Put the laptop down. Go outside. Your messaging will thank you.

If your comms team never gets out, neither will your messaging. A quick take on why communications teams shouldn’t always be at their desks.

For years, we’ve treated communications as a desk job. Writing statements. Monitoring channels. Managing approvals. Reacting to headlines. Producing content at speed, often at arm’s length from what we’re supposed to be explaining and off the back of SLT requests.

It’s efficient because it’s measurable – you always know where they are. Increasingly, it’s a massive problem.

The further communications teams are from the people, places, and situations they’re communicating about, the harder it becomes to produce work that is credible, and trusted.

This isn’t an argument against office working, rather it’s a point about the fact that good communication depends on context and context is super challenging to grasp from a desk.

Communication quality is shaped by proximity

Research in organisational psychology and sociology consistently shows that understanding improves with proximity. People who spend time closer to operations, frontline staff, or affected communities develop more accurate mental models of what’s really happening. They’re better at anticipating reactions, spotting gaps, and avoiding language that sounds plausible internally but won’t land externally.

This is especially true in complex environments, for example, public services, regulated sectors, large organisations, where the difference between how something is intended and how it is experienced can be significant.

Communications teams who only encounter these realities through reports, summaries, or second-hand briefings from their leadership team are more likely to:

• over-simplify

• miss nuance

• rely on abstractions

• or default to cautious, generic language

  
  

None of which build trust.

Trust research is clear on one point: audiences judge credibility not just by what is said, but by whether it reflects their lived experience and feels relevant. When communications feel disconnected from reality, people don’t just disagree with the, they really switch off.

Without direct exposure to operational pressures, frontline constraints, real-world trade-offs and emotional context it’s easy to fall into the trap of writing messages that are technically accurate but emotionally tone-deaf.

Being physically present (at sites, events, community meetings, hearings, or operational environments) gives communicators a deeper understanding of what actually matters to people, what language lands or irritates or what problems are visible vs hidden, the undertone to what is being discussed.

That understanding shows up in better judgement around what should be said in addition to better copy.

In-person relationships make communications faster, not slower

There’s a common assumption that sending comms teams out into the world slows things down. In practice, the opposite is often true because they’ll build strong in-person relationships, reducing the need for clarification loops, increasing trust between teams, improving access to insights and testimonials, reducing approval cycles too because of those relationships.

When communicators are known, visible, and trusted internally and externally, people are more likely to speak openly, flag issues early, and involve comms before problems escalate. Informal relationships often move information faster than formal processes, so comms teams who are embedded, even periodically, are better positioned to sense issues before they hit inboxes or headlines.

Seeing reality changes how risk is assessed

One of the most valuable things comms teams gain from being out of their seats is better risk judgement. And this risk is more than reputational. It’s emotional, cultural, and contextual, it gives them a baseline to understand how stretched staff are, how services are actually delivered and how policies land on the ground. The last point alone is like gold dust for internal comms teams. They also become better at distinguishing between real risks and hypothetical ones and the likelihood of those, issues that need addressing further and moments that require reassurance vs restraint. This leads to calmer, more proportionate communications, especially in high-pressure or politically sensitive environments.

How to add value by getting comms teams out from behind desks

This isn’t about enabling constant travel or abandoning core responsibilities, excursions need to be intentional.

You can do this well by:

1. Building set field time into comms roles. Treat time spent on sites, at events, or with frontline teams as part of the job and think about required outcomes. Make them visible and treat outings and networking as business as usual not a treat or an event.

2. Pairing communicators with operational teams. Shadowing, or observation days help comms teams understand constraints and realities that will provide your baseline. Help the team to build relationships and make introductions.

3. Sending comms teams to where scrutiny happens. Public meetings, hearings, consultations, or stakeholder forums, SLT meetings, provide invaluable insight into how messages are received and challenged in real time and how positions are decided upon. Don’t ask your comms team to do this blind, seeing the process means less explaining and better aligned outcomes.

4. Encouraging listening, not just note-taking. The value isn’t in just gathering quotes of what has been said. It’s in understanding tone, emotion, and unspoken concerns, the informal information is really key make sure that is being captured too, asking “how did … feel about that and why?”

5. Closing the loop internally. After time in the field, comms teams should feed insight back into strategy, messaging, and planning, it should be shared and used not just contribute to one person’s knowledge.

This makes communications better in measurable ways, you’ll see clearer, more specific messaging, fewer corrections and clarifications, reduced internal friction, stronger alignment between words and actions and higher trust with external audiences.

It also improves morale. Communicators who understand the impact of their work are more confident, more credible, and less likely to burn out from producing endless output disconnected from meaning.

If comms teams are always behind desks, communications increasingly sound like they were written from behind desks, it can very easily start to feel disconnected. If you want to ensure that doesn’t happen, get your comms team out and about more.