Operational Communication Workshop Materials

The participants were selected based on their daily and important role in implementing privatization transactions. The workshop aimed to sensitize the participants on the importance of effective communication during a transaction. Five key objectives were defined as to why communication was an important part of the privatization process: to build broad public understanding and support for privatization, to mitigate specific risks to the transaction, to secure labor support for privatization, to promote transparency, and to improve investor climate. The workshop was held as an interactive session, where the participants were divided into groups and presented different scenarios where they had to present key communication processes. The first scenario was related to labor protests, where labor was protesting against privatization, communicating their stance on media and claiming that they would not allow privatization in their organization as it would lead to loss of thousands of jobs. This exercise enabled the participants to think about labor as a key stakeholder and target audience for communications while presenting the needed communication planning to manage both labor engagement and communication on labor issues. The second scenario was related to improving the investor climate through effective marketing strategies in order to attract the best companies to bid for the sale. This scenario aimed at making the participants differentiate between the communication and marketing needs in each transaction. Concluding the session, the participants were provided with a proposed checklist for communications and marketing deliverables, which was recommended as a basic deliverable for the financial advisors and to be integrated in the TORs when developed by the TMs. The participants agreed to the recommendations, but some were of the opinion that instead of having a communications/PR component in each transaction, it would be more effective to have one PR agency for the Privatisation Commission who would look after all of the operational communications. The trainer shared that this option was in the pipeline, but since the importance of communication was crucial for the successful implementation of a transaction, it would perhaps be useful to integrate until further decisions were made to ensure their work challenges could be met. The participants were all fully engaged and presented both their ideas and concerns about how communication was currently being managed and the existing gaps. Many of them concurred to the notion that there was a huge need to communicate proactively, effectively, and timely on matters related to privatization. The participants also highlighted the need for the Government to prepare a broader plan, which focused on public awareness, building stakeholder support, and proactive and effective labor engagement, as currently both were lacking and were seen as the key challenges in moving towards a successful transaction. The workshop was given a 4 ranking out of 5 by all participants, and the interactive communication and scenario approach was noted as the best part of the workshop. One participant noted that the next session should be about communication examples being done in real-case scenarios. It is recommended that the next workshop is done looking at the communications need for the transaction of power sector entities, which could be followed by the Oil & Gas sector. Such workshops would support in identifying sectoral issues and develop proactive and communication management plans. The feedback analysis showed that the participants found the scenario discussion and deliberations, communication, and interactive session to be the most interesting and useful topics. They also suggested that the workshop could have been made more effective with better presentation and that they wish to learn more about real-time communication issues in future.