A listening and insightful future: Changing PR practice to deliver audience led communications

A LISTENING AND INSIGHTFUL FUTURE: CHANGING PR PRACTICE TO DELIVER AUDIENCE LED COMMUNICATIONS Sarah Clark and Professor Jim Macnamara

The world of design is leading the way in putting audiences at the centre of interactions and experiences. From 3D visual experiences of product environments to designing buildings around user need, the focus has been on designing services tailored to a 360 degree customer journey and the needs, interests and preferences of audiences, both emotional and physical. 

You’ll learn:
•    About the necessity for and benefits of audience insight
•    The six areas critical to building audience led communications
•    Insights from the Organisational Listening Project
 

Just as the design world has used an audience led approach to develop more effective products, services and environments, so to must the PR industry think about how it adopts a culture of listening and audience immersion to develop the most impactful communications. 

If the PR world is to become more audience centric, listening and responding to how audiences see themselves and their desires and concerns, will be absolutely crucial.

This is about us as communicators. Knowing our audience makes us unique when we sit at the Board table. This means that improving how we listen and applying audience understanding sits at the very heart of everything we are and do.

But the challenges are substantial and require change in practices and thinking. 

We need to move beyond projecting onto audiences our pre-conceived views of how we feel they should be and the life roles they should play. Instead we need to be more effective in designing communications around the way audiences see themselves and the issues that matter to them. Herein lies the holy grail of true audience led communications. 
 

Mutual understanding is critical

We also need to challenge modern day PR when it relies solely upon the rhetorical ‘logos, pathos, ethos’ origins of PR, driven by message resonation with audience. 

Instead we need to make a greater case for Grunig’s two way symmetrical communication model and dialogic models of communication. These both facilitate mutual understanding and 360 degree feedback allowing us to truly understand our audiences. Upon this deep understanding (‘insight’) fruitful communication ideas can be grown.

However, research shows that most organisations today adopt a primarily one-way approach to communication, focussed on information dissemination and persuasion of audiences to their way of thinking and their objectives. 

A recent two year, three country study of how well corporate, government and non-government organisations listen found that on average, 80 per cent of organisational resources, time and activity ostensibly focussed on communication is actually dissemination of information and messages – and in fact, speaking. 

In some cases, up to 95 per cent of organisational activities related to communication are speaking. 

The Organisational Listening Project found that: “most organisations listen sporadically at best, often poorly, and sometimes not at all”.
 

We need to ask different questions and listen harder

The study also found that when organisations do listen, it is often selective, limited, and instrumental. For example, research is mainly conducted to gain answers to the questions that organisations want to ask; public consultation is also often narrowly focussed on options determined by government or corporations and dominated by ‘loud voices’ of major lobby groups; and social media is extensively used by organisations as another channel for distributing their messages rather than listening to conversations and public comment and views.

The study called for true two-way communication including listening by organisations through open-ended qualitative research (not just narrowly constructed polls), open public consultation including outreach to marginalised and silenced voices, and taking a dialogic approach in social media. A fundamental of being audience focussed is listening.
 

So when you are listening, how can you best consider and develop the deep understanding you receive from audiences to shape your communications? 

At the Department of Health Communications we are learning everyday as we foster our insight culture, and we have plenty more learning to do. But we have found these six areas to be absolutely critical in building audience led communications:

1.    Start with the audience view on the problem you are trying to solve

A good place to start your insight work is by looking at the audiences’ view on the issue or problem you are trying to solve – does this issue actually register with the audience or are there other problems they care more about on which effort should be focused? What opportunity does this present for innovative ideas and being responsive to audiences?

2.    Consider perceived benefits and pitfalls

It is essential to explore with audiences their perceived benefits and/or pitfalls of tackling the problem you are concerned about as well as issues of concern for them. This will inform your communications direction and ensure any solutions directly address audience need. 
 

3.    Segmentation

Understanding how our audiences perceive and identify themselves will enable us to improve segmentation and to develop ideas which more effectively tap into their realities. This is particularly important with current debates about identity at many different levels. 
 

4.    Action

The act of listening is defunct if we don’t take action on the insight it gives. This means ensuring that clear tangible actions are escalated upwards and discussed by the Board. Actions should be fed back to audiences so trust and mutual understanding can grow.

5.    Closeness

Closeness is about being able to walk in the shoes of another person – this means being able to be close enough to your audience to spot and understand what they have not said as well as what they have. This helps you build a fuller and more accurate picture of your audience and more honed ideas. 

Innovation in technology is providing many new opportunities to listen and establish closeness in an easy and instant manner. This has led to the inspiring development of digital insight, garnering knowledge of how audiences are thinking and feeling through understanding online debates and conversations. 

6.    Integration

Integrating the insight from all your data sources provides the richest evidence base upon which to develop impactful communications. Whilst you will need to be mindful of the benefits and limitations of each source, marrying up the themes that come from all sources will provide a compelling piece to guide strategy.
 

So what are the practical killer questions to consider within each of these areas? 

Killer questions

The problem:

How does your target audience view the problem you are trying to solve? 

Does your listening show you they care about this issue? Or is there another problem or opportunity? 

What possibilities, solutions, concepts are your audiences excited about? Why? 

What will this mean for your strategy?
 

The benefits and pitfalls:

What benefits and/or pitfalls does your audience perceive in tackling this problem? 

How does that compare with other issues they have raised?

How does this feedback drive your communications?
 

The segmentation:

How do your audiences identify themselves? 

How are your segmented audiences unique from each other? 

What are the values, lifestyles, attitudes or behaviours that each segment shares? 

Can you do bespoke audience profiles for your issue/area?
 

The action:

What is the integrated story all sources of insight are telling about this audience? 

What is critical to be spoken of and acted upon? Why? What are the risks of inaction?

Who needs to act upon it? How will you ensure they understand the insight and the gravity of it?
 

The closeness:

How can you get close to your segmented audience to understand them better? Listening to online 

conversations? Consultation? Gaming technology? Web streamed focus groups? In depth interviews? 

Polling? Ethnography? Video diaries? Online panels? Stakeholder intelligence? Correspondence analysis? 

Media evaluation? Analysis of behaviour and action?

How might you overcome barriers to closeness?

The integration:

Based on your research question, what are the themes that stem from all your data sources?

What are the benefits and limitations of each of the sources within your integrated pack?

Are the main compelling points of insight informed by the majority of your sources?

What are the research gaps?

Conclusion

The PR industry clearly has a long way to go in embracing listening, but this is an exciting moment for building an audience led approach. 

The Organisational Listening Project provides the insight on how the industry needs to improve; the six areas give us the insight foundation upon which to develop and innovation in technology is enhancing our chances for closeness. 

This is a challenge which sits at the heart of everything we are and do; if we are to be effective at the Board table, we must get insight - our unique offering - absolutely right.
 

Sources

[1] Macnamara, J. (2016). Organizational Listening: The Missing Essential of Public Communication. New York, NY: Peter Lang, p. 236.

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Sarah Clark is Head of Insight at the Department of Health. She has 17 years of PR experience across the private and public sector, working on high profile issues such as the housing market, MRSA, Europe, crime and NHS delivery. For the last 10 years she has specialised in strategic communications, creative problem solving and insight development and application.

Twitter: @SarahCl12929666
Online: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/sarah-clark-dip-cipr-a231b359

Professor Jim Macnamara PhD, FAMI, CPM, FAMEC, FPRIA is Professor of Public Communication, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology Sydney and Visiting Professor, London School of Economics and Political Science, Media & Communications Department.

Twitter: @jimmacnamara
Online: http://www.uts.edu.au/staff/jim.macnamara

How to avoid #socialmediameltdown

HOW TO AVOID #SOCIALMEDIAMELTDOWN Nathaniel Cassidy

Out of hours community management is something of a misnomer. There is no such thing as out of hours anymore and community management implies that online you have an element of control over social media beyond your own accounts. You don’t.

You’ll learn:
•    What constitutes a disaster over social media
•    Why you need to ensure that PR owns social media
•    Practical tips around technique and technology for social media community management and crisis management
 

I know I’m not alone in my belief that 9-5 is dead; countless academic papers, studies, and articles back me up. The rise of social media has certainly helped fuel this shift, but in my opinion it isn’t the driving force. The driving force has been the mass adoption of the smart phone.

As far as the public is concerned, if your organisation is on social media then they have the right to contact you at any time. This might be an unreasonable expectation, but it’s the reality. Thankfully there are things that can be done to try and shift this more in line with an organisation’s actual offering by highlighting when it is reasonable to expect a response. 

For example, you can clearly state in profile bios the hours in which a channel is actively manned, or put out open and closed style messages - online supermarket Ocado does this very well - but these can only act as guides for the public. 

With that in mind, good practice for social media community management, out of hours operation, and disaster planning are all tightly integrated.
 

What constitutes a disaster over social media?

Let’s keep it simple; a disaster or crisis over social media is activity causing a negative impact to your organisation’s finances, reputation, or operation. Obviously, as with regular disaster planning, scale has a big impact and it’s no different here.
 

Common types of disaster

Again in the spirit of simplicity, there are:

1.    Disasters where you are at fault. 
2.    Disasters where you are not at fault.

Personally I believe it is better to think less about fault and concentrate on:

1.    Scale.
2.    Impact.

Does it really matter who is at fault if your organisation is being aggressively and unreasonably trolled and it is having an impact on your bottom line? What matters far more is the scale and impact of the activity and the steps needed to resolve it. 
 

Accountability and who controls the off button

Dependent on the size of your organisation, its structural set up, and potential posturing by various directors, it is quite possible that social media accounts might not ultimately be ‘owned’ by PR, or even marketing. 

What I’m referring to here isn’t about content direction, it’s about the physicality of whose responsibility the actual technical side of social media belongs to. Who is authorised and able to take a channel offline, lock users out, or change passwords. 

A rather well known high street music retailer suffered when during a meeting to lay off 100s of employees the marketing team live tweeted the whole affair, with no one in senior management with the knowledge to close them down. They didn’t know the account password!

Ultimately ownership does equal accountability and if, for example, the IT Director is insistent that social media belongs within their department, then it is perfectly acceptable to insist that the responsibility is also owned by that person. 

It’s probably important to set out right from the start that good solid crisis management principles still apply to social media, so for me, social media should always be owned by PR. 

With PR leading the overarching strategy for social media management this should filter through into campaign marketing, customer service, IT and so on.
 

Handling a crisis

1.    Respond and acknowledge directly and swiftly.

2.    Research the facts, decide on level of scale and impact. Is this is a crisis or customer service issue?

3.    Add any crisis specific terms to your monitoring tools.

4.    Respond on the network the crisis originated from, ideally this should be within 4 hours or less and from someone with seniority.

5.    If appropriate take the conversation offline.

6.    If appropriate document the crisis and your response over other channels.

7.    Monitor, review, and adapt accordingly.
 

Watch for trends and learn from others

JP Morgan made a huge error of judgement back in 2013 in planning the #askJPMorgan hashtag chat on Twitter. As it happens, the chat never went live, because in the build-up to it the account was bombarded with abuse. They had failed to see that the combination of the current negative feeling towards banking combined with the uncontrolled, unfiltered nature of social media might create a hostile atmosphere. 

Given that #askGaryBarlow and #askBoris, about the then London Mayor, both happened post #askJPMorgan, it’s fair to say that they seemed not to have looked and learnt from the actions of others, as in both instances the hashtag chats were completely hijacked. 
 

Make use of social network guides

Understand the social networks your organisation is on. It’s vital that someone at a more senior level has a good understanding of the functionality, limitations, and security of the networks you use. All the major social networks have good guides on pretty much every facet of their operation - make use of them.

It’s also worth understanding how each of the networks you are on handles your data should you want it. Each of the major social networks allows you to download all the data that you have with them and this is something I highly recommend being familiar with should you need it.

Data collection can be particularly useful should you or your business be faced with legal proceedings following a crisis online; it’ll give you access to every bit of correspondence across social media and could give real weight to your case. 
 

Devices and security

If you’re asking employees to be available either to handle community engagement or crisis management over social media, try to avoid letting technology restrict them. 

Ensure that work issued devices allow people to access social networks, make sure internet connection is solid, and try where possible to enable people with smart phones. This might mean having some tough conversations about security, but it’s vital. 

It’s also worth considering a ‘bring your own device’ (BYOD) policy, essentially allowing employees to access the organisation’s social media accounts and profiles from their own phones and devices. It can help keep costs down and also allows people to use devices they are more comfortable and familiar with, something not to be overlooked in a crisis. 

If security is a major consideration use a password manager like LastPass.com. They’re secure, cost effective, and have enterprise level control over your login information.

Know what automation you use

Be aware of what social media automation is being run for your organisation and keep it updated in your disaster plan. For example, if you’re auto retweeting a campaign hashtag and it gets hijacked, you need to know how to turn it off.

The teams handling social media should know what automations they are using but a simple way to check is to look at what applications have been given access in the apps or permissions area in settings. If you want a bit of help, I’d recommend the mypermissions.org tool. 
 

Audit and monitoring

If you aren’t monitoring social media there is no way for you to properly assess the impact of a disaster or have early warning alerts in place. If you have the budget, there are countless monitoring solutions out there. At the very least make sure you have Google Alerts, Talkwalker Alerts, or Social Mention set up. Plan out potential crisis phrases in advance and if a crisis happens make sure you update your monitoring tools with any crisis specific terms.

•    google.com/alerts
•    talkwalker.com/alerts
•    socialmention.com    

Stephen Waddington’s prstack.co.uk has many, many more!

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Nathaniel Cassidy is Managing Director of independent marketing agency, 3ManFactory. He has over 10 years experience in marcomms and is an active and vocal member of the UK PR Council. He is also Chairman of the PRCA North West Group. 3ManFactory are the agency that other agencies turn to when they need to upskill their social media knowledge.

Twitter: @nwcassidy
Online: 3manfactory.co.uk

Embracing agile strategy development

EMBRACING AGILE STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT Betteke van Ruler and Frank Körver

Linear communication models are ineffective but remain widely used by public relations practitioners. Agile strategy development can revolutionise the comms function and strengthen the relationship with the management team.

You’ll learn:
•    Examples of contemporary public relations research that have an immediate application in practice
•    The opportunity to advance practice and develop as a profession through improved collaboration
•    A toolkit of eight practical ways to improve collaboration developed over the past 18 months from a CIPR project and BledCom workshop
 

According to the European Communication Monitor, linking communication and business strategy is the number one challenge for today’s communication practitioners. This is both good and bad news. 

The good news is that communication professionals are ambitious: they aim to support the organization in realizing its strategic goals. They are eager to really make a difference.

