CollectivNews
Welcome to a monthly round-up of information relevant
to comms professionals and everyone interested in the fractional model.
September 2026
The Future of Work Is Flexible Communications Is Already There
For decades, the basic model of work was remarkably consistent: companies hired employees, employees built careers inside organizations, and the full-time job sat at the center of both workforce strategy and professional identity.
That model isn’t disappearing. But it is no longer the only one.
A recent Fortune commentary by Noah Yosif, chief economist of the American Staffing Association, highlights a significant shift underway in the U.S. labor market. Temporary help services have been among the strongest job-producing industries in 2026, with one in ten jobs created this year being temporary positions.
Yosif’s larger point is even more interesting: both employers and workers are beginning to see flexibility not simply as an alternative approach, but increasingly as a form of security itself.
From Headcount to Capability
For years, companies largely approached hiring with a simple question: Who do we need to hire?
Increasingly, there is another question: What expertise do we need, and when do we need it?
Those are very different ways of thinking about talent.
Communicators understand the difference. Historically, organizations seeking comms help had two choices: hire someone or hire an agency. Now there’s a rapidly expanding middle ground.
Experienced professionals can work fractionally, on interim assignments, as independent consultants or around specific projects. Organizations can assemble expertise around the work that needs to be accomplished rather than building every capability permanently into the org chart. That isn’t temporary staffing in the traditional sense. It is a different approach to accessing expertise.
A company preparing for a CEO transition may need an experienced executive communications leader for just six months. An organization facing a major reputational issue may suddenly need senior crisis expertise. A communications department adopting AI may need someone who understands both communications strategy and emerging technology to assist with messaging and implementation. Not one of those examples calls for permanent subject matter experts.
Why Companies Are Changing
There are obvious economic reasons for the shift. Organizations are operating amid economic uncertainty, rapidly changing technology and continued pressure to manage costs. Leaders are understandably cautious about adding headcount when they aren’t certain what their organizations will need 12 or 24 months from now. But cost isn’t the only factor.
Comms itself has become more specialized. Corporate reputation. Crisis management. Public affairs. Employee engagement. Executive positioning. M&A. Social media. AI adoption. Content strategy
Few organizations need every one of these capabilities at the same level all the time. A more flexible talent model allows communications leaders to expand, contract and flex as business priorities change.
The objective isn’t necessarily to replace the internal communications function. Most of the time, it is to make that function stronger.
Professionals Are Changing, Too
The other side of this equation is ultimately just as important.
Many highly experienced communications executives are making deliberate decisions to build careers outside traditional corporate structures. They want interesting assignments, greater control over their time, exposure to different industries and the opportunity to apply decades of experience to multiple organizations.
For a senior professional who has spent 20 or 30 years building expertise, the next logical career step doesn’t necessarily have to be another full-time corporate position. It might be a portfolio career.
For employers, it creates access to a pool of highly experienced talent that previously might have been available only through a costly, full-time hire.
This shift requires one look at workforce planning like an ecosystem of talent rather than simply a collection of employees.
Unquestionably, some roles should remain firmly inside a company. Institutional knowledge, trusted relationships and continuity remain enormously valuable.
But other capabilities may be better when accessed on demand
Flexibility May Be the New Stability
A modern communications function might include a strong permanent team supported at different times by fractional executives, independent specialists, agencies, technology partners and project-based professionals.
The question becomes less about internal versus external and more about what combination of talent will produce the best result.
In a flexible labor market, career security comes from having expertise people value, relationships that extend beyond one employer, a professional reputation, an active network and the drive to for continuous improvement.
The future of work may indeed be more temporary, but temporary doesn’t have to mean transactional.
Done well, it can mean something much more powerful: flexible by design.
The Best Crisis Communications Strategy Starts Before There’s a Crisis
It has been a remarkable few weeks for anyone who works in corporate communications.
Three very different companies faced criticism for three very different situations, each raising the same fundamental question: Where was the corporate filter?
