Is a crisis still a crisis if no one admits there was a crisis?!

My time at Swan Districts Football club as their PR intern has been interesting and last week I encountered the most interesting moment of all. What we would call a 'PR crisis'. Well, it wasn't a full blown crisis but something did come up that needed to be addressed by the club.

The interesting thing was though, not everyone within the club came to the same conclusion on how big the issue was. Some thought it was only slightly important, while others thought it was a non issue. This all comes down to a personal opinion but within a PR professional setting, opinion shouldn't be the driving force behind crisis management, there should be some specific motions in place that decides what needs to occur after a crisis occurs, but also to stop it from happening in the first place.

This got me thinking about the importance of communication plans within a company. Every person in every single company need to be aware of what their communication strategies are in order to relay a consistent message to the public and to the key stakeholders. This awareness comes from internal communication plans and making sure everyone is up to speed with the way they are expected to cooperate in the professional setting. This is why professional sportsmen are coached in how to deal with the media, and the whole reason behind having PR people there in the first place! What I discovered through some of the events last week is that it is integral for a company's growth and prosperity to have these plans in place for reference in the case of any problems.

Without specific strategies and communication plans, the professional face of a company can be damaged in a moment due to inconsistent messages reaching stakeholders and mix ups happening. These communication plans also have to be recognised by everyone in the company, to abide by, and every form of communication needs to be run through the public relations or marketing department.

The reason why I felt the need to write about this is because it surprised me when it came up in a professional setting. We, as PR students, are constantly reminded to make sure we have identified our key messages and communication strategies that it seemed odd to me that things can slip up in some cases, or go unnoticed to create problems. I think it's extremely important to develop these plans in order for that smooth transition of communication from company to stakeholder.

What has surprised you in your time as a PR intern?

Lucy

Underestimating the importance of good internal communication between employees

Corporate Sports Australia is a very small office. There would not be more than 15 full time staff squeezed into one floor of offices above bar 1907 – and a lot of the staff don’t even have an office. About 6 of them (plus the interns) work from adjoining cubicles.

In such a small office , when you are constantly within a metres distance from another colleague, you would think it would be easy to maintain good internal communication. Apparently it’s not.

During my 10 weeks at CSA I heard a few of the employees mention how bad internal communication was within the organisation and how much better it had been in previous years. As an intern I imagine I did not experience the full extent of where it was lacking, especially as I had no idea of what ‘good internal comms’ looked like.  

While there were 15 staff in the office, only five of these were really involved with the City to Surf. And despite them being in constant contact with each other (where it was essential to the management of the event) there seemed to be a lack of general support.

Over the course of my internship a few instances gave me an indication of just how bad there communication was – and it really impacted my view of the organisation as a place of work and my relationships with senior staff – which in turn affected my attitude to work and possibly my work ethic.

About 2 day before ‘event day’ i’d received no information on what I’d be doing at the City to Surf – so I assumed I would be assisting in the media tent with the majority of the interns. Nope. On the Friday before the City to Surf (Sunday) myself and another intern were walking down to a press conference when she said, ‘hey congratulations on getting the stage manager role for Sunday.’ Stage manager? I had no idea this role existed nor had my boss mentioned it to me. Ever.

Later that day, i was ‘briefed’ on the role by the intern. Having been put in this role at such late notice, made it feel as if I were simply thrown in there as an afterthought. The fact that my boss had not bothered to tell me herself made it feel like a really insignificant job – which was reinforced by being briefed by an intern. Having now fulfilled this role I know one thing:

There was A LOT of information that no one bothered to tell me.

Funnily enough, my next task was to create a formal brief for the next intern who would be assigned the role of stage manager. How nice for them.

Following event day (Monday was one of my normal office days) I was ready to head in when I got a message from another intern making sure I knew we were not needed in the office until lunch time. Thankfully I got her message before I left, because all the senior staff had neglected to share this information with me.

On my last day of interning I spent 5 hours by myself in the office sifting through stats. The other staff had not bothered to mention they would all be out of the office until the afternoon.

These do seem like quite petty examples of bad internal comms and as an intern I never expected to be treated on the same level as senior staff, but as a result, it really changed my impression of the organisation and the people I was working with.

