I am currently in my 3rd week of my internship and I must say, I have immensely adapted to the works of Public relations at Hotwire pr consultancy. After attending four client meetings, writing three articles and completing the Media report for the month of January, I would say I'm an unofficially certified pr practitioner.
My co-workers and my supervisors have absolute confidence in my writing skills and my creativity, they literally cannot go to any meetings without me. It feels great that they consider me as apart of the team but I must say as exciting as it is,it is also becoming rather tedious at the same time. The work of a practitioner and technician all in one.
The team at Hotwire have exceptionally good communication relations amongst them. Every friday of every week, status meetings are held to give updates on current projects, looking at various clients such as BOKOMO, BTC, Bifm and BMC (all Botswana based), just to mention a few,and it gives everyone insight on what is being done, what the clients want and basic feedback.
Apart from generally giving updates, these status meetings allow for brainstorming sessions on how to better run projects. The discussions concerning clients are looked at as follows:
Public relations -the practitioners (press releases,articles, reports,media, strategies)
Creative -graphic designers(brochures,bill boards, ads, website, branding)
Events -event management
Marketing -budget
Aside from work related issues, the Hotwire team engage in monthly get togethers at the bosses farm and they refer to this as 'Hot farm'. Beverages, food, music and outdoor activities are arranged, which gives the team a chance to relax, get to know one another more and also talk about work and any other issues.
I find that, by doing this, it motivates the employees, even when there are crisis's, problems or any encounters whether positive or negative, work is done at best. It's all team work.
-by tumelo tafila -
LUCT
7 comments:
Tafila
Exceptional!!I am grateful that you are aware that internal relations is very crucial. It takes hard work, passion to excel; spirit of team work definitely take the organization somewhere.
I'm leaving for the meeting for e-gov and website, I will get back to you again.
Enjoy your day.
Hi
I'm pleased that you appreciate the importance of Internal relations. Now you can realize that team work is very crucial for the company's benefit. Continue to develop more creativity and don't limit yourself.
Commenting on the issue of the meetings; In my own opinion since I joined this ministry; I felt frequent meetings may sometimes seems to fill a day, leaving time for little else, but they are essential to a smoothly operating system. Their goals are the staring of information, anticipation of news.
On the last updates of monthly get together; it shows a very strong employee relations; motivation as you already mentioned to the organization at large.
All the best
Linchwe
true. internal relations is the first step in an organisation and the communication is flowing.i am faced with the duty of writing memos and i have to write professional language such that i end up wanting to use the language outside work.
enjoy your work
Writing skills are the most credible task ever because whatever we do should be in writing even when preparing for an event, you should do the planning first which is interms of writing, so writing skills are very vital in PR. I think Media report is practised in every organisation because each and every month should have its own report accordingly.
I can tell that you are exposed to all areas of PR and tasks. Hotwire might be an exciting Company to work at,they treat you as a permanent co-worker, given chance and opportunity to explore the whole areas of PR,being part and parcel of their meetings as much as giving you chance to come up with new ideas as far as brainstorming is concerned.
The friday session makes you comfortable because you got to have a chance of talking to your colleagues which makes the communication much easier when in the office. Keep the spirit up and be more experienced as well as being innovative.
Good luck!!!
Hi Tumelo,
It's great to hear that you have settled in so well!
I am drawn to your blog as I am a true believer in the importance of internal relations. Working in a few organisations that lack the awareness of what good internal communications can do to their operations, it is very refreshing to see an organisation that is doing it right!
As highlighted in Ian Hutchinson’s book called “People Glue” organisations and businesses run risks of losing their competitive edge if they do not learn to attract, retain and engage their employees. The critical step is the “engagement” of employees. Employers must ensure that their staff is loyal to the cause and are “internal raving fans”. (Hutchinson 2009, 7)
Often lower quality products can be excusable in exchanged with consistent high quality customer service. Exceptional customer service, however, is usually inherited from strong internal communications and relations to enable consistency and clarity in service.
Beside the obvious tangible benefits of retaining and engaging existing employees such as reducing wastage of time, money, energy and increasing productivity, strong employee relations is also intricately connected to the organisation’s corporate reputation. This means that it has the ability to enhance the organisation’s corporate culture but just as likely to blemish it. According to Sadri and Lees (2001) article on “Developing Corporate Culture as a Competitive Advantage” an organisations corporate reputation which is highly constituted by its corporate culture can be its most valuable asset. A little hard to follow but essentially good internal relations leads to strong corporate cultures which leads to a well defined corporate reputation.
It also plays a tremendous catalyst in overcoming organisational change that usually involves substantial investment as mentioned by Price and Chahal (2003) in their article about “A Strategic Framework for Change Management”, highlighting the failures of change initiatives and the need for clear internal communications in order for change to be successful.
It is obvious that Hotwire has allocated considerable efforts to keeping their employees in the loop with what is going on within the business. It must be quite pleasing to be a recipient of such hospitability as a work experience student.
Good luck for the future Tumelo.
Linda Truong
Curtin University- Perth WA
Hi Tumelo,
Hotwire sounds like a great environment to work in. It's great that they integrated you so completely into their agency, despite the fact that you are still a work experience student.
Having good internal relations is a must for any organization. This is because good internal relations helps foster professional understanding among employees, helps reduce employee turnover rate which in turn helps the organization save on valuable resources such as time and money.
I think that the monthly get- togethers at 'hot farm' are a great idea. Such get-togethers give the organizations employees an opportunity to interact with each other outside the more formal environment of the office, giving the employees opportunities to build their relationships from just co- workers to friendships. This means a more comfortable working environment for the employees and better internal relations which leads to high productivity, and hence success for the organization.
I wish you all the best in all your future endeavors.
Cheers,
Liwami.
LUCT
Post a Comment