Training central bank communicators

For central banks, words matter. What monetary policy-makers say can guide people’s expectations and move financial markets. Being transparent about an institution’s policies and decisions is also key to maintaining public trust. In challenging times, the ability to communicate effectively becomes even more important for policy-makers.

One key communication challenge facing central banks today is the increasing fallibility of forecasts, according to Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank. When tackling challenges such as inflation and climate change, policy-makers need to make predictions about the future and introduce policies well in advance. “[But] in a more volatile world, those projections are more likely to quickly become outdated, and policies based on them might have to be adjusted or reversed,” Lagarde said. That, she added, can affect the credibility of central bankers. 

Another challenge is that the central banks must now compete for people’s attention in a fast-changing media landscape, Lagarde said. In the past, policy-makers could rely on traditional media channels to disseminate their messages. But with the rise of the 24/7 news cycle and social media, where anyone could potentially be an opinion leader, policy-makers can no longer take people’s attention for granted.

Overcoming these ubiquitous challenges requires tact and real effort – and it is important central banks are equipped with up-to-date skills and expertise to tackle them. 

Data from Central Banking’s Communications Benchmarks 2023 showed that 80% of surveyed central banks (32 out of 40 institutions) provide communication training for their staff. Of these, 25 central banks offer social media training, making it the most common training offered to staff. Then came writing skills training, offered by 21 central banks. Seventeen central banks provide interview techniques training, while 14 provide public speaking training. Overall, 42.5% of the respondents (17 out of 40 central banks) provide at least three of the said communication training for their staff, while 60% (24 central banks) offer at least two of those training.

Sixteen central banks also reported offering ‘other training’ in areas such as media relations, video editing, web design, crisis communication, event management and digital marketing. 

The results suggest most central banks do invest resources into communication training, with many seeing the need to step up training in social media skills. Traditional communication skills, such as media and public speaking skills, are still considered important by a considerable number of banks. In general, broader trends in the media landscape, an institution’s resources, needs and goals are some key factors that may determine what training they provide for their staff, and how they train them.

The Colombian experience

In Colombia, an incident prompted the central bank to adopt a more controlled media strategy. In 2017, the Central Bank of Colombia was caught off-guard when one of its researchers spoke to the press about his latest research on the links between productivity and minimum wages. The researcher’s comments prompted a flurry of media reports that suggested the central bank believed people living in regions with lower productivity should have lower minimum wages. “It was not the conclusion of the paper,” says Pilar Esguerra, director of the central bank’s communication and economic and financial education department.

Two years after the incident, the central bank developed a new set of communication protocols. Under the new rules, the governor became the only spokesperson of the central bank, though they can designate trained staff to speak publicly on their behalf. Previously, there were no formal rules barring staff, such as researchers, from speaking to the press. The current central bank governor, Leonardo Villar, is “very good with the press” and does not need any formal media training, Esguerra says. Having served as a vice-finance minister and worked at various think-tanks before joining the central bank, Villar is a veteran public speaker. 

We needed somebody that had experience in social media, but at the same time had a lot of experience with traditional media

Pilar Esguerra, Central Bank of Colombia

While the central bank tightened rules on who could speak to the media, it bolstered its external communications in other ways. As part of the changes to its communication policies, the central bank reduced the number of monetary policy meetings from 12 to eight times a year. It began to allow journalists to ask questions at the governor’s post-meeting press conference, whereas previously the governor would simply read out a monetary policy statement and not take any questions. The central bank also added four other, more technical, press conferences a year, where a deputy governor would explain its quarterly monetary policy report. It sped up the publication of reports and minutes following a policy meeting, limiting all information releases to within a week, compared to a month before. The bank also started organising talks for researchers to present their latest research to the public.

“Ten years ago, the bank was much more silent,” Esguerra says. Back then, central bank’s press conferences were not transmitted digitally to the public and the press was not as developed as it is today, she says. Changes in the media landscape over the past 10 years have pushed the central bank to “open up”, she adds. 

A key staffer involved in navigating the central bank through this shift was Jaime Viana, the bank’s external communications officer, who joined the Colombian central bank in 2017 and was instrumental in developing some of the communication guidelines. Before taking up the role, Viana had worked under president Juan Manuel Santos as head of digital strategy and had years of journalism experience under his belt. Esguerra says Vianna was a good match. “We needed somebody that had experience in social media, but at the same time had a lot of experience with traditional media,” she says. 

Viana is now in charge of the central bank’s social media channels and plays a central role in handling media relations. He also plays a key role in providing media training for the bank’s staff, including delegates designated by the governor to speak at press conferences. Esguerra says the central bank does not need to hire an external agency to provide media training for staff because it already has an in-house expert who can do the job.

Esguerra adds the central bank had once hired an agency to provide media training for former governor Juan José Echavarría, who led the institution between 2017 and 2020. But Echavarría, being the economist that he was, did not find the training to be particularly helpful. One issue with the training session was that the trainer asked Echavarría to talk about issues not related to economics. “It was very difficult for him because he felt like he was betraying the profession,” Esguerra says. “[The governor] cannot give opinions on many things because he is the economic authority of a country,” she adds.

Apart from offering media training to relevant staff, the central bank also sends communications staff to attend practical courses run by universities when needed. For example, a group of graphic designers at the central bank previously took courses to brush up on their design skills, as the institution increased its use of graphics in its reports and social media platforms in recent years.

The central bank also learns from its peers. Esguerra says various central banks have in the past organised seminars on communication skills for staff at the Central Bank of Colombia. During the pandemic, the Bank of Canada delivered virtual seminars on a wide range of communication topics to central bank staff, ranging from media relations to social media and web design. 

