Like any business based predominantly in London and dominated by women, healthcare communications loses its fair share of talent. And the impact of this is compounded by the specialist nature of what we do. We invest significant time, money and energy in upskilling our consultants to operate as knowledgeable professionals in an industry driven by scientific innovation, fuelled by medical rigour and regulated to within an inch of its life. We expect people to be smart, quick thinkers with an ability to engage leading medical thought leaders as well as savvy tabloid health reporters. We expect them to have intellectual chops and emotional intelligence. We ask a lot and when we work closely with consultants to develop a diverse skillset and build their talent, it hurts when they decide to leave the industry.
So, what is causing talented communicators to leave the sector? Recent research amongst middle level consultants indicates that there is a perception that long hours, high pressure and lack of flexibility “go with the territory” in a service industry like communications. And communicators struggle to see how this is compatible with family life/becoming a mother. When they look around, they don’t see role models that effectively balance work and home life. We know that there are lots of people who do this successfully. So, where are they hiding? Well, traditionally, networking in health communications has tended to happen at a business leader/owner level and so visibility of and access to more senior role models just:: hasn’t happened. And, particularly in agency, we haven’t been great at embracing new technologies to support remote and more flexible working. We can’t ignore this now, we need to move with the times to provide a more versatile way of working to communicators operating at every level.
So, networking and mentoring opportunities would help, as well as providing more flexible working conditions. But as an industry we also need to do a much better job of encouraging bright grads and then providing them with clear career paths and fresh challenges/appropriate expectations along the way.
And we need to do a better job of providing environments that are stimulating to work in. One of the saddest findings from the research was that people feel “worn down” by the regulations/environment we are required to operate in as health communicators and they feel that the work is uninspiring and lacks creativity. There appears to be a bit of a passion gap.
Many of us genuinely love what we do and we love bringing new and exciting ideas to the table in a fast-paced industry that demands fresh thinking at every turn (and at every NHS organisational change!) – surely this is infectious? Well perhaps we’re being too complacent. Perhaps we are not communicating our passion for the work effectively enough. We’re not modeling the behaviour of doing things differently and looking for fresh new perspectives to apply to our day-to-day work? We need to recognise that people need to be invigorated by their jobs – many of us came to work in health because we believe we can help make a difference. But we need to find ways of weaving this into the fabric of what we do and how we do it. Just::’s pro bono efforts give people an opportunity to work for charities across a range of health and social issues. It recognizes that people want to make a difference and equips them to get involved (as part of their day job – all pro bono work is capacity planned and resourced in exactly the same way as paid for client work).
I believe healthcare communications is a rewarding and stimulating career. But I also believe that as business leaders we need to put more thought and effort into supporting people to realize their full potential within the industry.