The bad news is that they still struggle with the strategic element of their contribution. Consequently, CEOs still see the communication department as no more than as a tactical entity providing lots of detail that doesn’t really help them - strategically speaking. Therefore, in order to improve the visibility and credibility of the Communications Department, it is time to fundamentally rethink how strategic communication is developed and start using modern agile tools to do this.

Three years ago we developed the Strategic Communication Frame to do this effectively. After many trials, it has proven to be a practical, valuable and highly appreciated tool.
 

Agile is the name of the game

Communication professionals perform in a world in which multi-interactional, multi-stakeholder and 24/7 communication is the norm. Control over effect is further away than ever before. Stakeholders have high expectations and organizations not meeting those expectations face severe reputational risk.

Moreover, the context in which communication professionals are operating has changed dramatically with no end in sight. Yet, too often strategic communication plans are still linear, very detailed descriptions of steps to be taken, and aimed at controlling the communication processes by defining smart goals in advance.

The problem with these linear plans is two-fold: they give an illusion of control and are of poor practical use. It leads to disappointment on the side of the client and embarrasses the Communications Department. 

Our answer to this costly ineffectiveness is to look at things from an agile point of view. The agile charged communication function strives to make (unexpected) change a natural fact of organizational life and legitimize professionals to adapt quickly to new markets, environments and challenges.

The agile communication professional therefore has a legitimate alibi to take advantage of emerging opportunities and to neutralize risks, 24/7.

Agile strategy development; four starting points

What does the concept of agile mean for strategy development? We have identified four starting points:

- People over processes: Forming a group of skilled and motivated people is vital. In fact, we strongly believe that people trump process. 

- Respond to change rather than follow a plan: It is a waste of time to put effort into every tiny detail. Vision and ambition are vital, but more operational choices need to be challenged over and over again. 

Plans should never be too detailed, and only oriented at the most important decisions made.

- Cross functional collaboration rather than silo behaviour: The majority of communication and reputational challenges we are facing nowadays require intensive collaboration. Developing strategies in splendid isolation is a no-go. Strategy development requires cross functional collaboration.

- A one-pager over a bulky report: No professional should be tortured by reading bulky plans. And no professional should be given the thankless task of writing those documents. Management simply won’t read it. They only care for the vital information: “What are the communications objectives? How are we going to realize these objectives? And what is it going to cost?”
 

Strategic Communication Frame

Based on in-depth discussions about our theories with students and practitioners and based on the four starting points, we have constructed seven requirements for a good strategy development model for public relations and communication management:
 

1. Clear vision on communications and its added value to the mission of the organization

2. Focus on internal and external context as building blocks for constructing ambitions

3. No smart objectives but inspiring ambitions based on clear choices

4. Explicit accountability that suits the ambition

5. Clear choices in every building block, as hypotheses for the future

6. Compact to fit on one page

7. Adjustable at any time to respond to situational dynamics

These requirements helped us in constructing a model we call the Strategic Communication Frame (see Figure 1.)

Figure 1 The Strategic Communication Frame

Eight building blocks

This model consists of eight interdependent building blocks which demonstrate how developing a strategy is like working on a jigsaw puzzle: you can start wherever you want, as long as choices made in one building block are consistent with choices made in other blocks. Two questions per building block help professionals to make these important decisions.

Building block: Ambition

There is a huge discussion on concepts like goals, targets, ambitions. In this context we use the concept of ambition to mean “a strong desire to do or achieve something” (Oxford Dictionary) and pose two questions to define one’s ambition: 1) What are the basic communication values needed for this specific strategy? And 2) What do you want to achieve?

Building block: Vision

John Naisbitt is said to have articulated once: “Strategic planning is worthless, unless there is first a strategic vision”. Ambition is influenced by a person’s own perception of his/her profession and its added value. That is why we also ask the following questions: 1) In what way can communication add value to organizational strategic choices and what is the role of the communication professional in this respect? And 2) What signifies my profession and which trends in my profession are relevant to us?

Building block: Internal situation

It is impossible to define and value the importance to us of phenomena in the outside world unless you know what is happening inside the organization. That is why it is important to consider: 1) What is going on in our organization, what are the strategic decisions in the board and in other management fields, and 2) What is the “style of the house”, e.g. how do we communicate with each other and how do we encounter the outside world?

Building block: External situation

It is typical for communication professionals to be aware of the external situation, of what is going on in the outside world and of public opinions, although we prefer to talk about social moods these days. That is not new at all. Nassim Taleb, however, warns not to look for confirmation of what you already know but to look for the unexpected. We agree and suggest the following questions: 1) What are relevant trends and developments in society? And 2) What are relevant issues and what is the social mood around these? 

Building block: Accountability

Good ambitions inspire and make clear what you want to achieve, but without accountability your ambitions are day dreams. Accountability forces you to make clear what your exact responsibilities are regarding your ambitions and how you measure progress e.g. what your KPIs are. That is why we suggest the following questions: 1) What is your responsibility exactly and in what way? And 2) How do you show that you are on track?

Building block: Stakeholders

In corporate communication we are used to seeing stakeholders as those who have a stake in our organization and as our “target groups” to reach with our communications (see a.o. Michell, Agle & Wood, 1996). We define stakeholders slightly different by: those groups or persons who have a stake in our ambition. We suggest two questions: 1) Who are our enablers, and 2) Who are our partners? Savage et al. (2011) warn that with partnerships you need to invest in the relationship and find a common ambition. 

Building block: Resources

A very important part of the strategy concerns resources. Resources is about being equipped to do the job. It is about budget, budget allocation and about competences. We suggest two questions: 1) What competences do you need to realize your ambition, and 2) How much budget is required and how will this budget be allocated? These questions are not only important to allocate resources (operational, managerial activities), but also to make wise decisions concerning talent development, cost cutting, etc. (strategic decisions).

Building block: Approach

Approach is about translating all strategic decisions – done in the former building blocks – into operational activities. This is “the proof of the pudding”. All decisions in the former buildings block need to come together in the approach. We propose two key questions: 1) What do you want to achieve with which key constituency and how, and 2) Which activities should have top priority and what does that mean for the communications calendar?

Making the right choices

The Strategic Communication Frame facilitates the communication professional to forcefully and efficiently make the right choices and it provides a clear picture of the communication strategy in one page. The Frame does not prescribe what one should do or which strategy is best. It just sets up and enables practitioners to select the best choices for the best strategy.

The Strategic Communication Frame is basically a balancing act of a realistic but limited set of questions and challenging answers that, when executed conscientiously, delivers a comprehensive but nevertheless crystal clear strategy at a glance (a one-pager). By putting superfluous details aside and concentrating on the essentials, the model has easily proven to be an instant eye-opener for clients and other stakeholders.

It is a great ticket to the C-suite.

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Dr. Betteke van Ruler is a leading scholar in corporate communication and public relations in the Netherlands. She began her career as a communication professional herself, moving to teaching in the 1980s and to academic research in the 1990s. She was recently awarded the honorary title of Officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau for her work in bridging the gap between academic theory and practice. She recently wrote a book on agile and scrum: Reflective Communication Scrum: recipe for accountability, published by Eleven International Publishing, ISBN 978-94-6236-461-5.

Twitter: @bettekevanruler
Online: www.bettekevanruler.nl/

 

Frank Körver is partner at GKSV, an Amsterdam based consultancy firm and Dutch affiliate of the international Interel Group. Frank is an experienced consultant at the intersection of strategy, leadership and communication. He is a renowned consultant in the Netherlands and trusted advisor of senior executives and Chief Communications Officers.

Twitter: @FCLKorver
Online: www.linkedin.com/in/frankkorver

Managing the integration of businesses: Merging companies, disciplines and cultures

MANAGING THE INTEGRATION OF BUSINESSES: MERGING COMPANIES, DISCIPLINES AND CULTURES Ella Minty

Integration of tangible assets, equipment, and operational parameters can often be streamlined and rather easily achieved – the hardest, most challenging task in business mergers and acquisitions is the integration of cultures, mind sets, behaviours and values.

You’ll learn:
•    The milestones related to business integration and change management
•    The way in which you, the PR practitioner, can influence and guide the change efforts
•    The complex issues surrounding diverse cultures (societal and business)


Change rationale and sustainability of change efforts

Change – more often than not – is not easily embraced or understood, let alone inherently accepted. To change, at the most basic level of the concept, implies to restructure and approach differently known and established business conducts, principles, and operational styles. 

Ever since the onset of globalisation – some would argue almost concomitantly with the end of the Cold War – the landscape of business competitiveness, customer value proposition, client services, and engagement has been agile, aggressive and ruthless.

Few businesses have ever been established with the purpose of doing good; the main purpose of their existence is that of making profits, having a good return on investment, growing and expanding on the marketplace. To exist, to create jobs, to invest in communities, to be environmentally friendly and socially responsible are add-ons.

According to McKinsey’s [1] latest research on strategic acquisitions, these fit into the following archetypes: 
 

•    Improving the performance of the target company

•    Removing excess capacity from any industry

•    Creating market access for products

•    Acquiring skills or technologies quicker or at a lower cost than they could be built in-house 

•    Picking winners early and helping them develop their business

To make any merger or/and acquisition (M&A) sustainable, the status quo would need to change to accommodate newcomers, streamline the wider performance of the integrated business and ensure that, with an increased scope of services/range of products, competitiveness is retained and profits increased.

Change Management – from both an academic and practice viewpoint – should represent a relatively straightforward, easily embraced discipline for PR practitioners across the professional spectrum. 
 

Leadership advice and support in navigating through uncertainty and emotional turmoil

Human Resources Management (HRM) [2] has a clearly defined role in M&A – these professionals ensure those impacted receive appropriate counselling, advice, relocation support and a substantial financial package in the case of voluntary/compulsory redundancies, while assessing and maximizing the employees’ potential to achieve the new business entity’s strategic objectives. 

While HRM oversees the political and corporate compliance of, effectively, people movement, potential, and performance in times of change, the PR function should oversee:
 

•    The complexities related to engaging, addressing and understanding people’s fears and emotions 

•    Making sense of what is happening 

•    Ensuring any inward or outward communication is clear, unambiguous and truthful

The literature on employee communication and engagement – in times of change – is abundant with working models, templates, and various recommendations. What it is hard, if not almost impossible to find, is the advice the Corporate PR function should offer the leadership during times of change, acting like a real partner of dialogue and sounding board for the obvious: “Have we done the right thing?”

Leaders are as fallible and human as employees are – they simply manage to hide their emotions, uncertainties and insecurities better. A leader cannot afford to appear weak, insecure and not fully appraised of what the short, mid and long term strategy is going to be for the newly acquired business or for the newly created entity. 

That is when the PR practitioner comes in: he/she should be their trusted advisor and a highly regarded professional who can provide them with unbiased advice. It is the PR consultant who should be counselling the leaders/leadership team, allay their fears, provide them with “what if” scenarios and be there to listen. 

It is the PR practitioner’s ethical and professional duty to tell them what they need to hear, not what they want to hear:

•    Are the new employees not fitting in? Why? What should be done?

•    Are there any language barriers that should be seamlessly overcome? How?

•    Would a Muslim woman feel uncomfortable sharing an office with a Western man or vice versa? 

•    What are the pitfalls of having a young Executive in charge of individuals who could be his/her parents? Is the leadership ready to address them?

•    Would the potential M&A have a negative reputational impact on the current business? What will you do about it?

•    Will the stakeholders (the current internal ones as well as the external) understand the rationale that underpinned/will justify the M&A? What would you recommend?

•    What will the competition’s reaction to the news be and what working scenarios have you prepared for this? What should the CEO/Board do and why? 

•    Will the markets (if you are working for a listed company) react and what would you recommend being said/done?

When worlds collide

If you are not familiar with the psychological principles underpinning Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs [3], make sure you become so – and quickly. If you have never familiarised yourself with the concepts of power-plays, cross-cultural communication and negotiation techniques, all clearly explained and justified for business contexts by Prof Hofstede’s [4] seminal works, make sure you do – and even faster. 

The collision of cultures – business, national, societal, personal – values and behaviours becomes poignant in M&A and business transactions. Not all people relate to the same things in the same way: some have a job because they need to meet their most basic needs of physiology and security, others because they want to be appreciated and respected by their peers and the very few because they wish to push their boundaries of knowledge and self-fulfilment.

The role of the PR practitioner is to make sure that the corporate messaging, engagement styles and communication techniques meet these categories’ level of interest and understanding. You cannot assume that, in times of change, those who are strictly concerned with having a roof over their head would like to hear their new boss talking to them about the preservation of the ozone layer.

Understanding the human dynamics at play – across genders, religions and nationalities – will provide you with an incredible competitive advantage not just with regard to the recognition of your added value to the business but, primarily, concerning your level of competency and knowledge. You will be that trusted and respected Leadership Advisor who:
 

•    Can address complex human psychological challenges

•    Can understand the relationship between structural and organic change

•    Can provide advice on a variety of risks and opportunities associated with mergers and acquisition

•    Can substantiate his/her recommendations with empirical evidence

•    Can prove that public relations is a strategic management function
 

Sources

[1] www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/the-five-types-of-successful-acquisitions
[2] www.inc.com/encyclopedia/human-resource-management.html
[3] www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html
[4] https://geert-hofstede.com/tl_files/art%20organisational%20culture%20perspective.pdf

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Ella Minty is a Founding Chartered Public Relations practitioner, with over 15 years of high level Government and international bodies expertise in corporate reputation, leadership and crisis management, specialising in communicating and engaging with key corporate stakeholders spanning across business disciplines and governments, including investment markets, lender organisations, national and international media, NGOs and project communities.

Twitter: @EllaMinty
Online: www.uk.linkedin.com/in/ellaminty

Delivering a 24/7 service; introducing an agile model in PR

DELIVERING A 24/7 SERVICE; INTRODUCING AN AGILE MODEL IN PR Dualta Redmond

Keeping all the plates spinning without breaking one is how many people feel about working in the modern 24/7 environment. Identifying how to navigate and succeed during a workday that never ends can be difficult. 

You’ll learn:

•    How to understand the demands of today’s 24/7 reality
•    A simple set of actions to stay effective and informed in a continuous news cycle
•    An overview of structures and workplace practices to deal with increased pressures
 

The 24/7 news cycle

The changes that social media, the internet and mobile devices have created in public relations are expansive. New platforms and audiences with vastly differing tastes in how they want to receive messages and how they communicate are the new reality. 

More informed listening

The need to sift through an ocean of content and news to identify what’s of relevance is more important now than it perhaps it ever was. The sheer volume of material makes it a lot easier for something to slip through the net. Even with the newest digital monitoring tools, this can be a very time intensive, administrative burden.

A big drain on resources and a persistent cause of late nights and early mornings, are projects and issues that throw up unexpected twists and turns. You will never completely eliminate the unforeseen, but by having as much information at your disposal as possible you can certainly reduce the risks and ensure more manageable workloads. 

