Elements that every report should incorporate

There are several fundamental elements that every annual report should contain, no matter what format, framework or medium you choose to carry your communication:

Speak your audiences’ language

With the shift to strong non-financial reporting, the annual report is now very much a multi-stakeholder communication piece - a vehicle for engaging with current and future staff, your community, your customers, media and many others. It’s seen as a reliable and credible source for multiple stakeholders. By knowing who’s going to read your report you need to adjust your narrative style, structure, language and tone to ensure that it is easily accessible and understandable to each of them.

01 Weave an engaging story

Every annual report looks back at what you’ve achieved and forward to your action plan to achieve your vision. Engage people in that vision. Tell your stories. Of your people, initiatives and impacts. Move from saying to showing and connect with audiences on both an emotional and rational level. Demonstrate on multiple levels how you’re fulfilling that vision. Emphasise the connections and alignment to build a picture of reliability, believability and trust.

02 Focus on outcomes, not activities

The means are not as important as the ends. What you do is not as important as what you achieve. What lives did you touch, internally and externally? What differences did you make? What targets did you set and did you meet them? What proof points can you offer to substantiate your narrative intent?

03 Share stories of impact

No matter what business or service you offer, you impact people and the planet to varying degrees and the lives of individuals are affected. Share their stories. Use their voice. Write in a conversational tone to both engage and convey authenticity. In this age of multi-stakeholder audiences, it’s important to democratise your content and make it accessible to all.

04 Use infographics

Infographics are a powerful storytelling tool. Use them to highlight the most material information. What are the key metrics that represent your success or challenges? Identify the most relevant and develop infographics for them. Make sure they’re clear and uncomplicated, and lead your reader quickly to the point you want to convey. Show comparative progress for context.

05 Make it visual

Research tells us that 65% of people are visual learners. People expect visual communication more now thanks to social media, and they are now effective creators of their own. So there’s even more reason today for an annual report to strike the optimum balance between written text and visual elements. Aim to provide good pacing and rhythm in your annual report by employing photography, infographics, pull quotes, clear typography hierarchy, icons and other elements that lead, support, replace and otherwise balance the narrative content. With ‘conciseness’ being one of the desired principles of the Integrated Reporting framework (the global benchmark for quality holistic reporting), streamlining your copy as much as possible and thinking about what you can say with visuals are great tools to achieve that.

06 Write and design for skimmers and deep-sea divers

We always design for two types of readers – skimmers and deep-sea divers. And we format content to engage both audience groups. We use headlines, paragraph sub-heads, pull quotes, visuals and infographics for those who prefer to skim. For deep-sea divers, provide the in-depth substance that provides detail and comprehensiveness. Knowing your audience is always everything in any field of communication. Balance your content accordingly. But word of warning: ensure that the overall outtake will be the same whether it’s the skimmer or the diver!

07 Err on the side of transparency

Openness and transparency are what’s expected these days. Anything else is interpreted as hiding material information, ignoring negatives, and selective disclosure. The whole notion of reporting today is to build trust in the organisation through disclosure and transparency.

08 Talk about your strategy

Companies have historically been reticent about sharing their plans for competitive reasons, and there is no doubt some validity to that concern. But investors and analysts play futures. They expect you to paint a picture of how you are going to deliver – enough for them to build belief.

09 Build your Investor Brand

Annual Reports should build a consistent and cumulative picture of you over time, particularly around what you stand for as an investment and as a responsible organisation. Given that a brand is a set of value-associations linked to your name, a clearly articulated investor brand builds trust, should translate into more accurate and stable stock pricing that looks beyond the vagaries of the moment, and enhances clear understanding of you as a differentiated investment proposition.