, communication, relationships, and shared goals. Less is said about accountability. While trust may be the bedrock of any good team, being able and willing to hold each other accountable…
Positioning yourself for a new role
The final in my series about the Canberra communications jobs market is for those of you out there who are ready for a new role. Now is the time to get out there. But are you ready? It’s a candidates…
Pivoting your event online
In Canberra, we have been very lucky. It’s been a year since we were last in lockdown. Optimistically many people probably thought the NSW outbreak wouldn’t come here. But, if you were like me, you have probably spent the last…
Update: Supporting your team’s mental health
I first published this article in July 2020. At the time, Victoria had just started its long lockdown. We were getting used to a hybrid workforce. It was still all new, we were still figuring out how to work in…
Reporting, our necessary evil.
In my experience, comms people are generally bad at two things – measuring what they do and telling people how great they are. It’s not on purpose. We always have the best of intentions. You might even do it every…
Value = We connect you to the outside world
A few weeks ago, I did a planning day with a communications branch. It was an opportunity for the whole team to stop and discuss ‘why are we here?’. As a group, I challenged them to find the words to…
Why internal communicators still need to understand “the business.”
Last week someone said to me, “I work in internal comms, I don’t need to know about what we do”. It’s not the first time I have heard it. There is a perception (not by everyone) that if you work…
Have you started your EA communications strategy?
Updated for 2021! AGGGGHHHH not enterprise bargaining in the public service. Those of us who were part of the last bargaining round cannot believe it’s almost been three years. I know some departments have yet to finalise their agreements but…
Three years of Elm
This week marks Elm’s third birthday. Three years! Where does the time go? When I started in 2018, I just wanted a bit of a break out of the public service. I wanted to try something different. I gave myself…
When to say yes and when to say no
Saying no is something I have always been bad at. I just say yes. Yes to new projects. Yes to social activities. To coffees, lunches or wines with clients. My name is Melanie, and I don’t know how to say…