Always on

Working in communications for a global company is in many ways a reflection of the 24/7 media landscape: communicators are always on. Deadlines are no longer just print publishing or broadcast deadlines; they may be an immediate deadline of a blogger or something breaking (or making) news via Facebook or Twitter.   These days someone, somewhere, is at all times working either to monitor the media or provide content for coverage. There is a pretty good chance that at any hour during the day or night one of Mubadala’s businesses or assets will have a communications need or media interaction.

With over 30,000 employees worldwide and major businesses on 5 continents, the emails never stop coming and the phones never stop ringing. That poses challenges for a relatively small team, in managing the regular flow of work, let alone a crisis situation: how best to allocate your time in this new media world?  For human beings, who are not wired to work 24 hours a day, how can we best cope?

The first is the recognition, frankly, that our jobs as communicators are no longer restricted (if they ever were) to a “9 to 5” work day. Global media work on local time zones, not UAE time zones, so your phone is as likely to ring at 11 p.m. as 11 a.m. if there is a breaking news story.

Second, it’s likely that the need will be less tied to a physical space of an office. If you are responsible for media relations or marketing, you’d better be sure to have your laptop or the documents you need while mobile so you can give guidance or a quote to the media. There’s not much likelihood you’ll hop in your car and work on a project from your office at 1 a.m.

So responding to inbound inquiries means being a bit smarter about using your resources. Working for a global company like Mubadala means we have a worldwide network of business associates.  That gives us the chance to delegate across time zones (largely leveraging international agency partners) and use technology (out of office messages, referrals) so we can retain our sanity while doing our job. In any given week, there may be dozens of needs during the nighttime hours, so having colleagues who can handle many of these requests is valuable but takes preparation and coordination. A bit of investment on the front end will save frantic scrambling when the need arises at, say, 4 a.m.

Finally, prioritizing is key.  There are urgent stories and others that just seem urgent.  On most weekends, I get inquiries but it’s my job to determine which ones I need to respond to and cut into my much-needed time with friends and family.

Journalists, employees, public officials and bloggers are all working to tell our story. Our job is to make sure they get it right, and we need to understand that in an instant, a story can break where we as communications professionals are needed. That starts with the preparation, and recognition, that the old working rules of order are obsolete – but also balancing those needs with smarter ways to cope with the demand.