Musings on internal comms for the millennial workforce

My first experience of internal comms was being the face of an internal poster campaign to promote resident satisfaction surveys at a local housing association. A Photoshop mock-up of a TIME magazine front page bore a photograph of me, holding a rainbow fan of colour-coded printed surveys with the headline 'TIME - to think about resident satisfaction'. A quick photo shoot courtesy of the marketing assistant and a blank office wall in my branded fleece and in no time at all my A3 laserjet printed face was plastered around the office; in the kitchen, by the photocopier and on finance department's door.

The posters served as a quick reminder to passing housing officers on their postal errands to encourage residents to fill out surveys for services provided by the housing association, from plumbing to income management, repairs and accessibility improvements.

My next stint at a national health charity saw a large internal comms team work on a number of projects that often lived and died in head office HQ (particularly after the regional offices closed), with the printed monthly newsletter just about getting to the pigeon holes of remote staff who used the office as a satellite. I believe moves to make the newsletter into a pdf were rejected by employees operating 'in the field' and whether or not the Royal Mail delivered the hard-copies to those unwilling to deal with inbox overload is another matter.

Working in agencies for the last five years has seen varying methods of internal comms. Generally, everyone works closely with similar roles and the only understanding that needs to be grasped relates to things like filling in time sheets, booking holiday, company away days and in-house training requirements. The focus of our efforts primarily goes onto client relations and external relations with media - monthly company face-to-face meetings iron out any wins and losses, promotions and departures, and then its quickly back to the cut and thrust of agency life. If you don't like it, make changes to make it work, or find the door.

But my work as a freelancer has opened my eyes to the importance of internal comms within organisations that look to practice PR in-house as an add-on to their core business objectives, both through becoming aware of how organisations act internally and externally. This relationship highlights how it's not just about the lines of communication open to colleagues to find out when the next summer away day is, but crucially, communicating the core values and beliefs of the organisation, how it places its people at its core, and of equal validity, what behaviour and conduct it expects of its employees. Because, nothing says crisis like having no documentation or practice of an internal culture which ends up bearing no relation to whatever external communications strategy is being fed to the media.

Good organisational PR starts with the employees. It doesn't matter what column inches you are grabbing with warm or established media titles and writers if you have 200 employees with no sense of cohesion or common understanding of their value, contributions or shared respect for their fellow workers. What is the point in investing in an all-singing-all-dancing media campaign if you do not invest in your people to have every reason to sing your praises? And no, getting staff to play the guitar and do stand-up in a team meeting won't solve the problem. Etsy, i'm looking at you.

People remember how you make them feel. If someone asks an employee what your organisation is like to work for, do you think they'll start with your amazing PR campaign in the Guardian, or the time when the HR department had no idea how to deal with harassment in the workplace?

I used to think internal comms was the poor cousin of external communications (less glamorous, slightly dull, and reinforcing brand identities at the expense of the individual, unless they were allowed to label their milk in the fridge), however, with organisations struggling to retain millennial work forces with a chasm of misinformation and lack of understanding between managers and this purpose, belief and value-driven generation, building the right foundations will ensure a stable and transparent organisational core.

I recently had the pleasure of attending a Guardian Masterclass with Mark Leruste, an exciting life coach who's developed corporate reverse mentoring scheme (and talks, workshops and coaching) that directly facilitates junior millennial staff providing advice to management teams to build a bridge and fix lines of communication. For more information, get in touch with Mark at http://www.markleruste.com. Also - make sure you check out his podcast The Unconventionalists.

#media #PR #internalcommunications #millennials

Mentor Quarterly Q&A: Jo Marino

I have been a PR freelancer for almost two years now. Often working from home on my own or from a number of different locations on a broad range of clients, I've become very focused on work-related output and goals and ever-more reliant on the wisdom received from people I consider to be mentors and leaders in PR since I embarked on this career path in 2010.

One of the benefits of being freelance is the external perspective I can provide to organisations, which has made me begin to reflect on the importance of the PR leaders who have made a difference to my career by challenging me to question my work and also to consider the future of where our industry is heading.

I feel strongly about making time outside of the working day to interview the people that have helped shape my PR path on this blog each month to encourage wider discussion around the industry and to inspire other PR people at different stages of their career to think about the bigger questions.

My first Q+A is with Jo Marino, Senior Freelance Communications Consultant, who I was lucky enough to work with at Way To Blue where Jo was Director of Consumer. This was an incredibly valuable time for me as she challenged me to unpack everything I thought I knew about storytelling and the role of PR in doing this well. I shall let our chat do the talking!

How important has mentoring and having role models to look up to been in your career and is it important for it to be ongoing?