Until next time (hopefully with less whingeing)

Alanna

My final week as a student

This will be my fourth and final blog and it feels like just yesterday I was searching for my placement. In this blog I will reflect on my internship and also point out the main things I have taken away. This placement opportunity has been a wonderful experience for me, in both learning and experiencing everything Public Relations has to offer. I have been able to fine tune the basic skills that are needed to work in the PR field. I have also had the opportunity to enrich my own personal knowledge about being in a practical field. I have learnt to differentiate between what I learnt at University and PR practiced in the real workplace, this has been very beneficial.

I will now be able to take away everything I have learnt and put it to practice in my next working adventure, I feel the most important thing I have experienced is my new found appreciation for what public relation can offer any organisation. When companies underestimate what PR can do for them they miss out on vital opportunities that could benefit them. I found this especially important in building a brand,  a brand can be see as the perceptions of consumers and its importance to any organisation, as it can make or break the success of a business.

Also PR can help the company build and maintain their relationship with their stakeholders, I understood the importance of having a good relationship with not just the public but also the internal and external stakeholders, it is important in building a brand that is known and trusted to continue being successful. Public Relation can offer any organisation so much opportunity and throughout my internship I have really experienced this first hand, the main thing I have realised is how interested I am about Public Relations. I am seeing the possibilities within any organisation, I am excited to graduate from Curtin University and begin the rest of my career, hopefully in a public relations field. 

Engaging with Internal Stakeholders

Throughout my placement at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry WA (CCIWA), I have been given the opportunity to undertake many tasks ranging from planning events to developing the content of the newly designed CCIWA website. It has been an interesting journey so far and I have learned many skills that I believe I can apply to my future career in public relations.

The majority of my activities undertaken have been related to building and reinforcing relationships with external publics. But what about engaging with the organisation internally?

I was given the responsibility of doing an activity that the External Relations Advisor, Adam Duke, did every morning. It consisted of scanning various news websites for articles that were relevant to commerce and industry in Western Australia (thus the organisation) and sending out a daily digest via e-mail to various members of the office. Within the e-mail was a short description of each article and a respective link. Typical websites that I sourced articles from were PerthNow, WAToday and the Australian.

I began to enjoy this daily ritual and I gained a lot of commerce-specific knowledge from having to read the articles and filter them for relevance. I imagine, if I were to work for CCIWA full-time and if I had to continue to create the daily economics digest I would be very well-versed in business-related current affairs- which is useful considering the seating arrangements in the office next to two economists very keen to discuss how the ASX is fairing every day!

I suppose this 'daily digest' could also be implemented by PR professionals working in various sectors who wish to have more current and in-depth knowledge about the industry they're working in. For instance, if a PR professional were to be working for a sports club, they could compile a daily digest with the latest sports news of the day.

I highly recommend this activity for PR professionals, it should only take 20 minutes a day and as well as being a method of learning invaluable information about your company's specific industry, it also will making conversations in the tea room a lot more high brow and a lot less awkward, as well as being a novel way to keep up internal communication within an organisation.

Planning my first Internal comms event

This week has been both real busy for work and school. I am not sure about other agencies but the year-end always have been much more hectic for AONIA than other periods. It is times like this where work and school becomes difficult to balance. As my boss has started giving me more responsibilities at work. However, it has created some problems for me as I no longer have much spare time at work to get some of the report writing done and by the time I get home I am usually too tired to get on my PC and write the placement report or finish up any other school work.

But I believe in a saying “When the going gets tough, the tough get going” RIGHT? Well, I am sure many of my peers doing PR placement also faces such issues. So how do you guys manage your time to ensure work and school get equal attention?

Anyways, let get on to the new PR task I have gotten recently. Last week, I was given the responsibility of being the person-in-charge for employee welfare and events. My first task is to plan a company retreat this coming December for all the employees from AONIA and Quaffs. It is a new PR responsibility where I can put what I have learnt in PR modules into practice at work. It is definitely an educational and interesting role that I get to work on and apply my PR knowledge to improve internal communication. My first internal communication is the Annual Retreat for employees, basically, it is a dedicated work-day set aside for employees to get together not only to relax and have fun but also deepening the bond amongst employees. The first step for running an internal event is to find out how many employees are going to be participating at the retreat. Then, I had to do a quick survey amongst the employees to identify the activities they would like to participate in or any suggestions of activities to do during the retreat. Next, is to set aside dates to conduct the retreat and start liaising with various companies to get quotations for the activities.