How to become a more strategic listener

More informed listening is about intelligence gathering and keeping your organisation up-to-date about increasingly complex external media, business and political environments. 

Crisis preparedness forms another element of informed listening. Business Continuity Planning and Crisis Communications Strategy should be closely aligned. By ensuring greater cooperation, better planning and testing scenarios across your organisation, it means you are not just paying lip service to crisis readiness, but devoting time and energy to creating a robust strategy. 

Digital listening tools

The myriad of choice available can be off-putting. Many will struggle to get the monitoring ‘set up’ done in such a way to be effective and crucially, produce something that is of a tangible benefit to the business or client. 

The objective here should be to turn what is learned via more informed listening into credible Management Information (MI). 

Alerts for your company’s brand name and associated products might seem like an obvious thing to do. But taking some time to review the sector landscape might mean you develop alerts for issues occurring around your sector and even within the businesses of supply chain partners. Taking this approach will help spot trends and developing issues early. 


More agile structures

Agile structures are integral to operating in a 24/7 world. While it might seem like the un-sexy nuts and bolts side of things, it’s vital. When the news no longer sleeps, and clients and stakeholders have a global presence that demands attention no matter the time or location, what is the best approach?

Digital tools will only take you so far. It is people that will get you the rest of the way. While some organisations are structured to have employees working around the clock, it is not the norm in public relations. 
 

Existing resources

Nobody wants to be part of a never-ending on-call rota, but many organisations require someone to be there, just in case – 24/7. It’s not always a crisis related issue that necessitates long hours. Frank conversations amongst colleagues and clients, outlining expectations when it comes to time commitments are a good starting point. 

The route to success here lies in an equitable distribution of the workload. If tasks and responsibilities that require significant out-of-hours attention, continually fall to the same individuals, it is highly likely that frustrations will develop. When they do, a slide in quality performance is sure to follow. 

Time focused

How to get that service without subjecting colleagues to burnout is easier said than done. 

One option is to plan an advanced task or project schedule with time as the primary success metric. Other reports can focus on business and communications measures. Once the time resource required becomes a real focus, significant efficiencies can be found. This requires a shift in thinking and is not applicable to all situations. 

By simply having more efficient (read shorter) meetings, overall project time can be dramatically reduced. This leads to fewer late nights on said projects and helps with work-life balance.
 

Time perspective

Another element, which isn’t often discussed, relates to self-imposed demands. Sure clients and internal stakeholders may occasionally require last-minute assistance to deal with an urgent issue, but how much of this support is unnecessary. Emails sent at 8:00pm or reports analysed at bedtime followed by a short summary email are best avoided. Unless the issue is particularly urgent, it can often wait until the next working day. 

Sending emails out of hours helps to create a cycle of ‘always on’ which while needed for breaking or live issues, does not need to be the norm. Practitioners can help themselves by setting reasonably fluid boundaries for communicating on non-important issues outside of the normal working day – but boundaries nonetheless. 
 

Outsourcing

Seeking outside assistance is not the same as admitting defeat. Freeing up someone’s time so they can be more productive or have a work-life balance is a good thing. Outsourcing often conjurers up images of call-centres in far-flung parts of the globe. It can also be a byword for cheaper or poor quality. Through well-defined objective planning and research, that needn’t be the case. 

With different communications teams spread across geographies, people don’t always work in a time efficient way. Instead of Singaporean colleagues taking a call from the UK at close to midnight, ensure structures are in place to let the UK office provide support. By spreading the workload across locations, more cooperative and pragmatic approaches can be realised. 

The other element to consider is outsourced office support functions. By employing a corporate out-of-hours answering service, with the ability to screen calls against pre-determined criteria, you can dramatically reduce time spent dealing with non-urgent calls. While these are just a few options, they should act as a springboard to show you can seek credible, high-quality support from a wide range of areas. 
 

Summary

By capturing relevant information and developing it into intelligence and MI, you can begin a strategic framework that reduces the need for significant out-of-hours support. Knowledge and the ability to plan through highly dependable and evolving monitoring systems, ensure accounts and processes run at maximum productivity. 

More formalised methods of interoffice cooperation can dramatically reduce strains. Looking to outsourcing solutions for time intensive and tedious tasks should be considered to prevent employee burnout. This ensures energies can be devoted to tasks that have a real impact on company or client objectives. 

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Dualta Redmond is Global Communications Manager at Gazprom Marketing & Trading. Prior to this he was a PR Advisor to the BBC. He’s also had stints in public affairs both agency and political side and TV production. 

Twitter: @DualtaRedmond
Online: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/dualtaredmond

Time for some PR Thinking

In the first of our guest posts, #FuturePRoof: Edition Two author Ezri Carlebach delves deeper into the roots of the current interest in design thinking. 

In my chapter ‘Economics, social dialogue, and public relations’ I noted that there is much that PR can learn from design,  particularly in light of the current interest in ‘design thinking’, a methodology based on how designers work that is gaining widespread attention.

Playtime for PR

I’ve written elsewhere about design thinking and public relations, and there are other elements of the connection between these two apparently unrelated practices that I want to raise.

In his highly-acclaimed study of play in society, Homo Ludens, Johann Huizinga says the whole of human civilisation arises in and as play, and thus can be defined as an expression of our play instinct.

We play, we learn from what we’ve done, and then we tell others about it. This leads to individual, organisational, and societal growth. The centrality of this to human experience is increasingly acknowledged in business, resulting in serious organisations using collaborative play to solve complex problems. If they’re smart, they share the story of what they’ve done through effective public relations, because that’s where the shared value is generated.

In order to play effectively with others – as we must in any kind of organisational setting – we design what we do. As psychologist and political scientist Herbert Simon (who won a Nobel Prize in economics) observed, “Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones.”

Not only does that neatly capture the purpose of all management functions, but it also offers a useful way of thinking about strategic communication, whether the intention of that communication is to change perception or behaviour, or lead to a commercial transaction.

Design and play

The growth of interest in design methodologies in other contexts represents the beginnings of a paradigm shift from decision-based thinking to design-based thinking. In other words, we are witnessing a change from an approach based on choosing between a predetermined set of options, to one based on continuously generating new options.

Decision-based thinking demands conformity, seeks and expects answers, works from assumptions, favours organisations, and promotes process as the means of achieving objectives. In contrast, design-based thinking promotes flexibility, seeks questions, demands critical thinking, favours human beings, and promotes action to achieve objectives.

As the post-industrial digital world evolves, more and more business will originate in this locus of design and play, and when we add storytelling to the mix we get the following equation as a shorthand for the outcome: Public relations = design + play + storytelling.

We can do interdisciplinary too

As these various perspectives suggest, I favour an interdisciplinary approach to PR research and practice. There has been a clamour of late to appropriate neuroscience to back up communication practice, and that can be helpful, with some caveats (see, for example, this warning about scanning the brains of dead fish).

But while so-called hard sciences still carry the ultimate empirical kite-mark, the softer end of human knowledge is equally valuable. So let’s get more anthropologists, sociologists, philosophers, poets, musicians and artists involved in the planning and management of our professional practice. After all, that’s what designers have been doing for decades.

You can find Ezri on Twitter @ezriel.

Preparing for the skills gap in the workplace of the future

PREPARING FOR THE SKILLS GAP IN THE WORKPLACE OF THE FUTURE Tim Hudson

The evolution of the way in which organisations operate, and the world they operate in, calls for a focus shift on the skills we foster in young people and those which we develop as practitioners.

You’ll learn:
•    How the workplace is evolving
•    What employers need from their workforce as organisations change
•    How this affects public relations practitioners and the skills they develop as individuals


The world of work is changing. Employee skills are evolving to plug organisational skills gaps created by the ways in which they need to operate in the modern world.

The jobs that will be created in the future are increasingly unlike those of the past. Technology, globalisation, automation and new ways of working all contribute to the change in the required skills for employment.

It is no longer sufficient for educators to simply deliver knowledge. Modern technology means the acquisition of knowledge is a mere finger-tap away.

Individuals should foster the ability to use that knowledge effectively and develop the necessary skills to be an efficient employee in the organisation of the future.
 

The future workforce

Our workforce is changing. Millennials will make up 75% of the global workforce by 2025. They are more tech-savvy, they want to see innovation in the workplace and have a lot of confidence in rising to leadership positions faster.

33% would choose social media freedom and device flexibility over a higher salary. 53% of employees use instant messaging with co-workers. 50% of jobs could be automated within the next two decades [1]. 

For the first time, five generations – traditionalists, boomers, GenXers, GenYers and millennials – are working side by side. 94% of millennials say they want to work for a company with a higher purpose – something that’s more important to them than salary [2]. 

The way in which this evolving workforce operates is changing too.

A small start-up can have offices in three countries across several time zones, with customers in the US, Europe, Asia, and Africa and compete at the same level as a 10,000 plus employee company [2]. 

Future leaders need to be adaptable, managing global teams within a networked structure, at the same time remaining empathetic and acting as coach, as well as manager [1]. 

Knowledge worker to learning worker

In 2012, the McKinsey Global Institute published their discussion paper, Help wanted: The future of work in advanced economies. In it, they state: “Workers with the strong cognitive, communication and problem-solving abilities that are required for the most sophisticated types of work have experienced low unemployment and rising wages.”

This is in a world where 40 million workers across advanced economies are unemployed. Yet businesses in those nations say they often can’t find workers with the skills they need [3]. 

The University of Phoenix lists the top 10 skills for the successful 21st-century worker as:

1. Leadership
2. Critical thinking
3. Communication
4. Collaboration
5. Adaptability
6. Productivity and accountability
7. Innovation
8. Accessing, analysing and synthesising information
9. Global citizenship
10. Entrepreneurialism [4]

Whilst traditionally, these would have been considered ‘soft skills’, they are wide ranging and cross-over multiple industries, disciplines and cultures. They can be applied to a number of circumstances, from entry to board level and focus on how we work, not what we do.

Jacob Morgan outlines 7 principles of the future employee:

1. Has a flexible working environment
2. Can customise own work
3. Shares information
4. Uses new ways to communicate and collaborate
5. Can become a leader
6. Shifts from knowledge worker to learning worker
7. Learns and teaches at will [5]

Flexibility, communication, collaboration and leadership are clear overlaps but it is point 6 of Morgan’s principals which summarises the approach that all of us, and we as public relations practitioners, need to be taking.

Only through a commitment to continuous professional development, a desire to learn more about ourselves and a thirst for discovery of new ideas in the industry can we become the ‘learning worker’ and safeguard the profession for the future.

What can our educators do?

The education system in the UK is still focussed more on knowledge than skills. Success in formal qualifications is the key aim for the majority of institutions, and indeed the government’s national curriculum targets. And so it should be. Young people need access to a broad education and the opportunity to specialise in any given area as they progress through the system. Formal qualifications are the key to their advancement.

Educators need to supplement the traditional system with skills-based development opportunities, if our future workforce is to meet the needs of its employers. Whilst examinations will get your foot in an employer’s door, well-crafted skills will get you the job.

The Sub-Committee on Education, Skills and the Economy has reported that inadequate careers guidance in many English schools is exacerbating skills shortages. Iain Wright, Chair of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee and Co-Chair of the ESE Sub-Committee said: “The world of business and work is changing rapidly. There is huge choice in the career paths young people could embark upon and rapid change also means that there will be opportunities for jobs and professions in new and emerging industries. In this context, young people and their parents need the best possible and clear guidance to inform their choices and decisions” [6]. 

Inside the classroom, changes are also taking place. The freedom offered to independent schools allows them to introduce bespoke skills-based curriculum; unexamined, project-based learning focussed on fundamental learning skills which aims to help students become more effective and reflective learners [7].  The shape of the classroom is evolving too, with the Harkness method of learning (involving students seated in a large, oval shape to discuss ideas in an encouraging, open-minded environment) being introduced from across the Atlantic [8]. 

It is not unusual to walk into a classroom now where students have brought their own mobile device in to the class to use, work from and share with.

We can we do?

As individuals, and as professionals, we need to acknowledge the evolving landscape of work, embrace the change and ready ourselves for the challenges of the future.

How knowledgeable you are in a specific area of public relations practice will become secondary to your adaptability to new technologies, your cultural awareness when operating in a follow-the-sun workflow, your flair for innovation to help you lead a young business through a rapidly changing political climate.

Just like the universities which insist on a certain level of work experience by applicants to Medicine - to develop some of the attitudes and behaviours essential to being a doctor such as conscientiousness, good communication skills, and the ability to interact [9] – we should look to complement our formal qualifications with skills-based learning to help plug the skills gap between the practitioners of today and the workplaces of tomorrow.

Sources

[1] Atos – The Future of Work
[2] SAP – The Future of Work
[3] McKinsey Global Institute – Help wanted: The future of work in advanced economies
[4] University of Phoenix – Top 10 skills for the successful 21st-century worker
[5] Forbes/Jacob Morgan - The 7 Principles Of The Future Employee
[6] Commons Select Committee - Inadequate careers advice is exacerbating skills gap report finds
[7] Cheadle Hulme School – Thinking Skills Curriculum
[8] Phillips Exeter Academy – The Amazing Harkness Philosophy
[9] Medical Schools Council - Work experience guidelines for applicants to medicine

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Tim Hudson is a Chartered Public Relations Practitioner based in the North West. He has a decade’s experience in the public and private education sectors, including fundraising and community relations. Tim has been a member of the CIPR North West Committee and a regular judge for the PRide Awards.

Twitter: @timhudsonpr
Online: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/timhudsonpr

The journey of the engaged employee

THE JOURNEY OF THE ENGAGED EMPLOYEE Bea Aarnoutse

From high-potential employees who make conscious choices, to employees who are passionate and contribute to success, to former employees who become ambassadors, attention to the total employee journey is the key to Alignment 2.0.

You’ll learn:
•    How organisations can recruit and retain the right employees by considering how their vision ties with individual values
•    Why Communications and Human Resources (HR) teams need to work more closely together
•    The role direct managers have in maintaining strong and consistent staff engagement

Every organisation wants to have an aligned workforce. The goal is to onboard employees who feel at home, give their personal best every day and know how they can contribute to a shared ambition.

Organisations want committed employees who fulfil promises to demanding – and increasingly disloyal – customers by offering the speed, quality and service the customer expects.

When achieved, employees play a decisive role in an organisation’s customer satisfaction score and, ultimately, a key role in managing its reputation. 

The employee’s role is becoming more and more influential.
 

The right people

A workforce doesn’t just align itself. Creating an aligned workforce requires continuous effort to ensure that individuals feel connected and engaged.

Does the vision tie in with a person’s individual beliefs? Is there room for personal development? How does an employee feel about their interaction with the manager? Does the organisational culture resonate with employees?

These are questions that today’s employees are trying to answer before deciding whether or not to join or stay with an organisation.