Yes, I think it’s hugely important as having a good role model gives us an alternative reality with which to question how we approach things and what our barriers may be that are stopping us thriving. When looking for role models, I think it helps to not only look up but also to look from side to side and below us in the hierarchy. There is much we can learn from those who have been around a while but equally there is plenty to learn from those who have been in the industry for much less time and are therefore less jaded. Ours should not be a linear profession (although the management charts would like to tell us differently) as we can, and should allow ourselves to be inspired by attitude, outlook and creativity wherever it grabs us. There is often too much competition at a peer-to-peer level which can stop individuals buzzing off the most relatable role models.

The reason ‘360 degree’ role models are important is we must never stop learning to be better PRs – there is never a time, ever, in your career when you will know everything. I got asked in an interview recently what I wanted to learn more about. My answer was brand strategy. The interviewer’s response was ‘Why, are you not very good?’ I found this peculiar and replied that I thought it was actually one of my strengths but that we should never stop looking to learn and especially not in those areas where we believe our talents to sit. So look up, look down, look sideways, learn and keep feeling challenged and inspired by whoever floats your boat, regardless of job title.

Mentoring is plays a different role and, done well, is probably one of the things that will keep you sane in this industry! But it needs to be consistent. The majority of us PRs are emotionally charged, that’s what makes us good and what we do. This can have a down side though in that we can start to believe our own hype – both good and bad. A good mentor will act as a leveller when you are maybe riding the wave a bit too fast but will also pick you up by your boot straps when you crash and burn. I’m lucky enough to be married to my mentor (but you don’t have to take it that far!) and his best advice, which I come back to time and time again when the sh*t hits is ‘You don’t suddenly become a bad PR’. A good mentor should be similar enough to get you but not too similar that they join in your ‘GAH’ moments with a ‘GAH’ of their own. I’ve never felt that a mentor needs to be the same gender in order to get me. Personality fit, generosity of time and spirit, an interest in having a long term connection and a level head are far more important factors in getting the most out of a mentor relationship. And I think it’s important to remember that, like friends, there are such things as bad or toxic mentors who can want to mould you rather than letting you grow into your own PR, rather than theirs. If you think that’s the case with someone in a mentor position, cut and run as what this industry needs the most of is individuals with their own defined sense of individualism and creativity

What do you love most about working in PR?

The variety, the people, the crazy jobs and the buzz when an idea hits or indeed doesn’t hit….or a crisis strikes and the team need to pull together at a lightning speed to pull it off. Those are some of the best days in PR as it’s when you get to see the grit at the heart of a good PR team in terms of tenacity, team spirit, idea generation and commitment. And nothing beats the high of pulling a job off against all odds!

What do you view as the biggest changes for the industry?

The rise data and how this affects storytelling. A middle ground has opened up for agencies in terms of ownership of this storytelling and we are seeing the old hierarchies between PRs, AD and marketing people break down as a result.

It’s great to see agencies – like Taylor Herring with their Samsung TV Ad – being bold enough to cross the blurred lines in terms of content creation but for me there is a watch too and that’s the fact that not all content is created equal. I love a bit of an insight and data is an extremely valuable tool for drilling down and getting to a kernel of an idea but we mustn’t forget our editorial roots in the process.

I think that the term ‘storytelling’ has become one of the most mis-used phrases in our industry to a point where it’s become a bit meaningless. So much of the content out there lacks a strong narrative and my feeling is ‘it’s the data what’s done it’. A story that really resonates goes beyond the data and back out into the world and layers on observation, gut and instinct. To relate to a story, you need to be able to feel it.

For me, it’s not just storytelling – a tale that carries you away in a book, it’s editorial storytelling - a piece that grabs you for its relevance to the world you live in now – that’s the heartbeat of our industry and one of the biggest distinctions, and assets, we have to sell.

Why do you think so many women work in PR yet are underrepresented in the board room?

Our reproductive systems! It seems to me that there are so many talented women who are making the choice between going all the way to the top and seeing their kids occasionally. There are some great companies who are embracing flexible working (for both genders) and all credit to them. However, there are still too many agencies and PR departments in our industry that equate not working full time with a lack of commitment. Not every women feels this pressure of course but there are women being pressured in our industry to either go against what they feel is the right balance between work and family or opt out of the upward trajectory. A defining memory for me was when the response to a discussion on flexible working (from a recruiter I might add…not dissing all recruiters here as there are some great ones flying the flag for flexible working but then again there are plenty that aren’t) was being told that kids don’t really notice if you are not there (they do!). The other issue here is the art of paying lip service to flexible working arrangements. Again, far too often I hear women say ‘Well, four days a week isn’t really full time as you do the fifth day anyway’. So we may be our own worst enemies here by feeling the need to squeeze a five dayer into four days but this is also driven by industry culture. The problem here is that we keep trying to do the big squeeze and either get so knackered or so disillusioned that we opt out. I know this is a bit of a rant but I don’t think it should be an either or. I’ve worked flexibly for 12 years and done some of my best work in that time and I believe this is because my world has expanded beyond the necessary grind of the office. I would imagine this is the same for anyone (male or female) working flexibly whether for reasons of family or a passion point…or both!

What can all leaders – men and women do to change this?