Initially, I planned to have a stay over at local chalets as part of the retreat progamme, as being together under one roof is one of the best ways to get to know one another. After much researching and calling I found out that December is a peak period for chalets and most chalets were already booked months before. Instead I have to re-tweak my programme plans and just have activities for the day. After, getting all the quotes and creating an event plan/programme, next step is submitting to my boss for approval and confirmation. For now, my responsibility as the internal comms executive is done until I get approval to go ahead and reserve the activities and venues for the retreat.

So has any no else tried their hands in doing internal communication for their company during placement. Please share your experiences by commenting on this post.

Also, this is my last blog for PR professional practice, I have really enjoyed blogging about issues facing during PR placement and discuss about the PR tasks I have done. I hope everyone enjoyed reading some of my posts and good luck to everyone who is finishing up their placement reports.

Ganbette =)

What’s good on the inside shows on the outside

Quite frequently (approx. twice a week, in fact) the Guest Relations department have their regular motivational sessions at the meeting room nearby my department. These meetings would include mini-prizes, motivational talks, etc. They’re probably more flamboyant than we are; and I thought the communications department was the noisiest.

If we remember our lessons on the importance of internal relations as a part of PR, this company acknowledges the importance of raising employee morale through so many methods. For instance, I’m very much allowed to come to work in my hoodie, jeans, and sneakers because there’s no mandatory dress code that says you have to dress like you’re going to a job interview (unless you’re attending a formal event).
So you can imagine I looked quite odd on my first day of work but managed to adapt by day 2.

Companies that work closely with customers will deal with all kinds of clients and users. This includes having to handle the daily stresses of being yelled at, complained to, demanded of impossible things, etc. But, as the saying goes, “The customer is always right”.

Do you think regular motivational activities increase productivity?
Does comfort and casual dressing make work more fun?

Fatiha - LUCT

IT’S NOT ONLY MEDIA RELEASES THAT MATTERS MOST

It has been a few weeks while enrolled on my internship at a local cleaning company in Botswana of which I see impressive leaning progress and my stay here worthwhile. In my previous post I stated that the company was sort of renovating to get a new look, indeed the company is yielding in the process which is happening so fast or rather an expected thing.


After the company leaders have decided on certain measures to be followed it was then Public Relations department duty to present the new procedures to the company internal key publics which are the employees and make sure they accept it with no doubt just the way the management would like. However, in this process I was instructed the role of writing an internal release that would serve to inform the workers and staff the new procedures to follow on their regular operations.


I would rather not say internal release is different from what we leant at school the only different is that this is a real life situation where absolute facts are needed. The release have to include details as to what is going to be happening and when is it going to happen, as well as how it is going to happen. This detailed release also informs them why these things are being done.


However, since the company website is still under construction, the internal release is to be faxed to designated areas respectively otherwise it was going to be release on the website. This also shows the importance of good

I used to think all about press release forgetting that internal release also weigh a lot because employees are the first publics and are representatives of the company therefore employee relations should be valued.

Otsetswe Sedimo

LUCT (Malaysia)

INTERNAL RELATIONS COMMUNICATION ARE VITAL

Hi! Guys

I started works as in internship at a Cleaning and Hygiene company called MODITHITO in Botswana. It is a fairly large company that specializes in offering cleaning services for a quite large number of big companies, numerous government organizations the list extending to even big shopping malls. Modithito is now established and have branches in four different places in Botswana being the capital city Gaborone, Francistown that is another city and two other towns, Selebi-Phikwe and Palapye. Up to today, the company has grown to be an employer of close to 200 employees.

For the company strength, it now partners with other international companies in African countries such as South Africa, Kenya, Namibia and others which they are still putting effort. I guess it helps the company to acquire any news and keep updated with whatsoever latest technology in the cleaning industry. Modithito offers a number of cleaning and hygiene services, the list includes office cleaning, high rise window cleaning, chemical suppliers, pest control, car wash etc. in most companies Modithito attach cleaners and then supply them with necessary equipment and chemicals at the same time managing and supervising them while attached to their area of operation

I got there at a very critical moment when the company was re-branding itself. They where getting new uniform for working stuff, changing their long served logo design giving it a brand new look. The company was also changing a few things on the operational system and management. It has been like that for a long period of time since its birth, since now they have grown to become one of the largest if not the largest in the country, it has become hard to manage this bigger scale the same way it was done when they first came. It wanted to create a system which a system which will facilitate effectiveness and productivity at the same time giving promised services with guaranteed customer satisfaction placed upfront. The company is going to start by working on organizing and improving internal relations with its employees emphasizing desired work ethics. After it is organized then it will start creating external relations with its publics, as well as strengthening the already existing relationship with its key publics.