RBNZ: Everyone is a communicator

While the Central Bank of Colombia tends to be more cautious with external communications and limits public-facing roles to the specialists, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) takes a different approach.

“The leadership takes the view that everyone here is a communicator,” says Naomi Mitchell, director of communications and stakeholder engagement at the RBNZ. On a day-to-day basis, there would be hundreds of engagements going across the organisation, whether it be a formal meeting with a bank, a discussion session with a community group, or a phone call with a member of the public, Mitchell says. 

All staff should have good communication skills to be able to engage with the stakeholders of the central bank, namely all New Zealanders, she adds. “So, it’s really important that for us, people are feeling comfortable and confident with whatever engagement they might have.”

With that approach, the RBNZ communications team offers a wide variety of training, either in-house or external, to cater to the specific needs of the central bank staff. “We’re very lucky in that we are a full-service comms team,” Mitchell says. “We are able to provide a lot of training and support to ensure RBNZ staff are able to clearly explain their work for a range of diverse audiences.”

These could range from in-house media training for senior leaders before a monetary policy announcement or major news briefing, to some of the more “tailored” sessions that help staff tackle a specific communication task, such as writing to government officials, creating engaging PowerPoint presentations, or handling people’s requests for accessing government information. 

People like to see their leaders, see their colleagues in the videos. We found that videos are a really good way to engage across our offices, particularly when people are working remotely as well

Naomi Mitchell, RBNZ

More recently, for example, the communications department put its internal communications team on a production course to sharpen their video-editing skills. “I imagine like other organisations, there’s a real demand to hear about what’s going on internally via video,” says Mitchell. “People like to see their leaders, see their colleagues in the videos. We found that videos are a really good way to engage across our offices, particularly when people are working remotely as well,” she says. All members of the team have been able to use the new skills they learnt to create videos shared within the bank, Mitchell adds. 

In 2022, the communications team also hired an external agency to provide media training to a number of newly joined senior officials at the central bank. During those sessions, the officials learned the basics of preparing for a media interview and went though some simulated video interviews in a mock TV studio. 

Media training offered by an external party has its own advantages, Mitchell says. “It’s very good sometimes for [senior staff] to be able to take instruction and particularly do these simulations with someone they might not be that close with,” she says. The realistic media setting can make people feel a bit more high-pressured and helps train them better, she adds. 

Mitchell says all the practice sessions were highly useful for both the participants and the RBNZ’s communications team, which have used them as an opportunity to bolster their own media training skillsets. And because many other officials have since expressed interest in going through the training, she says the comms team plans to offer the sessions more frequently to meet the demand, using both internal resources and external providers where required.

Hong Kong’s take

For the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the task of communicating with the media and the public has trickled down from the top management to junior staff over the years. This change has prompted the de facto central bank to provide more training for junior staff. 

“In the past, media and social media training workshops, as well as sharing sessions, mainly targeted senior management, but they have been extended to junior staff recently,” says Rhonda Lam, chief communications officer at the HKMA. She says junior staff members are now playing an increasingly important role in drafting responses to media enquiries, preparing press releases and social media content. 

From time to time, the HKMA organises social media workshops for senior management, functional staff, as well as those involved in producing social media content. During these workshops, social media experts will highlight the latest social media trends and share insights on how central bank staff can produce more engaging technical content, humanise the institution and improve people’s financial knowledge.

The HKMA also provides in-house and external media training for its staff. Lam says while the in-house team focuses more on corporate messaging and case studies sharing; external trainers share theories and techniques for engaging with the media and the public. Participating staff will go through simulated media interviews, mock press conferences and high-pressure crisis scenarios during those training sessions.

Lam says the institution also offers further opportunities to improve communication staff’s general and professional skills. These include training in areas such as copywriting, content generation, graphic design, video editing; and communications conferences organised by different international organisations. Communication staff can also attend sessions to improve their skills in leadership, management and problem-solving, she adds. 

Future plans

The HKMA’s communications team is exploring the potential of artificial intelligence (AI), automation and the ‘internet of things’ for media and communication, with its staff already attending some related training. Lam says these emerging technologies can be a “game-changer” for communications work, particularly in content generation, news monitoring and stress detection. She says the team will explore similar opportunities for general HKMA staff in future.

Mitchell at the RBNZ says given the increasing use of social media and the fast-changing social media landscape, the central bank needs to constantly innovate to ensure its messages achieve the desired cut-through. She says the central bank likely will have to step up staff training on the subject.

For Colombia’s Esguerra, the key task is to make the public understand what the central bank does using simple language. “We are still a central bank that talks with technical jargon,” she says. 

She adds that many Colombians may not really know what the central bank does, even though they know it is a very important institution and have confidence in it. “They have this confidence, which is a little bit of blind confidence,” she adds.

The challenge is to maintain people’s trust in the central bank, while making sure they understand what the bank does and how it affects their lives, Esguerra says. To that end, the central bank needs to speak in a language understandable to the public, she adds. However, Esguerra believes this is a skill that can only be mastered through practice and experience, rather than in training workshops. 

She hopes to see more central bank staff going to different parts of Colombia to interact with different audiences.

This analysis article contains references to data provided by the Central Banking Institute’s Benchmarking Service. The Central Banking Institute is a members’ club open only to central banks and is part of Central Banking, the publisher of this article. If you have a query about the data or would like to take part in a future Benchmark, please email: benchmarks@centralbanking.com.