Down the road, attracting, engaging and retaining the right people will depend entirely on how Communications and HR collaborate. This is their shared challenge.

The total employee journey is defined by alignment. This journey begins before the employee even submits a job application and goes on long after he or she leaves the organisation.

Start of the journey: the right story

Job applicants are increasingly critical of where they want to work. They choose organisations that resonate with them and that pursue the same ambitions as they do.

That is why organisations need to translate their purpose and strategy into a good and engaging story; they need to ensure that this story comes across in all their interactions with applicants from day one. 

This helps them retain the people who are the best fit for them. It saves both parties time during the orientation period and rules out discrepancies between the picture painted during the application process and actual practice.

A good story...

•    Informs, inspires, and is pragmatic, visual and dialogue-oriented

•    Leaves enough room for employees’ own interpretation

•    Is embraced, supported and ‘lived out’ by top management

•    Can only be effective if HR and Communications work in close collaboration

•    Is communicated through a single recognisable concept, so that all activities, tools, messages and resources are interconnected and mutually reinforced


En route: engagement and interaction

Once on board, it is crucial for employees to have their choices regularly affirmed, meaning that the organisation’s story is put into practice and delivered throughout the journey, that the corporate culture is enjoyable and encourages employees to perform, that managers lead by example and that employees can continue to grow. 

In short, the idea is that employees can and want to do their part, the goal being that they and the employer mutually reinforce each other.

Today’s employees, and most certainly the employees of the future, are critical, outspoken and enterprising. They are after an in-depth relationship with their employer. 

Interaction is essential in this relationship. Encouraging employees to engage with the organisation and its mission is key, leaving room for dialogue and personal interpretation. This is how employees put the organisation’s story into practice and contribute to how it plays out. 

Once again, the key to success is close collaboration between Communications and HR. Based on the organisation’s story, the two should team up to communicate and integrate the strategy into the organisation’s fabric.

Communications and HR also have a role to play in making managers more communicative. As an employee’s first point of contact, a manager is a crucial pivot in terms of alignment. 

Although much internal communication is bottom up and lateral, we are seeing that, in practice, employees prefer to hear about strategy changes or relevant organisational developments directly from their own manager. After all, their manager knows them best and is most suited to explain what the development will mean for their daily routine.

Managers have the important duty of informing, engaging, motivating and challenging employees. Their influence on the degree to which employees feel engaged is huge. What’s more, a manager is instrumental in how a team operates and in creating a work environment where every team member feels comfortable.
 

Unboarding: not the end of the line

When employees feel at home and have the intrinsic motivation to contribute to the organisation’s mission day in and day out, they are happy to share their enjoyment.

That said, the reverse is true as well: one push of a button and an employee’s discontent is broadcast all over the internet. This doesn’t stop when they leave the organisation for whatever reason. 

An employee who has felt engaged and appreciated, who feels a connection with the organisation’s story and has had the opportunity to help shape this story will remain a good ambassador – and a potentially valuable client – even after they have left.

With this in mind, employees should also be given the attention they deserve when their journey has come to an end.

En route together

The scope of Alignment 2.0 touches upon Communications as well as HR. For this reason, an integrated approach to internal and employer branding offers a wealth of opportunities. With the organisation’s story as a shared starting point, the idea is to work on a single overarching concept or on two related communication concepts.

The concept should be recognisable and connecting, and rely on dialogue and interaction. All Communications and HR activities, tools, messages and resources should be interrelated within the concept and mutually reinforce each other.

Alignment 2.0 is the sum of internal and employer branding. The deliverable is to attract, engage and retain the right people who do the right things and contribute to the achievement of strategic targets. This is an important step towards building a strong reputation.

Alignment 2.0 focuses on today’s employees, but does not forget about the employees of the past and the future either. The successful organisation of the future is truly interested in the employee’s total journey, which will ultimately result in a strong reputation.
 

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Bea Aarnoutse is Managing Partner and Strategy Director at PROOF and has over 15 years’ management experience, working both at agency and client end. Her book ‘Alignment 2.0’ was published in May 2016. 

Twitter: @BeaAarnoutse
Online: www.proof-agency.com

Continuous professional development (CPD): Can it help you in a changing world?

CONTINUOUS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT (CPD): CAN IT HELP YOU IN A CHANGING WORLD? Sally Keith

CPD. Does it matter? What does it mean?

You’ll learn:
•    Who is CPD for? Is it all about you?
•    What should CPD cover? 
•    To focus on always challenging yourself
 

When does CPD start?

Some professionals, for example doctors, accountants or architects, have to qualify before they undertake CPD. For them qualification is the baseline. The continuing element takes them beyond the minimum level of their competence. Ideally it keeps them up to date with best practice, new technology or new pharmaceutical developments.

Yet this is not the case in PR, perhaps because there are diverse routes into this profession. New entrants begin their CPD before they have any form of qualification, relying only on any experience they may have acquired.

Does this make CPD just PR by numbers, rather like painting by numbers? It feels possible that collecting enough points is more than enough to make you an accredited practitioner for another year; not quite a ‘BOGOF’ but close! 

Perhaps that’s harsh. Either way, what matters is whether CPD actually says anything about your ability, skills or understanding.
 

How does PR fare in the context of other professionals?

It’s worth looking at what the evidence says. The Professional Associations Research Network (PARN) published its CPD, Education and Professional Standards benchmarking survey in April 2016.

Clearly professions are changing. In 2012, 81 per cent of the professional bodies required full members to have a degree. By 2015 this had fallen to 36 per cent. 

Is this as frightening as it sounds? Does it mean that standards are falling or is it just a reflection of the different entry routes into a profession? Will the 36 per cent with degrees be the only ones who will rise to the highest levels in their profession? 

There are, as ever, many factors underlying the statistics. The how, where and when of training and qualification are changing dramatically. 
 

Should CPD be compulsory?

The PARN survey reveals that 65 per cent of professional associations set CPD standards. Perhaps the CIPR model of awarding points is not so unusual then. 

However just 50 per cent of the organisations surveyed set mandatory policies. So even professions are divided about whether CPD should be compulsory. 

A key statistic that calls into question the value of CPD is that a third of the professions measure CPD by inputs, while just 36 per cent measure a combination of inputs and outputs. 

While PARN points out that this demonstrates a general move from input only schemes, the research goes on to say that over half of the people who audit CPD are not formally trained (just before you think this is good news).

All of this leads me to conjecture that if CPD is not required as part of a profession’s code of conduct, and those evaluating us are relatively unskilled, it should not be considered a reliable indicator of competence or even evidence of skills.
 

So why should PR professionals bother with CPD?

The harsh truth is that many of us don’t. The PRCA calculated 62,000 people work in PR in the UK. In 2015 1,611 CIPR members completed their CPD records. 

For consultants like me it can add to my credibility and reassure clients. Employers can ask for CPD in recruitment or use it in appraisals. So is it about competitive advantage?

CPD ought to stand for more than it does currently; not least because as professionals we have wider responsibilities. We are responsible to society. Without going into the complex arena of ‘public interest’ I would like to think that members of the public should be able to expect a (high) level of competence and service from PR professionals. 

Can people trust us to do the job and do it well? 

We also have a duty to our own profession. Does our CPD record make us proud of our achievements? As a profession can we point to CPD and say it is a central pillar of #FuturePRoofing PR? Are we doing CPD because it makes us feel good?

That would be a good place to be if so. 
 

Why, what if

Today CPD seems to focus on what could be termed practical skills; the how to... The more elusive element is around knowledge focused on the strategic, analytical skills: the why, the what if and sometimes the why not. 

These are all questions PR people should be debating round the board table. We should be able to raise a problem, debate the alternative strategies and then manage through a course of action. More of us need to learn how to do this. 

And then there is the thorny question of creativity and innovation. 

Great buzzwords are often sprinkled liberally across proposals and award entries, but can be difficult to define. How can we measure and develop these attributes? Are they skills or are they innate?

If CPD is not taking us in this direction, what will?

From knowledge to capability

There was encouraging news at the World Public Relations Forum in Toronto in May 2016. Professor Anne Gregory and Dr Johanna Fawkes announced their two year project to use the Global Body of Knowledge (GBOK) for PR to create a capability framework. The aspiration is that this framework will be used by PR professionals around the world.

I applaud the global scope of their ambition. I also applaud their efforts to win the approval of both academics and senior practitioners. 

As an associate lecturer at Newcastle University as well as a practitioner, I see tensions around the boundaries of academic and practical learning. The polarised opinions between ‘on the job’ training and degrees or formal qualifications will no doubt continue. 


Keep asking questions

When I began my career in PR there were no PR degrees or qualifications. I had to rely on Kipling’s words for my career development:

I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.

Surely good PR professionals are always keen to learn, to find the best, most efficient way of achieving results. I would like to think so, but shudder when I hear, ‘Well, that’s my CPD done for another year, and it’s only May!’ 

I believe asking questions should be engrained in a good PR person.

The C is the key: continuing. Let’s never stop. 

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Sally Keith has run her successful eponymous consultancy for 20 years, serving clients across the UK. She has a rule of only reporting to CEOs and Chairmen, believing that PR must be regarded as a fundamental corporate management discipline. Alongside her professional practice she is an associate lecturer at Newcastle University and teaches on CIPR, CAM, CIM and DMI courses. She is particularly proud of the TwitFace Award for social media she received in the north east’s Alternative Business Awards.

Twitter: @fulbeck
Online: www.sallykeith.co.uk

Stories versus facts: Do communicators have a personal responsibility to ensure the public isn’t misled?

STORIES VERSUS FACTS: DO COMMUNICATORS HAVE A PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY TO ENSURE THE PUBLIC ISN’T MISLED? Stuart Bruce

Every public relations professional should agree that it is absolutely wrong to lie on behalf of a client or employer. But where do the ethical boundaries lie between advocating the strongest case and misleading people?

You’ll learn:
•    Professional best practice
•    Practical arguments for honesty
•    Tips and tactics for fact-checking

Professional best practice

One of the major milestones to an occupation becoming recognised as a profession is the introduction of a professional code of ethics. The earliest and best known example of professional ethics is the Hippocratic oath which medical doctors still adhere to. 

In the UK, public relations is governed by two main codes of conduct, from the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) and the Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA), which both broadly say the same things, although the precise wording differs.

The key relevant themes of both are:

•    To have proper regard for the public interest
•    A duty to deal fairly and honestly
•    A duty to check the accuracy of information before disseminating it
•    To never knowingly mislead

Both codes are carefully worded to require you to ‘check’ or ‘use proper care’ as both bodies recognise that the PR professional cannot always be absolutely certain of the reliability and accuracy of the information they are given by others.

There is a difference between ‘false’ information (which can perhaps be more honestly described as lies) and ‘misleading’ information as it is possible to mislead by sticking to facts and the truth, just not the whole truth. Edmund Burke wrote: “Falsehood and delusion are allowed in no case whatsoever: But, as in the exercise of all the virtues, there is an economy of truth.”

Both the CIPR and the PRCA codes make it clear that to mislead is also a breach of their professional codes.

However, as in all questions of ethical behaviour, it isn’t always clear cut what is the correct ethical course to take. It is quite possible for ‘regard for the public interest’ to be at odds with the duty to not mislead.

What if thousands of jobs depend on maintaining the secrecy of contract negotiations and the PR professional is explicitly asked if contract negotiations are taking place? 

What about when special forces are conducting military operations to rescue hostages deep inside enemy held territory and all their lives would be at risk if there was even a hint an operation was taking place? 
 

Practical arguments for honesty

The CIPR and PRCA codes tell us what is expected of PR professionals, but the reality is that it’s not always as easy to do these things in practice.

There has always been an ethical and moral case for PR professionals to be honest and truthful, but there are also practical arguments, which today are stronger than ever. The first is one of trust. To be successful a PR professional needs to be trusted by the stakeholders they seek to influence. The second is the emergence of the internet and search making it far easier and faster for anyone to fact-check. The third is that social media means everyone has the power to challenge what you say and disseminate evidence to prove you are wrong.

This means that in the past an unscrupulous PR person could have decided to cast aside professional ethics to knowingly disseminate false information because they could have a reasonable expectation of getting away with it. Today, the chances of being caught and exposed have increased phenomenally so even the unscrupulous would be unwise to risk it.

However, just as the risks of being caught today are greater, so too are the challenges of actually complying with the principles of honest facts and not misleading people. Many ‘experts’ have pointed to the EU referendum campaign in the UK and the Donald Trump presidential campaign in the USA as evidence that we now live in a ‘post-fact’ era where, according to Michael Gove MP, people ‘have had enough of experts.’

One of PR’s greatest benefits over advertising is that it always deals in truth, facts and real stories, while advertising relies on made-up stories. Consumers today are demanding greater authenticity so PR’s real stories are more powerful than ever. 

Tips and tactics for fact checking

Too many PR people are too ready to accept what an employer or client tells them and in too many cases they may not be being told the truth. The employer or client may not be deliberately misleading the PR person, but can simply be relaying what they believe to be true.

That’s why both the CIPR and the PRCA put the onus on the public relations professional to check and use proper care when disseminating information they’ve been given. It is of equal importance to take this care whether you are retweeting a tweet, or if you are issuing a news release, formal statement or disclosure to a stock exchange.

It’s one area where PR professionals, even those who don’t do media relations, can learn a lot from traditional journalists. There’s an old newsroom adage that became the slogan of the Chicago City News Bureau:

‘If your mother says she loves you, check it out.’

Just as you can use Rudyard Kipling’s six tenets of reporting as the basis for creating a story, you can also use them as principles for fact checking. Ask what, why, when, how, where and who.

It is good idea to check the provenance of the information you are being given. What is the source? Are they qualified or permitted to provide you with the information? What is the date? Is it the most up to date information available?

There are lots of areas where PR people are at risk of inadvertently misleading people, but some where extra care needs to be exercised include:

•    Scientific research where the need to make the story more understandable can introduce inadvertent errors or the most newsworthy angle risks exaggerating the results.

•    Editing quotes, video and longer copy where removing minor words or phrases inadvertently or deliberately changes the meaning. Be particularly careful when tweeting as the restrictions of just 140 characters increase the risk of becoming misleading and remember many people will only read the tweet and will share it without even reading the link.

•    Market research and polls where selective use of the data can mislead. A potential pitfall of releasing the source data to improve transparency can actually risk people interpreting it incorrectly.

•    Case studies where the people and organisations depicted need to be real.

It’s your responsibility to get it right

It’s not always easy to know what the facts are and what could mislead people. PR professionals can’t be expected to have expertise on the subject matter of every issue they ever work on. 

However, what every public relations professional must do is take personal responsibility for trying to get it right. To never be afraid to ask the difficult questions and demand answers. If you don’t ask them then others will which will be ultimately be far more damaging to reputation than being honest and factual at the start.