Ditch the presenteeism and build trust between employers, employees and teams. A few years ago, my team and I had to work remotely due to an office issue (long story!). What did I learn about my team mates? It validated what I knew already, which was they were one of the best bunch of people I had ever worked with, but it made me realise something too - not only their amazing resilience and resourcefulness but also that their creativity, client service, team work and collaboration didn’t diminish just because they weren’t all in an office together. Each person in the team knew what they needed to do to keep the ship moving and had a huge respect for the part they played in doing that. This led to a strong sense of trust that all the work would get done, and it did. We live in an incredibly connected world but pockets of our industry still seem to measure dedication by bums on seats. What I learnt through our ‘out of office’ time was that if you have trust you have everything you need.

How can PR democratise the media?

Network at the National Theatre

At what point do we acknowledge and challenge the function of media and organisational PR strategy models in a democracy? Those who do not have the skills or entry points into journalism or PR questionably will have more problems getting their voice heard, unable to navigate tried and tested structures which conduct the stream of information that confronts us in our homes every day. Increasingly, people who work in media and PR work to reflect each other, and the same tired cliches and formula of the media calendar continue to maintain status quo. And we can only expect more content.

I recently saw two fantastic productions in London based on the origins and power of mainstream media. Ink - a play about the changing fortunes of The Sun after the Murdoch takeover - and Network - a National Theatre production of the 1970s film based on the quest for dominance in public viewing ratings. Both addressed the psychological effects of the media in 'giving the public what they want', however they also questioned what do the public 'need' from the media, and those answers may be poles apart.

Last month I was working for a national charity's annual awareness week, with fairly meaty news to issue to media. However, the week before the story, we became aware of another story in the offing that would be featuring on Panorama on Sunday night - to appear the same day as our announcement - the Paradise Papers. We were competing with a team of journalists who'd probably been working for 18 months to delve into the tax-dodging worlds of the rich and famous - including the alleged "sporting personality" Lewis Hamilton and the Queen - which meant while we did well on the coverage front, there was certain broadcast outlets that were out of our grasp on that day. There was a hit on BBC breakfast as they flicked through the papers, however the Today programme was becoming as likely to be bagged as a trip to Panama (didn't stop a colleague expressing bemused disappointment at being bumped of course.)

This got me thinking - while a very worthy story, the broadcast programmes in question were clearly tied up with what their sister TV network was announcing the night before. Less than a month later, we're celebrating Harry and Meghan's roast-chicken and corgi-fuelled engagement, with the Queen's tax dodging escapades reduced to wrapping paper for fish and chips. Blanket wall-to-wall coverage of the interview, the ring, the Botswana diamonds, the charity work, the acting, the coats, the fact the corgis prefer Meghan, etc, meant that any stories from little old peasants didn't get a look in. Plus - the Government managed to bury some bad news about freezing benefits demonstrating why any related comedy satire is now dead.

How progressive is it for media to adopt impartiality? Only yesterday on the Andrew Marr breakfast programme we saw yet again a platform being given to extremist right wing views with Farage (can someone tell me why he keeps getting air time?) and evil Postman Pat Jacob Rees-Mogg getting on the sofa. Yet, listening vaguely to the dulling insipid BBC Radio Two while typing this (not my choice), I am yet to hear a broadcast news piece about the thousands of Muslims who protested against ISIS for peace in London. So if media insists on impartiality - who decides what gets more weight in the media and public awareness?

While my PR diploma seems a long time ago, I remember reading about organisational structures and the function of PR being at either the heart of an organisation for public transparency and influencing business direction, or on the edges to disseminate information to the public with less opportunity for internal interrogation and less inclination to respond to media. However, I think both of these concepts are rapidly becoming dated.

Following on from my recent charity PR work, I learned about an impressive organisation that works with citizens and leaders in communities to decide long-term campaigns to achieve change, working alongside politicians, media and community leaders. This ensures stories generated in the media aren't just designed to preach to the media bubble to fit their agendas, but are truly investigative and in effect democratise the media. However, while attributing more power to individuals to get media share of voice, there needs to be caution. A tendency of national newspapers to promote stories and agendas shared by troll accounts on social media shows little willingness for accountability in broadening the public sphere of influence in the media, with fake news being directly retweeted by the tangerine candy-floss haired President of the United States. I haven't got time to move onto the monopoly of the tech search engine giants and technologically addictive and human behaviour altering Book of Faces who remain completely unaccountable in the types of content they choose to promote or remove.

What can a PR practitioner take from all of this? We have the knowledge of media agendas, media relations, journalists and writers and media outlets with a responsibility to educate and empower anyone who wants to know more about the changing media landscape to encourage you to agitate and change the way we consume media.

If I can help you "break the fourth wall" of the media in 2018 to get your message across on your own terms, don't hesitate to get in touch to arrange a coffee. I'm also keen to hear new podcasts/news sites/zines so please drop me a tweet to send my way or pop in the comments below.