Every organization needs people who are empowered to ask questions that can occasionally be uncomfortable. Should we do this? How could this be interpreted?Does this reflect our values? What happens if this appears on the front page tomorrow? What will our employees think? What will our customers think? What will the people most directly affected by this issue think?
And perhaps most importantly: Are we missing something that should be obvious?
Those questions are not obstacles to creativity or speed. They are part of responsible corporate decision-making, and asking them is increasingly one of the most important roles of the communications function.
Communications professionals develop narratives. We build brands. We engage employees. We manage media relationships. We create content.
But senior communications professionals have another responsibility that may be considerably more important. We are are often the conscience of the company.
Preventing an avoidable crisis is more valuable than any prior planning. That requires communications leaders to be involved before decisions are made, not simply summoned after something has gone wrong.
The Cost of Getting It Wrong Has Never Been Higher
There was a time when a questionable advertisement, executive comment or marketing decision might generate some angry letters or a few difficult calls from reporters.
That world is gone.
Today, one screenshot can travel around the world before the communications department has finished its first conference call. Employees are commentators. Customers are publishers. Influencers are news sources. Traditional media amplifies social media. Partners and sponsors suddenly have their own reputational decisions to make.
And once the controversy begins, the original incident becomes only part of the story. The response is what people remember.
Did the company respond quickly enough? Did it accept responsibility? Did the CEO speak? Was the apology authentic? Did the company explain what it would change? Did it shut down comments or appear unwilling to listen?
That’s why a mistake in judgment that may have taken minutes to make can consume days or weeks of executive attention and potentially millions of dollars in brand value, partnerships and lost business.
Reputation isn’t an abstract corporate asset. It has tangible business consequences.
The Corporate Filter Is More Important in the Age of AI
There is another reason this matters now. Companies are producing more content, across more channels, at greater speed than ever before. AI will accelerate that exponentially. That makes deciding whether it should be created, approved or published even more important.
AI can generate 20 campaign ideas in seconds. Someone still needs to decide whether any of them are good ideas.
AI can draft the CEO’s response to a controversy. Someone still needs to understand what the CEO should actually say.
AI can monitor thousands of online conversations. Someone still needs to recognize which ones represent genuine reputational risk.
As production becomes easier, judgment becomes more valuable.
Communications Needs a Seat at the Table Before the Decision
There is a phrase communications executives have used for decades: “a seat at the table.”
Sometimes that has sounded like a plea for status. It shouldn’t be. The purpose of having a senior communications executive at the table is not to elevate the communications department, it’s to improve corporate decision-making.
The best communications leaders are trained to anticipate reactions. They recognize language that may create problems. They understand how an internal decision will look externally. They know that intent and perception are not always the same thing.
Most importantly, they are often the people willing to say: “I understand what we’re trying to accomplish. But we shouldn’t do this.”
That can be one of the most valuable sentences a communications executive ever delivers.
And When Something Does Go Wrong, Move
Even the strongest corporate filter will not prevent every mistake. People make bad decisions. Circumstances change. Information emerges. Partners behave unpredictably.
That is when the second half of the communications discipline becomes critical.
Move quickly. Establish the facts. Acknowledge what happened. Accept responsibility where appropriate. Explain what you are doing about it. Don’t hide.
Don’t over-lawyer the response until it says nothing. Don’t confuse silence with strategy. And don’t assume the controversy will disappear simply because the
company would prefer to stop talking about it.
In a crisis, actions communicate just as loudly as statements, maybe louder.
Judgment Is the Ultimate Communications Skill
There is a broader lesson here for our profession. For years, communications organizations have increasingly focused on platforms, channels, analytics, content and technology, and those capabilities matter.
But recent events are reminders that the most important communications tool may still be something decidedly human.
The ability to look around the corner. To understand context. To anticipate unintended consequences. To recognize when something technically acceptable is nevertheless a terrible idea. To speak up before the mistake is made. And to know what to do when, despite everyone’s best efforts, it happens anyway.