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Stuart Bruce MPRCA FCIPR is an award-winning public relations adviser who counsels and trains corporate and government clients all over the world working with in-house teams and agencies. He has earned an international reputation as a thinker and doer in modernised public relations practice. 

Twitter: @stuartbruce
Online: www.stuartbruce.eu

Stitching together good corporate behaviour

STITCHING TOGETHER GOOD CORPORATE BEHAVIOUR Karan Chadda

How do you do the right thing? What is the right thing, anyway? In some contexts, these are simple questions with simple answers. For organisations, the context is rarely simple and neither are the answers. 

You’ll learn:
•    Why PR is structurally best placed to act as an organisation’s conscience
•    The role values play in guiding organisations
•    Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) needs a golden thread


Outside in, inside out

So whose role is it to help an organisation work out how to do the right thing? Ultimately, an organisation’s conscience is built collectively through its culture but, for structural reasons, professional communicators are best placed to ensure it is functioning effectively. 

In-house PR has traditionally been seen as a support function: PRs don’t do what their company does. This detachment from operational functions enables a broader view of a company and its role in society. 

This operational detachment is balanced by PR’s role as the voice of a company. This role requires a deep understanding of how the company is perceived by its various audiences and society as a whole. 

In his book, The Business of Influence [1], Philip Sheldrake outlined perhaps the simplest formalisation of PR’s role when he identified the Six Influence Flows [2].

Here we see a firm speaks to its stakeholders; stakeholders discuss the firm; stakeholders speak to the firm; competitors speak to the stakeholders; stakeholders discuss the competitors; and stakeholders speak to competitors. 

PR is the only business function to sit across all of these flows of influence. This places it as the only function with a broad view of how an organisation is perceived. PR takes what’s inside the organisation to the outside world and brings information from the outside world into the company. Professional communicators are structurally best placed to act as an organisation’s conscience.

The value of values

Organisations now face faster and greater information flows. There is also a push for greater transparency: more scrutiny by campaigners, journalists, the public, and other stakeholders. For corporations, there are moves toward greater, more transparent and more comparable reporting to financial markets (i.e. the move to integrated reporting and greater supply chain scrutiny) too. The upshot is increased scrutiny, ease of comparison, and in cases where companies are caught doing the wrong thing, faster public backlash. Ethical behaviour is not only a moral choice, it is now a commercially necessary one.

Morality is an uneasy subject for organisations, but there are tools for tackling it. The most common approach is to have a set of values or principles by which a firm operates. Values provide a set of relatively objective markers against which decisions can be made and judged. When an organisation articulates what it stands for, it is much easier for those running it to judge which decisions are right.

We’ve already set out the factors that make ethical behaviour commercially important in the short term, but there is evidence of longer term value creation too. Various brand equity and reputation equity studies show that a significant proportion of market capitalisation is dependent on the positive perceptions of a firm. Doing the right thing creates sustainable value over the long term.

The golden thread

For the past two decades, the default option for organisations that wanted to demonstrate a commitment to ethical behaviour was CSR. Although rooted in common sense, CSR quickly built a reputation as a tool for companies to “greenwash” their reputations. 

One of the most high profile examples of this is BP. Back in 2000, seeking to frame the firm as an environmentally conscious organisation, John (now Lord) Browne said BP would now stand for “Beyond Petroleum.” It adopted the now familiar green-yellow sunburst logo too. 

The rebrand was coupled with initiatives to increase BP’s renewable energy activities. It was met with cynicism. At the time, a Greenpeace spokesperson told the Guardian [3]: “They spent more on the logo this year than they did on renewable energy last year. Given they spend $8bn a year on oil exploration, BP stands less for beyond petroleum and more for burning the planet.”

BP’s words didn’t match up to its actions. Beyond Petroleum was quickly dropped from use but the logo remained. Another longstanding BP commitment remains too: its sponsorship of the arts.

Campaigners believe BP purchases respectability through its arts sponsorship. In July 2016, BP announced a further set of sponsorships for the next five years. In response, over 200 artists and campaigners, including Mark Rylance, wrote to The Times [4] to complain about this new round of sponsorship. 

Arts sponsorship is BP’s most high profile and controversial CSR activity. There are others, including supporting STEM education and initiatives to support and build the communities in which it operates. It is these other activities that make the most sense for BP to support. As a firm dependent on engineering talent, ensuring excellent STEM education provision is not just good for students and schools, colleges and universities, it is good for BP in the long run. 

The arts sponsorship sits uncomfortably. The reason is because there is no clear way to link it back to what BP does. It’s not about engineering. It’s not about energy. It is corporate hospitality on the grandest scale.
 

What does well sewn CSR look like?

Transparency, scrutiny and the commercial necessity of behaving ethically, means that CSR functions that “greenwash” are destined to fail. CSR must become embedded within an organisation’s operational decision making or it will become a reputational liability.

The best CSR programmes are stitched together using a golden thread that links activities seamlessly back to what an organisation’s values are and what it does.

Take children’s food company Ella’s Kitchen as an example. The firm has a very clear mission to create healthy eating habits. It not only produces healthy baby food, it also promotes healthy diets through initiatives such as its ‘Veg for Victory’ healthy weaning campaign that seeks to get children hooked on vegetables from the moment they begin to eat food of any kind.

Ella’s Kitchen isn’t looking at how it interacts with society as an afterthought. The firm has initiatives around recycling of its packaging, support for children locally (farm visits) and internationally (supporting a children’s home in Zambia), and organic sourcing. All these initiatives fit the healthy lifestyle values of the brand. The firm’s mission and values run through its operating business and its CSR activities. They are the golden thread that stitches together what the company does, how it does it and how it fits in the communities within which it operates.

Sources

[1] eulerpartners.com/the-business-of-influence/
[2] http://eulerpartners.com/six-influence-flows/
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2000/jul/25/bp
[4] www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2016-08-02/comment/david-camerons-awards-and-the-lavender-list-k5r0hkvcx

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Karan Chadda creates brands, marketing frameworks and content that build stronger businesses. He is the founder of Evolving Influence, a marketing consultancy. He has also founded Poetry by Numbers, a data poetry project, and Read.Think.Discuss., a business book club.

Twitter: @kchadda
Online: www.evolvinginfluence.co.uk

Social mobility in PR - a career open to all

SOCIAL MOBILITY IN PR - A CAREER OPEN TO ALL Sarah Stimson

The PR industry needs to represent the public it serves, however diversity is increasingly lacking. Issues of practicality are holding PR firms back from addressing the problem but there are workarounds and solutions to be adopted. 

You’ll learn:
•    How having a diverse workforce stimulates innovation and creativity
•    Why unpaid internships prevent social mobility and should be avoided
•    How a shift in your approach to recruitment, induction and training can pay dividends for all


For an industry that reaches every possible audience it’s perhaps surprising that diversity among the PR workforce is lacking. 

In 2016 the PRWeek/PRCA Census [1] revealed that only 9% of the UK PR workforce is from a BME background. Several organisations and groups are working towards addressing this lack of ethnic diversity including the Taylor Bennett Foundation [2], Creative Access [3] and BAME20/20 [4] and to some extent the work they do has an impact on social mobility too because of the socio-economic backgrounds of the young BAME people they work with. 

Social mobility itself isn’t measured by the industry census, but taking a look at a range of typical job adverts for entry-level PR roles, and the 150 PR internships list [5] I publish each year reveals that the vast majority of PR agencies insist on a degree as a basic requirement. The team pages of agency websites confirm that the industry is predominately white and middle class and this history of recruiting people from the same backgrounds could mean that industry innovation and a breadth of thinking is stifled. 

Widening the talent pool is imperative if the industry wants to continue to innovate and hire the best quality candidates. Changing the criteria for ‘best quality’ is essential if that is going to happen. 

Stifling social mobility

The PR industry wants the brightest, most creative and most innovative people. I don’t believe that the industry isn’t interested in social mobility and the talent it’s missing out on, but I do think that there are issues of practicality that are holding PR firms back from addressing it. 

An average entry-level PR vacancy will receive around 100+ applications that take an enormous amount of time and administration to sift through. For many firms, hiring criteria is set to filter out applications just to reduce the numbers and make them more manageable. 

Typically, those criteria have been a degree, a particular grade (a 2:1 or above) and, in some cases, the type of university – some firms favour applicants from Russell Group universities for example. If those requirements prevent dozens more applicants from applying, it reduces the administrative burden considerably and so, perhaps understandably, this easy filter is often adopted. This means however that ‘best quality’ candidates are defined purely on their academic background. 

In my experience, the best PR people are not always those from traditionally strong academic universities. 

In addition, increasingly, entry-level PRs are expected to have a certain amount of PR experience on their CV before they get their first permanent job. Unpaid internships are often cited as a barrier to the industry for many young people. 

Unless you have parents who can afford to support you, and contribute to your travel costs while you work for free, then unpaid internships are completely out of the question which results in only young people from wealthier backgrounds being able to get the experience they need to enter the industry.

I have spoken to firms which have strayed from the traditional graduate requirement at entry-level and who have since reinstated it as criteria. The gap between being a university student and a worker is large and preparing junior staff to be work-ready can sometimes be a painful experience for the hiring company. 

Hiring young people who haven’t gone to university widens that student-worker gap and companies find that it’s too much of a burden on their existing workforce to train someone with little experience of a professional environment. 
 

Widening access

If a firm recruits from the same pool of people each time, it will continue to get the same candidates. Organisations that are serious about improving access to the industry need to first look at raising awareness of the industry among groups of young people who may never have previously considered a career in communications and, secondly, be more creative with their recruitment processes. 

As an industry there has been a move away from unpaid internships as a way to gain industry experience but they are still out there. A recent quick internet search turned up more than a dozen unpaid internships in under five minutes. Increasing the pressure for firms to follow the law [6] and wipe out the practice of unpaid workers is important if access to the industry for young people from less well off backgrounds is to be improved.

If the biggest barrier to social mobility is the requirement to have a certain degree grade from a particular university then changing the hiring criteria and the definition of ‘best quality’ could dramatically change the demographics of applicants and rather than reduce the quality of the candidates, can unlock talent that other firms aren’t reaching. The most obvious way to do that is to remove all requirements for a degree at entry level and hire either into apprenticeships, or into schemes that move away from ‘graduate schemes’ to ‘training contracts’.

There are other creative ways to approach it too. Making sure that all jobs are hired against a well formed competency framework will ensure that applicants are measured on skills and potential rather than their degree or the number of months they’ve sat in an internship role where they may not have actually learned an enormous amount. 

To take it a step further, removing CVs completely from the application process and using application forms with structured questioning around skills, experience and ambitions can give a greater insight into a candidate’s potential and for firms where removing the degree requirement completely is a step too far, then university blind recruitment could provide the answer. 

It’s generally thought that subconscious bias plays a large part in the recruitment process – people hire people not too dissimilar to themselves. If the industry is going to crack that problem then it needs to change interviewing styles to ensure bias is challenged – typically by two or more people interviewing together.
 

Retaining diverse talent

Beyond recruiting from a wider pool of talent if there is to be any lasting impact on social mobility in the industry, then appropriate training and inclusion as part of the business culture are vital. An effective induction programme with a company buddy system – partnering junior employees with a more senior practitioner – can reduce the burden of training younger employers, helping them transition into working life smoothly. 

Uniqueness and individuality should be encouraged and a company inclusion policy which then filters through every area of the firm’s working practices will help to keep talent from more diverse backgrounds. 

If the PR industry is serious about addressing social mobility there are easy, cost-effective ways to go about it. Engaging with under-represented groups, some creative recruitment processes, improved induction and training, and inclusion as an integral part of company culture are simple to implement and can have an impact on the demographics of entry-level hires. 

As with all entry-level initiatives, seeing the result in more senior roles takes some patience but in the long-run will improve the diversity of a company and ensure the brightest people have access to the industry, no matter what their socio-economic background. 

Sources

[1] news.prca.org.uk/pr-census-2016-reveals-that-the-pr-industry-is-worth-129bn
[2] www.taylorbennettfoundation.org
[3] creativeaccess.org.uk/
[4] www.thedrum.com/news/2016/06/20/bame2020-project-launch-spotlight-marketings-change-makers
[5] prcareers.co.uk/category/150/
[6] prcareers.co.uk/unpaid-pr-internships-and-the-law/

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Sarah Stimson is the Programme Director at Taylor Bennett Foundation, a charity dedicated to addressing the lack of diversity in PR with traineeships for BAME graduates, the editor of the careers advice website PRcareers.co.uk, and the author of How to get a job in PR. 

Twitter: @GoooRooo
Online: www.taylorbennettfoundation.org

Charting the course or just keeping you afloat: is Human Resources (HR) taking your business where it needs to go?

CHARTING THE COURSE OR JUST KEEPING YOU AFLOAT: IS HUMAN RESOURCES (HR) TAKING YOUR BUSINESS WHERE IT NEEDS TO GO? Elizabeth Baines

HR has an important role to play in business strategy. However, as a cost centre whose impact cannot easily be quantified, it often plays second fiddle to disciplines such as sales and marketing or finance. The success of creative businesses, such as PR agencies, relies on outcomes created by people. So what’s at risk if the strategic value of human resources is overlooked?

You’ll learn:
•    An understanding of HR’s role in shaping the future of your business
•    Why it’s important to have a people strategy that underpins your overall business plan
•    Ways to ensure HR delivers value to your business
 

Bolt-on, rather than mainstay

Data from the PRCA’s 2016 census indicates that the PR industry is made up mostly of small and medium-sized agencies, with between 11 and 50 employees. With size and cost prohibiting the appointment of a dedicated resource, HR in smaller agencies tends to be a bolt-on responsibility awarded to those who demonstrate an interest in or aptitude for people management. 

Time available to focus on HR is usually limited; often HR is relegated to a box-ticking, transactional function designed to keep the ship afloat, rather than a strategic partner helping to steer it in the right direction.

If your agency takes a purely transactional approach to HR, you could be overlooking a critical component in your growth and success. Without a people strategy to underpin your agency’s business plan, how certain are you that you will have the right people in place, with the right skills and the right motivation to achieve your goals?
 

A broader perspective

The merger of public relations, marketing and digital disciplines raises a number of challenges for agencies. Broader service offerings involving multiple disciplines require the integration of a diverse range of skills, working practices and attitudes. Simply hiring or buying in expertise and expecting everyone to play nicely together is unlikely to give you the return you’re looking for. Success requires a more strategic approach to attracting, motivating and retaining your people. 

When developing a people strategy, begin by asking questions such as: 

•    What roles will we need, how will we structure our teams to accommodate them and what outcomes should they deliver?

•    What skills meet the needs of the business today and what will we need in the next two to five years?

•    Can our current skills base scale to meet those future needs?

