Behind-the-scenes

As one of the prominent 5-stars hotels in Sabah, Hyatt Regency Kinabalu is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year and I was lucky enough to have a sneak peek of their 35th anniversary video-making behind-the-scenes!

I just joined the first part of it which was interviewing 3 pioneers of the company who have worked for 35 years till now! Even I myself couldn't guarantee that I will work in a company for more than 10 years.

Preparing for the interview

Practicing and reviewing on the interview questions

Practicing their anniversary wishes

My supervisor as the interviewer guided one of the interviewees in answering the questions and indeed, it was really fun as everyone is excited about it and nervous as well in reviewing their own scripts with a few NGs.

The most valuable insights are in the interviewees' views on what is the company's strength and advice to young people who wished to work with the hotel in future.

In summary,
Employee benefits and the strong brand are the company's strengths;
Honesty, integrity, humbleness and willing to accept criticism are the pioneers' golden advice to young people.

What inspires me most are the answers given are not about one's qualification but it's about one's values and beliefs. They started their career from the bottom level and then slowly climbed all the ladder with perseverance, you can feel their genuine personality and warmth while meeting them face-to-face, need not much of a long conversation.

Employees are the most important stakeholders in maintaining the corporate reputation, brand and image because they are the immediate persons to work in the company and their testimonies hold a great impact. They are also the PR people to the public as well. Besides, this anniversary video will then be uploaded in their own staff portal connecting with other hotels under the Group and serves as a great internal communication for other sister hotels.

What constitutes a good PR of a company is not just on the PR department alone but on the entire associates from management to staff. Therefore, PR can collaborate with human resources department on carrying out internal communication and enhancing relationships.

Chung Yee Vun Elaine
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Hectically Busy yet Refreshing

It's been a long time since my last post. Even though it's already in August, I can still remember my most hectic week of internship. Do you still remember my previous post about me having a ‘surprise’? (No? here’s the reminder. I was asked to write MD a speech for the Hari Raya Goodies Presentation Ceremony). This post will be the part 2 of the ‘surprise’ post. Well, I wasn’t given another surprise. What I mean by saying part 2 is the Hari Raya Goodies Presentation Ceremony.

Planning and organising an event is not an easy job, a lot of preparation was needed. Since the event was a collaboration with the Welfare Department, a lot of communication was required between us (my colleagues and I) and the officers from the Welfare Department. Other than the officers, we also had to contact the VIPs, journalists, hamper wrapping service provider, florist, and so on. Just like what we have learnt in the PR Techniques unit, I had to prepare the event running schedule, a speech for the MD, media release, make sure the venue was set up well, and so on. This was really a good opportunity for me to put the knowledge I have into practice.

On the day of the event, me as the PR of the hotel was responsible to receive and entertain the journalists. I was nervous because I had no idea what to talk with them. However my colleagues were with me and they have helped me a lot. In the beginning, I thought (and I’ve always thought like that) a PR could only talk about the company or client with the journalists or media but I was proved wrong. I noticed that you can talk about other topics with them other than your company or client. One of the journalists told me that they would feel uncomfortable and would not be so impressed with you if all what you talked was about the company or client, hence ruining the relationship. Gratefully everything went well and once again it proved that good communication skills are essential to maintain good relationship with the media outlets.

Being a PR professional who represents a company/client, our attitudes and the way we communicate are very important. Do you know perseverance and patience are also one of the communication skills? Before the day of the event, I had to call the VIPs (or their secretaries) to confirm whether they were coming to the event. Making the calls was not a big deal, not reaching and getting answers from them were the problems. So I had to keep calling until I got the confirmation. Calling for confirmation really requires perseverance and patience.

Below are some of the photos taken on the day of the event. 

The goodies/hampers that were given to needy.

 Minister of Welfare, Women and Family Development giving her speech.

Datuk Hajah Fatimah Abdullah presenting a hamper to an attendee.

Chang Song Enn

15597157 / 7E1A8451

Are you an order taker or a consultant?

Hello!!! How is your internship? I hope everyone is doing fine.

In this post, I would like to share about the training session that I attended last Thursday given by the top management of the company that I'm interning with. It's about "PR Consultant".

From the lecture we learnt, we know that a PR consultant is a person who engage in dialogue with a client organisation and develop recommendations through his/her expertise. He/she is basically working for the client and fulfill the client's needs.

But, is it a consultant must follow and listen all what the client wants? 

Now, here is the difference between order taker and consultant. Order takers will simply accept and say yes to everything what the client wants. They are ‘yes person’. On the other hand, consultants accept what client wants and at the same time give a point of view. They are ‘yes but person’. The speaker emphasised the importance of a consultant to have a point of view. 

For instance, a client prepared a list of positive comments approved by the CEO of client organisation and asked you to post all of them on its Facebook. What would you do?

Basically, as a consultant, you must say yes to the client. But, you can have a point of view like asking the purpose of doing it, suggest reading through the comments first and edit the comments if necessary before posting them. 

Throughout this training, I learnt that consultants must have a point of view in every task they are working at, either in giving recommendations on accounts or in responding to the request of clients.

To all the future PR consultants out there, remember we are not ‘yes person’, we are ‘yes but person’!

Cheers,

Ching Mei 

Building relationship with media friends

Hello Everyone!

This is my third post, which means my internship journey is nearing to the end.

Today I'll be sharing my thoughts on building strong relationship with our dear media friends. The media circle in Singapore is very small due to the limited number of local publishing house. You could even count the number of publishers with both hands!

With a small media circle, it is important to have media friends on "our side". Here are some observations that I have concluded on building good relationship with media.

• Make an effort to find out what type of story angels the media is looking for. It would be easier to fit in their shoes if news given are timely and appropriate for their magazine/newspaper column. 
• Apart from work, go the extra mile to mingle with media friends. When a common interest is found, a good rapport will be established
• With that, it makes negotiation easier, should there be tight timeline to rush or last minute changes given by the client. 
• The best part of having a close relationship would be the entitlement to their personal mobile number. This means that you do not have to get through the main line, which is often engaged.

Apart from the local media, it is also important to keep a good relationship with influencers. I'm speaking in the context of lifestyle products. In Singapore, Instagram and Facebook are two of the most popular social media tool. 

Therefore, to penetrate into the crowd, we often touch base with lifestyle influencers to share new products to their avid followers either via Facebook or Instagram. This is typically known to attract the younger age group varying from 17 - 28 years old. 

So much on bridging good retaliation shop paths it seems that a good PR practitioner requires a wide connection of media friends and reputable influencers. 

On a fun note, the crew from Channel News Asia popped by my office this week for a short filming session! My boss had agreed to an interview about companies that are open to flexible working hours during the World Cup period. This is to accommodate football fanatics that are up at the wee hours to catch the match.  It was an interesting role reversal as my boss used to be off screen prompting clients with their scripts instead of being filmed.

Overall, it was an interesting experience for me albeit participating in the background. I have also used this opportunity to extend my connection with the reporter and hopefully in time, this connection will come in handy. 

And by the way, I'm rooting for Germany this coming World Cup, what's yours?

Till then, 

Candice