At CommsCollectiv, we spend a great deal of time thinking about how AI, fractional talent and new ways of working will reshape the communications profession. In the end, however, we believe one of the most important roles of the communications leader of the future will look remarkably familiar.
Be the person in the room who asks the question nobody else has asked. Be willing to challenge the idea everyone else has already approved. Be the person who says maybe we should get an outside opinion. Be the corporate filter.
Because sometimes the most successful crisis communications program isn’t the brilliant response issued after something goes wrong.
It’s the conversation that prevents the crisis from happening at all.
Seven Newsletters Every Communications Pro Should Read in 2026
By Monica Talan, Partner
If you’re reading this, there’s a decent chance you’re a newsletter junkie. I certainly am. I write for two newsletters, one in English and one in Spanish, and subscribe to far more than I could realistically read every day. So, do I actually read them all?
Well… sort of.
I built a ChatGPT workflow that goes through my newsletters and gives me a daily summary of the key headlines and takeaways. If something catches my attention, I go back and read the full newsletter.
And as someone who also writes newsletters, I realize I may have just admitted to being part of the problem. If AI gives me enough information that I don’t open an email or click through to an article, what does that mean for the person who created it? What happens to open rates, clicks and, more importantly, our understanding of whether someone actually engaged with the content?
It is something newsletter writers and communicators are going to have to think about because AI isn’t only changing how we create content, it’s changing how people consume it, too. Probably a topic for another article.
But AI hasn’t replaced my newsletter habit yet. There are still writers whose emails make me want to read the whole thing. So, in no particular order, here are a few newsletters by and for communicators that regularly get my attention, along with a couple that help me keep up with the media industry itself.
Blurring The Lines, by Michael Kaye
Michael Kaye writes about the increasingly overlapping worlds of communications, marketing, media and culture. He also regularly talks with people working across the industry, which makes it a useful way to see how different communicators are approaching their work and careers.
Subscribe to Blurring The Lines
Meredith & the Media, by Meredith Klein
Meredith Klein brings the perspective of someone who has worked on both sides of the media relationship. Her newsletter looks at media, communications and what PR professionals should understand about the changing news environment.
Subscribe to Meredith & the Media
The Chris Gee Newsletter
Chris Gee writes about communications, AI and the changing way we work. I may be slightly biased because Chris and I work together, but his newsletter is one I recommend to communicators trying to understand AI beyond the latest tool or headline.
Subscribe to Chris Gee’s newsletter
Axios Communicators
This one is built specifically for people in communications. Axios Communicators comes out weekly and covers the topics and trends affecting the profession. It’s a useful way to keep up with what other communications leaders are watching and talking about without adding another very long read to the inbox.
Subscribe to Axios Communicators
Semafor Media
This one isn’t specifically about communications, but it is important for anyone who works in or around the media. Semafor’s media coverage looks at the business, power and changing economics of news, including the companies, platforms and people shaping how information reaches audiences. For communicators, that context matters. Understanding how news organizations are changing helps us make better decisions about media relations, storytelling and where audiences are actually paying attention.
The CCO Dispatch
The CCO Dispatch is aimed at chief communications officers and other senior communications leaders. It focuses on the issues shaping the role at the highest levels, from reputation and corporate affairs to leadership, business strategy and the changing expectations placed on communications teams. Even if you aren’t a CCO, it is useful to see how senior communications leaders are thinking about the function. The decisions made at that level influence priorities, budgets, team structures and the role communications plays inside an organization.
And, of course, the CommsCollectiv newsletter
If you’re reading this in the CommsCollectiv newsletter, you obviously already know this one. Thank you for reading.
If someone forwarded this article to you, you can subscribe and get the next issue directly in your inbox.
Subscribe to the CommsCollectiv newsletter
And now I want to add to my already unreasonable number of subscriptions. When we share this article on LinkedIn, tell us: Which communications or media newsletter do you read?