•    If not, how and when are we going to develop the right skills; through our existing employee base, by recruiting externally, relying on a partnership or merger or a combination of all three?

The answers to the above should determine your approach. From there, ask:

•    Who are our star performers and what role will they play in winning, growing and retaining business? 

•    What should we be doing to keep these people and foster high performance?

•    If recruiting externally, how do we attract the right people, in the right quantity?

•    Who are these people, what’s important to them and what are their working practices, flexibility, development needs etc.?

•    How might we adapt our current performance management, development and remuneration processes to meet their needs?

•    If we bring a third party into the mix, how will we integrate our teams and working practices?

•    Are our current employment practices conducive to retaining good people? If any are counter-productive, how do we go about changing them?

•    What should our remuneration and benefits packages look like to attract the right talent and incentivise the desired behaviour?

Your approach to recruitment, reward, performance management, training and development should be shaped by the answers to these questions, otherwise your HR processes will keep you buoyant but they are unlikely to propel you in the direction in which you wish to go.
 

The wind in the sails

As a cost-centre with limited scope for direct revenue-generation, HR must add value to your business through a range of specific and pre-defined key performance indicators (KPIs).

When establishing KPIs, HR should not only be charged with aligning your people management practices with your business goals, it should also ensure those practices support the type of employer you wish to be. 

At the most basic level, good working practices will keep you compliant with current employment legislation and avoid disciplinary action or disputes. However, strategically developed employment policies that engender clear communication, equality (pay and opportunity), flexibility and progression will elevate you to the next level. Placing the right emphasis, not only on employees’ motivation and development, but also on their mental and physical well-being, will facilitate greater productivity and creativity and ultimately lead to higher levels of client satisfaction.

Additionally, employees have the ability to make or break your reputation. Happy, motivated and loyal people are your agency’s best advocate. They can help you to build a strong employer brand that attracts the best talent.

Adjusting to the conditions

HR should add value as a source of insight to your employee demographic, helping you to comprehend what matters to different groups of employees and how to incentivise the behaviour or results you desire. 

For any agency going through a process of change, this type of insight is crucial. A ‘one size fits all’ approach is unlikely to meet the needs of a workforce that is evolving to include multiple disciplines and demographics. While there will be common aspects, the working practices and development needs of teams across the broader PR, marketing and digital spectrum should be considered along with any adjustments to your performance management and training programmes to accommodate these needs. 
 

Heading in the right direction

With HR integrated into your overall business strategy, you increase the chances of future-proofing your agency. More than a custodian of employment contracts and holiday requests, HR should drive the design and implementation of employment practices and development programmes that support who you want to be, where you want to go and how you get there. PR agencies are people-centric entities where success is reliant upon human beings rather than products. Placing HR at the core of your business will ensure your people are pulling in the right direction, adapting to changing conditions and delivering business growth.

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Elizabeth Baines is a Director of the Amber Group. We provide specialist training, coaching and HR services to PR and creative agencies. 

Twitter: @The4thAmberite
Online: www.ambergroup.co.uk

#FuturePRoof: Edition Two – one week on

A lot has happened in a week for the #FuturePRoof community.

Since publication a week ago #FuturePRoof: Edition Two has been ranked among the top ten books on Kindle variously in management, sales and marketing and public relations.

The book is available in print via Blurb and on the Kindle via Amazon. There’s also been renewed interest in the first edition.

My thanks go to all the contributors who have been generous with their time and expertise; its success is down to the originality and strength of the content. 

I'm publishing a chapter per day on the #FuturePRoof website and sharing it via social media.

I'm grateful to Vuelio for hosting a webinar about the #FuturePRoof project and to everyone that has retweeted and blogged to share the news and raise awareness.

You can find some of the many excellent write-ups here:

PR must assert itself as a management discipline, says #FuturePRoof volume two - PR Week

#FuturePRoof: edition two is a call to arms for the PR industry - Paul Sutton

#FuturePRoof: a book to bang the table with - comms2point0  

A story of two books about public relations – separated by 25 years - Stephen Waddington

Is PR becoming a management discipline? - Iliyana Stareva

Show me the money 

I’ve been asked variously on Twitter how #FuturePRoof is funded.

The project is self-funded. I’ve chosen not to broker sponsorship in order to maintain editorial control. It's been worth it to fulfil my vision for the books. 

Print copies of the second edition are produced on demand at cost by Blurb, while the net profit on the Kindle, introduced this time around, is £2 a copy.

Should the project generate a surplus, it will be donated to the Taylor Bennett Foundation. 

 Future of #FuturePRoof

Finally, I've already had a number of exciting approaches about developing the project.

A US publisher is interested in collaborating on a third edition and I’m working with one of the contributors on a possible special edition for Brazil.

The community is truly global. It’s fantastic to see practitioners unite across disciplines, backgrounds and geographies to help spread knowledge and best practice. 

I'll also be introducing guest posts through the #FuturePRoof blog so if you've a great idea, please pitch it to me.

You can contact me by email at sarah@sarahhallconsulting.co.uk or find me @hallmeister on Twitter.

With thanks for all your support

Sarah Hall

From purpose to performance: A radical approach to stakeholder Engagement

FROM PURPOSE TO PERFORMANCE: A RADICAL APPROACH TO STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT
Sean Trainor

You’ll learn:

•    Historical learnings from the telecoms and nuclear industry
•    Current thinking from thought leaders
•    Future practical model for meaningful stakeholder engagement
 

Learnings from the American telecoms industry

The pioneering work of American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) makes a useful benchmark for public engagement around organisational purpose. In October 1927, W.S. Gifford, President of AT&T made a speech to the National Association of Railroad and Utilities Commissioners which was one of the few instances in which a major corporation publicly stated the bases on which it hoped to serve the public. 

In his speech, Gifford stated: “The fact that the responsibility for such a large part of the entire telephone service of the country rests solely upon this Company imposes on the management an unusual obligation to the public.” 

Recognising public relations was a management discipline, he appointed Arthur W. Page as the first public relations executive to serve as an Executive Officer and Board Director of a major public corporation.

Page’s appointment was in response to public resistance to its monopolisation efforts and his role was to increase the public’s appreciation for AT&T’s contributions to society. Page believed that the purpose of public relations was to find a place where the public’s interest and their company’s interest coincided and to engage around it. It was his thought leadership and lifetime practice that earned him his reputation as being regarded ‘the father of public relations’ and laid the foundations for The Arthur W. Page Society.

In his time at AT&T, Page was fortunate to work with Chester Barnard whose 1938 book, The Functions of the Executive, pioneered thinking in management theory and organisational studies. 

Barnard viewed organisations as systems of cooperation of human activity and summarised the function of leadership in organisations as:

•    Defining the organisation’s purpose and objectives
•    Establishing a system of communication to improve effectiveness
•    Engaging employees in their work to improve efficiency
•    Partnering with suppliers to secure essential services
 

Learnings from the British nuclear industry

With a heavy focus on improving reputation, the PR function at BNFL had moved BNFL from tabloid headlines to the business pages, rebranded the company and created its first above-the-line marketing campaign. 

The objective was to create universal support for the company strategy to achieve private-public partnership (PPP). Favourability and familiarity of the BNFL brand had never been so high - BNFL was on course to become a flagship PPP. A journey that was deemed unstoppable but it proved to be a titanic task, in more ways than one.

In pursuit of growing the brand and delivering the strategy to achieve commercial freedom from the shackles of the DTI, the leadership team hit an iceberg. 

They had become so blinded to significant cultural issues that lay under the surface of the corporate facade, their reputation had got ahead of their performance. A major safety related scandal resulted along with some of the most ferocious criticism ever heaped on a British commercial organisation. Four workers lost their jobs. Regulators, government, MPs and NGOs poured scorn on its leadership and, under growing pressure from a major Japanese customer, the CEO, FD and HRD eventually had to abandon ship.

Ironically, the crash in stakeholder confidence came two years after the introduction of, arguably, the most intensive, consistent and difficult engagement with stakeholders ever undertaken for a European organisation and a first for the industry. 

BNFL’s National Stakeholder Dialogue involved a wide range of individuals and organisations interested in or concerned about nuclear issues and aims. When it began, it was a groundbreaking exercise for the Company, from an international viewpoint as much as for external stakeholders.

I captured the learnings from the process in a paper ‘Stakeholder dialogue - a new paradigm for a new millennium’ submitted to the World Energy Council 18th Congress in Buenos Aries in 2001. It flagged the risk of discontinuous or too frequent involvement resulting in involvement fatigue and drop-out of stakeholders in the follow-up processes. 

A couple of years into the BNFL process two high profile NGOs – Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth – left the dialogue. A key learning.
 

Current thought leadership

Today, executive leaders in boardrooms and conference rooms across the world are talking about purpose beyond profit. 

These discussions have topped the agenda at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting at Davos and has spawned new service offerings from leading consultancy firms. There appears to be a disconnect between these conversations and consultations and leadership action. 

In his recent book ‘Connect’, Lord Browne addresses the significant disconnect between organisations and the public they serve. He proposes a four-step virtuous cycle for ‘Connected Leadership’:

1.    Map your world
2.    Define your contribution
3.    Apply world-class management
4.    Engage radically

A bold shift from the conventional four step vicious cycle of unilateral decision making epitomised by Lord Browne’s counterparts in Shell UK over their handling of Brent Spar:

1.    Decide
2.    Announce
3.    Defend
4.    Defend (or abandon)

Lord Browne’s book was clearly influenced by Page’s work and his rebranding of BP was seen as a way to strengthen a common sense of purpose and symbolised their commitment to values including safety, respect and excellence. Subsequent events like Texas City Refinery and Deep Water Horizon raise concerns about the culture behind the brand and suggest the rebranding of BP was a triumph of style over substance.
 

A future model for stakeholder engagement

Stakeholder engagement can be defined as the positive intellectual, emotional and behavioural state of stakeholders directed toward enhancing reputation and performance. Three universal enablers to reputation and performance are strategy, culture and brand - none of them are mutually exclusive and none of them can claim bragging rights for eating another for breakfast. Just as was demonstrated by BNFL and BP, you ignore any one of them at your peril.

This is where the power of purpose proves invaluable. By defining a purpose that is both compelling and true, you create an organising principle and a common platform for engaging with stakeholders to develop your strategy, culture and brand. Stakeholder engagement becomes a simple three-step process:

1.    Identifying potential innovators, collaborators and advocates
2.    Mapping their level of emotional, intellectual and behavioural states
3.    Planning interventions for informing, inspiring and involving them appropriately

The purpose of this chapter was to highlight the gap between the theory and practice of corporate public relations over the past century. Despite the title, there is nothing radical about the model or the thinking presented, what could be radical is the application of the wisdom of Arthur W. Page and PR grasping the opportunity to take a leadership role. 

There has never been a better time to focus on three of the seven Page Principles: listen to your stakeholders, manage for tomorrow and conduct public relations as if the whole enterprise depends on it. Wise words indeed.

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Sean Trainor is an independent change communications and employee engagement consultant. A professional engineer by background, his career in communications has spanned over 15 years with senior in-house roles for BNFL, BBC and Network Rail. Sean has also acted as senior counsel for brands including Barclaycard, Nissan, British Gas and British American Tobacco. He is a former CIPR Board Member and Chair of CIPR Inside.

Twitter: @uber_engagement
Online: www.uberengagement.com

The value PR brings to an organisation and the weaknesses practitioners need to address

THE VALUE PR BRINGS TO AN ORGANISATION AND THE WEAKNESSES PRACTITIONERS NEED TO ADDRESS Matthew Hopkins

Many organisations fail to look beyond the fire-fighting capability of PR and in doing so fail to maximise the true value of meaningful conversations that can help to drive improvement.

You’ll learn:

•    What the C-Suite look for from their PR team, including honesty and objectivity
•    How internal communications can help employees feel valued and respected
•    Why CEOs need to communicate strongly, consistently and in a human way
 

As the Chief Executive of a hospital trust that serves over one million local people, it’s easy for me to see the value that great public relations can bring to my business. Recently, one of my consultant colorectal surgeons tweeted that our communications director is the person who helps us shout the loudest when we do well and reflect when we don’t.

So for a CEO what value can PR bring? And how can practitioners overcome their weaknesses to demonstrate the real value they can add? 

In my experience there are three main areas: 

1.    The first is the internal value of PR. People are the lifeblood of every organisation and it is widely recognised that happy staff equal happy patients. Great communication teams impact on the hard metrics of employee engagement. 

2.    The second is the external value of PR. The NHS is a people business, great communication teams help build relationships with people and help organisations understand the environment in which they operate. 

3.    The third is the personal value that PR can bring – to me as a CEO and to my broader leadership team.

The internal value of PR…

The organisation’s smile

When I arrived at my organisation two and half years ago we were inundated with negative media, despite the fact that across our hospitals we had some outstanding teams doing fabulous work. 

My communications director asked one of our business unit directors why he wasn’t shouting about his achievements in stroke care (that placed his team amongst the best in the country) and he said: “It’s a bit like bragging about your kitchen when your house is falling down.”

Communications can add real value in helping teams to have confidence about their achievements. They can also help create an environment where people are proud to talk about success and inspire others to want to learn and improve. 

Also through changing the language and tone of how we talk to each other, great communications can help bring back the fun and creativity that drives innovation and that helps us to get out of bed in the morning and want to come to work and do a great job. I’m delighted that in our recent staff survey our frontline teams were in the top 20 per cent most motivated teams in the NHS. 

The golden thread

We’ve all heard the story of John F. Kennedy and his visit to NASA, where he asked the janitor what his job was and he replied by saying, “Sir, it’s to help put man on the moon.” 

Great communications teams help to set, develop, inform and evolve the organisation’s strategy and narrative. For me it’s about helping our frontline teams to strive towards providing great care to every patient, every day. Through great internal communications, we can help people understand what their individual contribution is to realising this vision and ensure they feel respected and valued. 

The ear to the ground

My communications team have a microwave in their office, a strange place for a microwave I’ve often thought. Until I realised that the microwave oven is our version of the water cooler (often found in American offices) around which workers congregate and chat. The microwave oven is the place where people gossip about what’s really bothering them. Great communications teams listen more than they message. They make sure that the staff voice is heard by me as CEO and play it into discussions with the executive team. 
 

The external value of PR…

Being the grit in the oyster

From time to time, we all have a great idea developed in the confines of our offices. However, what happens when that idea sees the light of day? Great PR teams are the grit in the oyster and are often the ones around the board table who are bold enough to objectively and sensibly set out how the idea might play out, which can often lead to a completely different course of action.

The backstop

There are 11 people on a football pitch, but from time to time you need to rely on a first class goalkeeper. In every organisation we make mistakes and we get things wrong. Great communications teams help to ensure we deal with these cases openly, they often balance the advice of legal teams and help ensure we act at pace, with empathy and humility.

