An internal communicator who can engage staff and coach leaders will be the year’s most sought after accessory, says James Bennett, managing online editor at internal comms research and training firm Melcrum Publishing

It’s a new decade and a time for a new perspective, so what does 2010 hold for communicators?

The noughties started where the nineties left off. Blair and New Labour continued to drag a kicking and screaming Cool Britannia down the corridors of power with them until everyone realised just how uncool they all were; the age of spin was born but soon came to an embarrassing end when the media discovered politicians were using taxpayers money to buy moats and fund their husband’s adult entertainment habits; and to top it all off, no one managed to predict the swift collapse of global financial markets leading to worldwide recession, riots and mass redundancies.

However, all these events have something in common: they’ve served to put communications, and in particular internal communications, on the corporate map.

Faddish public relations, misleading messages and messaging, and unethical leaders and the fraudulent and mismanaged companies they helped to run and ultimately ruin – along with Cool Britannia, spin, and corrupt corporate fat cats – are over. The public, employees and shareholders are demanding results not just when it comes to a return on their own cash investments, but also when it comes to how they are being invested in themselves; in their votes, their careers and their livelihoods.

If you, as a company, don’t invest in your people and fail to maintain adequate levels of engagement, then you yourself will fail. This is something even the present Government has recognised in the MacLeod report that suggests that business and organisations function best when they make their employees’ “commitment, potential, creativity and capability central to their operation”. Having enough cash and a sensible strategy are clearly vital, it adds, but “how people behave at work can make the crucial difference between business and operational success or failure”.

A report by executive search company Watson Helsby, out in the first week of the New Year, polled 250 corporate communications directors from some of the UK’s largest organisations. It uncovered a series of key trends for 2010, the most evident of which found that two-thirds of respondents expect budgets to be cut back even further. This is hardly surprising following the downturn of the last 18 months, but as companies decide to shelve projects and/or cut back on agency spend, this will inevitably mean a return to investing internally both in companywide and internal communication talent. In leaner times when we, regardless of status or seniority, are demanding more efficiency for less outlay, turning to those existing internal stars who can drive engagement levels and at the same time show a direct correlation to rising profit levels will be a must-have in 2010.

Never has the role of internal communicators been more important. Whose role is it to eliminate the charlatans from the profession? Whole role is it to create honest, thought provoking, informative and ultimately engaging messages, branding and campaigns across organisations to ensure the well-being, happiness and longevity of millions of workers? And whose role – one of the most crucial areas in business in the next 10 years – is it to train, coach and advise leaders as firms enter one of the biggest make or break years since the Second World War? I think you can guess the answer.

If you haven’t got a star individual or team in place already then go out and get one. But remember you won’t find them in the January sales.