The drum-beat and rhythm

Maintaining a regular rhythm of communication with key people and organisations whether formally or informally helps me to run our hospitals more effectively. It’s important that external scrutiny for organisations like mine is seen as a positive intervention. 

A regular rhythm of external communication helps me to listen to concerns and ideas for improvement. I can then prioritise what’s important to the populations that we serve – great PROs bring the outside in. 
 

The personal value of PR for me as CEO…

Truth to power

In my journey from a frontline cancer nurse to CEO, I have increasingly valued colleagues that act and speak with integrity. I can only be the best that I can be if people are honest with me and tell me what people really think rather than what they think I might want to hear. This can sometimes be tough – but great PR teams speak truth to power and give an honest, objective view of what people say and think, and if I still don’t listen they facilitate conversations and forums so that I can hear directly what is on people’s minds.

Personality

We’re all individual, and I think it’s important for the leader of any organisation to be human and to have a communication style that is in-keeping with who they are. My communications team helps me to do that and supports me with setting the language and tone that reflects my personality and the style that I want to convey as CEO. Essentially they help the people who work for me and my patients understand me, my values and what I’m passionate about.

Amplification

I have a big job across several sites and a diverse geography. Great PR teams can help to promote visibility of me as CEO, as well as my broader leadership team. Through great communication channels they can help to amplify messages and communication across a huge area adding immense value to the broader leadership team.
 

So what weaknesses do PR practitioners need to address? Here’s my top ten:

1.    Being too risk averse – I sometimes observe organisations, especially in the NHS, not having the conversations publicly that they need to because they are too focused on reputation management rather than driving improvement. We need to move beyond that fear and have the conversations that count.

2.    Closed shop – when I arrived at our hospitals over two years ago, we had a closed door mentality. We have since moved away from operating our organisation like an island and PR teams are key in helping to facilitate engagement beyond an organisation’s boundaries.

3.    Managing the noise down – we need PR teams to help make sure the noise is heard to help our organisations grow and improve. Practitioners need to support organisations to be more open and transparent.

4.    Impersonal – we are human, we run organisations that are made up of people, who serve people. Practitioners should do more to influence legal teams to humanise language, support leaders to act with empathy and should ban the phrase ‘a spokesperson said…’

5.    Reactive – this is an obvious one. Practitioners need to get out there and take advantage of the opportunities; don’t wait for these to come to you. 

6.    Beyond the CEO – Practitioners need to do much more to position the importance of communication not just to the CEO but to the wider executive team and Board. 

7.    Bottleneck – far too often in my career, communication opportunities have been missed because of the desire to get things cleared by committee. PR practitioners need to help organisational leaders be better communicators for themselves rather than becoming the bottle neck and the communication police that stop great conversations from happening.

8.    Language of rebuttal – language and tone is so important, PR practitioners have a key role in shaping an organisation’s voice and a preference for rebuttal can sometimes work against an organisation’s ambitions. 

9.    Silo focus – PR practitioners can sometimes be too focused on their own organisation rather than ‘mutual benefit’ or understanding the interests of key partners and stakeholders.

10.    One trick pony – in a world of multiple communication channels and a fragmented media, the traditional journalism focus of some PR teams on print media no longer cuts it for me as a CEO. The best communicators are those who are able to integrate a great campaign across multiple channels – reaching all kinds of audiences.

As a CEO the professional definition of public relations needs to evolve and move on from just the discipline that looks after reputation for the purpose of influencing opinion and behaviour - to the discipline that facilitates the conversations that need to be had to drive and improve an organisation’s strategy and success.

In summary communications leaders should take control, not of the message but of the leadership role that they have in organisations, not just the tactical delivery of the PR outputs, but the role that they have in building relationships and facilitating powerful conversations – this is the true value of PR!

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Matthew Hopkins is Chief Executive of Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust, one of the largest acute Trusts in the country with a turnover of over £500m and 6,500 staff and volunteers. He started his NHS career as a nurse, and has moved through the NHS operational ranks to become a successful CEO. For the last two years he has also been listed in the Evening Standard list of top 1,000 Londoners.

Twitter: @M_J_Hopkins
Online: www.bhrhospitals.nhs.uk/directors/matthew-hopkins-chief-executive-456/

Serving the membership: is it time for the CIPR and PRCA to merge?

SERVING THE MEMBERSHIP: IS IT TIME FOR THE CIPR AND PRCA TO MERGE? 
Richard Houghton

It’s nearly 50 years since the PRCA split away from the IPR to better serve the interests of agencies. Our sector has changed beyond recognition in the last five decades and it’s time that we are represented by a single, unified trade body better able to address the needs of a sophisticated, professional and growing sector.

You’ll learn:
•    Why a single trade body will better represent the interests of a rapidly changing PR sector
•    How the PR industry has evolved over the last fifty years
•    How the new trade body would work and the benefits that members would derive from a single, united and more influential association
 

Very few of today’s PRs are overly interested in what was happening in the sector back in the late 1960s. We’ve all got plenty to do and the rapid pace of change means it has never been a more challenging - or engaging - time to be in PR, whether in house, public sector, consultancy or freelancer. 

But it was in the late 1960s - nearly 50 years ago - that the PRCA was spun out of what was then the Institute of Public Relations (now CIPR). The PRCA was created by a group of consultancy owners who felt their businesses would benefit from a dedicated association. 

Today, despite the huge growth of PR’s influence and the size of the sector, some £12.3 billion according to the 2016 PRCA/PR Week Census, we still have two separate associations, with sometimes disparate agendas. 

Change

My grandfather was one of the group of agency owners who created the PRCA. At that time his B2B consultancy Infomedia, based a stone’s throw from London’s Oval cricket ground, used typewriters, carbon paper and Post Office messengers to get the news out to newspapers on Fleet Street, where ‘hot metal’ was used to print newspapers, with readerships in the millions. 

So not many similarities to the world we all operate in today. 

PR is now a core management discipline and there are few CEOs and board directors who are not aware of the importance of their organisation’s reputation or their own. The sector is a significant employer in the UK and continues to grow, and is focused on addressing pay inequality and diversity. We are no longer a cottage industry.

Transparency

Combined with the size and value of the sector, the changes that digital and social media have wrought are not just limited to the way we operate, the skills we need and the channels we utilise. For me, the stand out change is the incredible increase in direct access to consumers, communities, influencers, policy makers and voters that it gives us. Along with this comes responsibility to ensure that we use this newly acquired access professionally and transparently. 

We know that the traditional media companies are struggling commercially to find new revenue models and strategies for attracting, retaining and monetising readers, listeners and viewers. The slow but constant decline in the number and seniority of UK journalists that this battle has created has resulted in fewer journalists producing more copy for publications with rolling deadlines. 

The result? 

PR has even more influence than ever in the mainstream media both in print and online.

We are getting our act together on evaluation, demonstrating the results that we deliver and in turn improving our reputation and making the case for higher budgets both in-house or consultancy. Although we should be honest and say that there is still work to be done on this!

Global

We are a global industry, running programmes and campaigns across time zones and cultures. These campaigns are not limited to the multi-national corporates and agencies, with technology allowing organisations of all sizes to plan and deliver campaigns internationally.

Challenges

Inevitably, as our sector grows and increases its influence and reach, we attract considerably more interest and attention from legislators, big business and sections of the commercial and political world that are keen to have us niched as spin doctors and masters of the black arts.

On a personal level we are having to re-skill, handle communications channels that pay no attention to office working hours and continue to find the much needed talent that appears to be in short supply, especially at middle management level.

One association

So it has been a tumultuous 50 years that finds us as an established sector with considerable influence but one that is fundamentally different from the cottage industry that the CIPR and the newly formed PRCA represented in the late 1960s.

Because of these changes and the challenges that the sector is facing, it is clear to me that the time has come for the PRCA to rejoin the CIPR and for a single industry body to provide support, guidance and representation for us all.

Profession

The second thing that is crystal clear to me is that we should not consider abandoning the CIPR’s drive to have the sector recognised as a profession. The hard earned Royal Charter status should be maintained and a focus on continuous professional development expanded and provided to the widest possible range of professionals.

When I consider what a CIPR and PRCA combined training and professional development programme could offer, both face to face and online, I see the opportunity to deliver services that would truly be world leading. No matter what point you are in your career you would be able to turn to the combined body to aid you in your personal development and so support your career ambitions. The topics that could be addressed would expand and the relevance of the content, and quality of trainers, could all be improved as we draw on the widest pool of talent.

Membership

When I started in PR in the mid-80s there seemed to be almost physical divide between the consultancy and client community. This is something that I have been pleased to see erode over the last 25 years or so and this has been reflected in the membership of the PRCA with in-house teams and individuals being welcomed into membership in recent years. As a result the membership and services of the two associations align, making a merger simpler and the delivery of enhanced membership benefits speedier.

Representation

A combined association would also be better placed to represent us with Government and industry at a time when UK’s status as part of the European Union is in flux and the resulting uncertainty has created a tough trading environment for large and small organisations and freelancers alike. Talking with one voice will make us stronger and give us more influence.

Commercial revenue

Effective and growing trade associations are underpinned by solid commercial income. While not for profits, both the PRCA and CIPR rely on awards, training and sponsorship income to deliver quality membership benefits and services. A combined association would have much greater negotiating power and be able to deliver economies of scale to the considerable benefit of its members.

One association, one voice, greater benefits

The world, our sector and the demands of our jobs have changed beyond recognition since the CIPR and PRCA split nearly 50 years ago, so it is time for the associations to come back together to ensure that the widest possible number of us are represented by one organisation speaking with one voice, with the widest possible influence and providing the very best services to its members.

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Richard Houghton is a former Chairman of the PRCA, and past President of ICCO. During his 25 year PR career he worked across network and independent agencies in the UK and Europe. He currently provides agency growth services under the Agency Doctor brand.

Twitter: @agencydoctor
Online: www.agencydoctor.biz/blog

Economics, social dialogue and Public Relations

ECONOMICS, SOCIAL DIALOGUE AND PUBLIC RELATIONS Ezri Carlebach

By combining the strategic and social strands of public relations, PR professionals have the opportunity to become catalysts in realising the potential of economic activism and social dialogue. This chapter looks at how.

You’ll learn:
•    Social dialogue is an emerging communication model based on good governance
•    PR practice could be more entrepreneurial/activist
•    We need to listen more!


Of hearts and minds… and hands

The advent of near-ubiquitous, digitally-driven social networking in the last 10 years or so is one factor pushing public relations professionals to rethink their business function and societal position. 

Recent debates about whether PR even qualifies as a profession testify to this. At the same time, the rise of big data has renewed the challenge of measurement, with some questioning the ability of PR, along with other communication disciplines, to make appropriate use of data analysis.

There is a case to be made for PR as both craft and profession. The 2016 Global Communications Report [1]cites content, technology, and talent as the top three challenges facing the industry. 

The Report’s survey of agency and in-house recruiters also reveals that their number one talent requirement remains ‘traditional’ writing skills. Good writing is described as “the price of admission” to the industry. Writing is a craft; in other words, an exercise of skill in the pursuit of making something (which is one reason why PR can learn so much from design, but that’s another story).

Let’s say, then, that writing is what we do with our hands in PR. Understanding data is an example of the need to engage the rational capacity of the mind. And there is always a place for the heart – both as a symbol for the emotional aspects of good PR, such as storytelling, and as a reminder that we should “care about the big issues” [2].

But if you think this sounds ‘soft’, and that PR folk should be ‘hard’ and lean on econometric validations, bear in mind that it was former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who said: “Economics are the method; the object is to change the heart and soul” [3].

The economy, stupid

Thatcher’s message appears to be bearing fruit within the EU, via a growing cross-sector movement that integrates economic development with social cohesion. It does this by linking institutions on the one hand, and entrepreneurship as a creative function of individuals on the other. It’s an approach that is neither completely dependent on the market nor entirely beholden to the state.

This is achieved through ‘social dialogue’, an open and well-governed form of communication between economic interests which have, in the past, seemed contradictory: entrepreneurs and authorities; businesses and social institutions; individual liberty and central planning. The purpose of social dialogue is to create better outcomes for individuals and stronger communities, drawing on a broad definition of entrepreneurship in which every person has the potential, given the opportunity, to be the author of their own life.

Anyone familiar with the work of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) will recognise that last phrase. It characterises an ethos the RSA has promoted for over 260 years. Recently, the RSA has been developing ideas to improve communication between government, communities, businesses, and individuals. One initiative in particular captures the spirit of social dialogue in a way that offers interesting lessons for public relations.

Entitled the Citizens’ Economic Council, the project sets out to increase knowledge of, and discussion about, economic policy. It seeks to give a voice to ‘non-expert’ citizens’ views in an area that has such impact on everyday life, yet is often so opaque. The Council’s founding Prospectus identifies the need “to promote transparency in the way economics is discussed… to strengthen democratic accountability… and to promote creativity in the conversation about economics” [4].

In a sign that this is being explored at the highest levels of government, one of current UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s first pronouncements was about putting employees on corporate boards, in order to make boards “more accountable to outsiders” [5]. Whether this includes giving PR ‘a seat at the table’ is not clear. This more direct approach is also picked up by the 2016 European Communication Monitor, in what it calls a “trend towards one-to-one stakeholder communication” [6].
 

Excellence and its discontents

These and other examples demonstrate the rise of social dialogue, which I describe as a progressive method for maintaining relations between publics. However, in order to be true to the notion of dialogue there needs to be more emphasis on listening. As Jim Macnamara’s recent detailed study reveals, there is precious little listening happening in organisations at present, which renders many claims of ‘stakeholder dialogue’ to be, at best, doubtful. Quoting the philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard’s exhortation to speak “only inasmuch as one listens”, Macnamara concludes that “[n]ow is the time to stop, and listen” [7].

This advice is equally applicable to two competing camps in the ongoing debate about the meaning of public relations. One holds PR to be a management practice with strategic aims, while the other focuses on PR as an activist behaviour with social aims. 

Both put dialogue at the heart of PR practice, the former through the two-way symmetrical model, the latter through direct involvement of stakeholders. For the past couple of decades, the ‘excellence’ approach derived from the two-way symmetrical model has dominated PR theory and, to some extent, practice. But it is not without its critics, as Stephen Waddington has noted [8]. 

Meanwhile, alternative histories of public relations and radical views of its socio-political status have emerged in the work of practitioners and academics Robert E. Brown and Derina Holtzhausen. Brown argues for public relations to take its place among the humanities along with architecture and literature, because, like them, PR seeks to “narrate public meaning” [9]. Holtzhausen posits a postmodern ethics as the basis for an ‘activist’ public relations practice that contributes to the creation of “a radical, participative democracy” [10] – which now sounds oddly in line with the wishes of a Conservative Prime Minister.

PRs – doin’ it for themselves?

Entrepreneurs are described as individuals with the drive and determination to start something. They “create opportunity rather than wait for it” [11]. This is what being the authors of our own lives is all about. Being more entrepreneurial, improving our listening capability, and building on the inclusive governance of social dialogue is a combination that, perhaps, affords us a glimpse of a new kind of PR.

It’s fine to continue promoting or advocating for products, services, and experiences on behalf of governments, companies, non-profits, or celebrities. But as George Pitcher suggests, we have to be “brave enough to use communications as a means of action, not positioning; of joining the debate, not evading it” [12].

By combining the strategic and social strands of public relations, PR professionals could become catalysts in realising the potential of economic activism and social dialogue. Given the ongoing repercussions from the referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU this represents a significant opportunity. 

Sources

[1] Holmes Report and USC Annenberg Center on Public Relations (2016) Global Communications Report.

[2] Gregory, A. (2015) ‘Communicating with conscience; influencing organisational leaders to do the right thing’. In S. Hall (ed.) #FuturePRoof 1 (e-book).

[3] Interview with the Sunday Times, May 3, 1981.

[4] RSA (2016) Economics for Everyone: Prospectus for the Citizens’ Economic Council.

[5] May, T. (2016) ‘We can make Britain a country that works for everyone’. London: Conservative Party Press Office. 

[6] Euprera/EACD (2016) European Communication Monitor: Exploring Trends in Big Data, Stakeholder Engagement and Strategic Communication.

[7] Macnamara, J. (2016) Organizational Listening: The Missing Essential in Public Communication. New York, NY: Peter Lang.

[8] Waddington, S. (2015) ‘A critical review: The four models of public relations and the excellence theory in an era of digital communication’. In S. Waddington (ed.) Chartered Public Relations: Lessons from Expert Practitioners. London: CIPR/Kogan Page.

[9] Brown, R. E. (2015) The Public Relations of Everything. Oxford: Routledge.

[10] Holtzhausen, D. (2012) Public Relations as Activism: Postmodern Approaches to Theory & Practice. Oxford: Routledge.

[11] Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (2013) Your Assignment: Grow the Global Economy (white paper).

[12] Pitcher, G. (2003) The Death of Spin. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.

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Ezri Carlebach MPRCA FIIC FRSA is a senior associate with the PR Network and visiting lecturer in public relations at the University of Greenwich. He has led communication teams in FTSE 100, non-profit, and government organisations, and served as President of IABC’s UK chapter, Treasurer of its EMENA region board, and chair of the international committee for the Gold Quill Awards. 

Twitter: @ezriel
Web: ezricarlebach.com

What Brexit taught us about the Opportunity for PR

WHAT BREXIT TAUGHT US ABOUT THE OPPORTUNITY FOR PR Rob Brown

The narrow margin by which the Remain campaign lost the referendum came as a surprise to the majority, including many of those who voted to leave. It was a highly complicated question which was in turn both simplified and distorted. PR and communications can play a role as strategic lead; making sense of complexity, managing reputation and telling the organisational story and we are now at a time and in a place where it is vital that it does so. 

You’ll learn:
•    Following the EU referendum, we face incomparable levels of uncertainty
•    The PR profession must take a lead in guiding business through the challenges of effective   communications in indeterminate and unpredictable times
•    In order to deliver on this obligation, there is an onus on us all to ensure that the profession is properly equipped

Uncertain times

The narrow margins of the referendum vote have laid bare a divided society in which trust in politics, politicians, journalists and the corporate world is at low ebb. Fragmented relationships in society have created divisions which transcend traditional demographics.

That trust has been eroded because society finds it increasingly difficult to know where to turn for accurate information. There was a refrain that rang out constantly during the campaign and that continues to resonate: we are supposedly living in a ‘post-factual democracy’. 

It’s not difficult to see what’s meant by that. Promises to deliver £350 million a day to the NHS evaporated the moment the polling stations closed. It wasn’t just a vain promise, the figure was a fabrication in the first place. 

The day after the vote Donald Trump tweeted “Just arrived in Scotland. Place is going wild over the vote. They took their country back, just like we will take America back. No games!” He seemed unaware of the fact that north of the border the Scots had voted 68% in favour of remaining. That said, using Donald Trump in any argument feels like ‘reductio ad absurdum’.

In a world where it’s difficult to know who to trust, public relations professionals could play a vital role in helping organisations and businesses navigate the tempestuous waters brought about by the Brexit vote. 

We still have a PR problem

There is a problem here however. Many business leaders and journalists would break into howls of laughter and derision at the notion that PR people deliver information that is both truthful and accurate. We haven’t yet shaken off the reputation that the PR industry has acquired for spin and obfuscation. 

Those of us practising PR have no doubt that we can bring clarity in complex and opaque times but we need to do more to persuade the wider community.

Public relations is about building trust and reputation and that begins with listening and understanding. Whether we work in house or for agencies we are effectively mediators with the responsibility for promoting mutual understanding between organisations and their public. It’s an old definition of PR but it still holds true. 

Often that means doing our part to promote transparency and accountability within organisations. The reality is that in a world where everyone can publish, secrets are more difficult to keep; putting a gloss on a story does more harm than good. It is increasingly the job of PR professionals to explain that reality to business leaders and organisational heads. 

We still have some way to go to shake off the image of Siobhan Sharpe, Patsy and Edina and Malcolm Tucker. We can however achieve that and the more we talk about standards of professionalism the greater the opportunity. 
 

Professionalism is key to unlocking the opportunity

The current climate demands a renewed focus on professional development. PR people need to evidence the fact that they have the skills and credentials to meet the challenges of communicating in uncertain times.

We can’t help in our duty to provide strategic counsel and support organisations in making sense of themselves and the world around them if we don’t build trust. In order to build that trust we must demonstrate that we are as committed to professionalism as any other profession. 

Having served as President of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR), I believe that the industry is grasping that nettle and professional bodies have a vital role to play. More than ever practitioners are seeking to demonstrate their commitment to ongoing professional development. The renewed focus on Chartered Practitioner status is clear evidence of that. The CIPR’s goal is to have half of our 10,000 strong membership becoming Chartered Practitioners within a decade. I believe it is one that we can realistically achieve and it is important for the reputation of the industry that we do so. 
 

What have we learned?

The lesson from Brexit is that the establishment and the business world, the majority of whom were Remainers, did not get their message across. We have also learned since the vote of the vast uncertainty that awaits us. Much of this was barely discussed in the campaign:

•    How will we manage our borders, in particular in with Ireland?
•    What will our trading relationships look like?
•    How will we manage needs of the beneficiaries of EU subsidies?
•    How will we allocate the EU subsidy that we no longer pay?
•    How long will it all take?
•    Will our passports be black again (and will we have to surrender the red EU ones)? 

We know that in times of confusion and ambiguity communications plays a paramount role. The opportunity for public relations is therefore very significant. 

If we are to take that opportunity and deliver, we need to do our own PR and this includes raising the reputation of the industry. I honestly wouldn’t hang about, the time is now. 

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Rob Brown is Managing Partner at Rule 5 and President of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR).He is author of the best-selling ‘Public Relations and the Social Web’ (Kogan Page) and has both edited and contributed to numerous books on PR. Rob is listed in the PR Week Powerbook 2008-2016 and the Global Powerbook 2016. 

Twitter: @robbrown
Online: www.rule-5.co.uk

Strong Together: Working Towards A Community Of Theory And Practice In Public Relations

STRONG TOGETHER: WORKING TOWARDS A COMMUNITY OF THEORY AND PRACTICE IN PUBLIC RELATIONS Stephen Waddington

Academic colleagues are enabling greater understanding in every area of practice. Meanwhile practitioners challenged by the pace of innovation are reaching out to theory to help make sense of the changes in practice. Here we explore practical ways of improving the relationship between scholars and practitioners in public relations.

You’ll learn:
•    Examples of contemporary public relations research that have an immediate application in practice
•    The opportunity to advance practice and develop as a profession through improved collaboration
•    A toolkit of eight practical ways to improve collaboration developed over the past 18 months from a CIPR project and BledCom workshop


If you want an immediate insight into the chasm between public relations theory and practice head to Google Scholar.

Enter a phrase or term relevant to your day job. Try agile management, crisis communications, public relations measurement, or your favourite form of social media. You’ll be presented with the headline and synopses of recent academic papers.

Google Scholar is a project built by the search giant to organise and query academic papers and content from scholarly books. I’ve set up alerts for public relations, social media, Facebook and Twitter, among others.

You now face two challenges that both relate to accessibility, in different ways.

First, many of the papers are published in academic journals and typically cost $30. My work around is to go direct to the author via a LinkedIn or Twitter search, and politely asked for a copy of their work. It almost always works.

Second, once you get your hands on a paper, the copy is usually presented in more than 20 pages of dense prose. It takes perseverance to extract insights relevant to everyday practice. It’s almost always worth the effort. In the last six months this approach has turned up numerous papers that have informed my work at Ketchum. Here are three examples.

#1 Data and ethics

In ‘Datafication: threat or opportunity for communication in the public sphere’, Derina Holtzhausen argues that public relations practitioners need to get involved in decisions on how algorithms are developed and targeted.

As we delegate responsibility for daily tasks such as search, pricing and publication to computers, this issue will become more acute. In the near future algorithms in driverless cars will be called upon to make life or death decisions.

Software developers who write algorithms must be held to account on behalf of the public. Practitioners need to work with colleagues in technology to educate themselves about the potential of algorithms and data.

#2 Investigating gender in public relations

An ongoing research project by Liz Bridgen at Sheffield Hallam University, shows that there are no easy answers to gender parity in public relations. Her work has implications for anyone responsible for hiring and the retention of talent in a public relations function.

Much of the existing research focuses on women continuing to work in the profession and has led to the broad view that they cannot combine family life with working in public relations.

Through interviews with women leaving public relations, Bridgen found the overriding reason for women leaving the profession was because they saw a lack of meaning in the work that they were permitted to carry out. She found that peers, and those outside the industry, did not take them seriously and this caused the women to suffer a lack of self-belief in their own skills.

#3 Wikipedia woe

In ‘Public relations interactions with Wikipedia’, Gareth Thompson explored the relationship between the public relations profession and Wikipedia. He found a simple reason for Wikipedia’s failure to move closer to the demands of the public relations business – it doesn’t need to.

Wikipedia is an open source community, or public. Contributors are motivated by Wikipedia’s purpose of creating a comprehensive compendium that contains information on all branches of knowledge. It consists of more than 20 million topics in 285 different languages, and is frequently the start point for online research.

Critics claim that Wikipedia has become too powerful and that it operates without the recognised processes or oversight common for more traditional media. This is the issue that often puts Wikipedia in conflict with the public relations industry. Errors in traditional media can be dealt with swiftly through well-established processes.

Changes or additions to a Wikipedia article require engagement with the community and, crucially, adherence to its rules. It’s a process that works but is unfamiliar to the public relations business.
 

Back to school for public relations

Public relations is practical. We should learn from the body of knowledge that academic colleagues are investigating and apply it to our day jobs.

Academics are enabling greater understanding in every area of practice. Meanwhile practitioners challenged by the pace of innovation are reaching out to theory to help make sense of the changes in practice.

A close working relationship between academia and practice is a hallmark of any professional discipline – enhancing real-world practice with research, reflection and theory.

In public relations this relationship is limited, and without the historical perspective and insight provided by academics, practitioners lack rigour and are limited to trading in simple crafts and tactics.

As a business in the midst of rapid fundamental change, bringing these two communities closer together is crucial to us realising our future potential.


Work in progress

The accessibility of public relations research by practitioners was one of the themes raised in a project I led as Past President of the CIPR last year.

An online community of practitioners explored issues relating to the accessibility of research; teaching and learning; and shared media and platforms.

A workshop at BledCom, the international research symposium in Slovenia in July 2016, explored these issues and sought practical solutions. Indeed, many of the contributors to this edition of #FuturePRoof proposed content for the project during the event.
 

Public relations theory and practice toolkit

The BledCom workshop concluded that there are eight areas where academics, scholars and practitioners could work better together to share knowledge and advance the public relations profession.

#1 Awards

Invite a mix of practitioners and scholars to participate as judges on industry award schemes. Add reciprocal categories that recognise excellence in research and practice.

#2 Accessibility of research

Open source publication of a single-page summary of academic research papers for practitioners to improve knowledge exchange. Google Scholar is useful for signposting original work.

#3 Conferences

Promote a greater diversity of academics attending conferences and speaking at industry events. BledCom is a good example of the benefit of this cooperation.

#4 Industry initiatives

Improve the representation of academic and practitioner interests in industry associations and initiatives. The Barcelona Principles and Global Alliance Global Capabilities Framework both worked on this basis.

#5 Media: HBR for PR

There’s a clear opportunity for an HBR-style publication for public relations. Communication for Leaders (Norway) and Communicatie NU (Netherlands) are both good examples. Funding is a challenge.

#6 Reciprocal guest speakers

Practitioners speaking on university courses; and academics speaking at agency and community team meetings. There are lots of examples of this happening from practice-to-university at an informal local level.

#7 Residencies

A scholar or practitioner in residence would be good way to develop a working relationship, and provide a route for sharing knowledge and influencing research topics.

#8 Alumni networks

University students graduating into practice provide a potentially strong connection between theory and practice. Motivated scholars maintain relationships via a shared form of media such as a Facebook or LinkedIn group [7].

The business of public relations will not realise its full potential as a management discipline until practitioners and scholars work closer together. The opportunity for collaboration is clear and the project outline in this chapter signposts practical ways forward.

Sources

[1] Google Scholar - http://wadds.co/2aJqWAk

[2] Datafication: threat or opportunity for communication in the public sphere, Journal of Communication Management:     Vol 20, No 1 - http://wadds.co/2aJoFVK

[3] Liz Bridgen: The Lady Vanishes: The missing women of public relations, Sheffield Hallam University - http://wadds.co/2aJml19

[4] Public relations interactions with Wikipedia: Journal of Communication Management: Vol 20, No 1 - http://wadds.co/2avnkoJ

[5] Working towards a community of practice in public relations, Stephen Waddington - http://wadds.co/1Gz6lLB

[6] Letters to BledCom: Towards a community of practice in public relations, Stephen Waddington - http://wadds.co/292TumU

[7] Public relations theory and practice toolkit

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Stephen Waddington is Partner and Chief Engagement Officer at Ketchum helping clients and colleagues to do the best job possible engaging with the public. He is responsible for driving the integration of digital and social capabilities in client engagements across the agency’s international network. He is Visiting Professor in Practice at the Newcastle University supporting the university and students through teaching and mentoring.

Twitter: @Wadds
Online: www.wadds.co.uk