However the company PR sector is still young and growing since it is only operates form the headquarters in Gaborone which makes it not an easy task to communicate directly with other branch leaders unless they have to travel to directly address them. Otherwise they rely on fax, phone and email to communicate as the company website is still under construction.

Here I witnessed the essential of communication in the public relation field. That without proper channels of communication you are doomed even from the slightest mistake you might take for granted. Employee relations or internal relations are vital for the company to succeed in the outside world because everything has to be organized. Sometimes you find that the company looses tenders because only one person knew about it then they were not available at the time or that one thinks the job is done while another did not know who is supposed to be doing the work.

Otsetswe Sedimo

LUCT (Malaysia)

Internal relations: very important

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

Unforgettable Internship

Hello fellow interns

I have finally finished my internship, having gone through this experience brought a whole new level of maturity for me and put PR into perspective for me. At first I was unsure of perusing PR as my career but now that I got a taste of it, I am more certain then ever that this is what I want to do.

Looking back three months ago I remember I sat in a glass room in the FH office as I waited nervously to be interviewed and evaluated by the Account Manager of CF and Account Executive of Premium. They asked me questions, looked at my CV and explained what the job scope for me as an Intern would be they said; “If you manage to finish your monitoring tasks well and finish on time we will entrust you with other tasks and if you really show that you can handle responsibility we will even allow you to handle clients. This sentence caused me much stress, I kept on wondering, what is this monitoring task and why wouldn’t I be able to finish it on time, is it so challenging? I wondered if they will ever trust me with more important and more significant work.

I was called back and began working a week later, my first day was disastrous, but things began to pick up so fast and work started rolling in to the point where my whole team would be on leave and I would be trusted with work. I actually only processed clipping for clients less then five times.

Now I have reached the end of my internship and looking back at all the things I have had to learn and the tasks I had to do, being worried after my interview seems so silly. This internship truly prepared me for the real world and there were many factors that contributed to this. From what I learned these are the factors that make an internship an opportunity of a life time that become an experience to cherish and learn from.

Internal Relations:

Maslow's hierarchy of needs explains the needs of every human being in the work place has certain needs and wants which range from the necessities like food and health to the wants that motivate people to work such as creativity to respect. I can honestly say that the company I worked in had all this to offer and much more. I was happy to be included in all the work my team handled, called in for all meetings, brain storming and other work. I did encounter a rough patch at my first week in work when I was spoken to a little roughly by a colleague who apparently had a habit of testing new people by being confrontational with them. When I felt the slightest disrespect from her for the first time, I put my foot down and showed her that she needs to learn to respect everybody regardless of their status in the company. Later on we happened to become good friends but we probably would not have been if I had not stood up for myself. So I guess if I have any advice for new interns it’s to stand up for yourself and demand and earn respect because you deserve it no matter who you are. This must be backed up with hard work and willingness to work and take orders. Otherwise you might just come across as just rebellious and lazy.

During my time in FH I noticed a corporate culture that I admired very much, which was honest and sincere group work and support. Even though the office was divided in terms of clients and type of work, the different teams were keen to help any team that needed it. For instance during brain storms depending on the challenge at hand we would even at times call in the entire office to put our heads together and come up with the best possible plans. If the challenge was simpler and did no require as many people, then the person calling for the brainstorm would just ask those that could afford to spend some time to help them. There was even a time when the tech team needed help and one of the girls from the healthcare team and the boss stayed in office with us till late at night. This corporate culture feels rewarding as you don’t feel that you are working in isolation.


External Relations

External relations include the company’s communication and relation with all of its stakeholders, the key being the clients and the media. The public are the top priority stakeholder through the clients so they are naturally a top priority too. However the people that we are in constant contact with are the clients. Client relation or management is essential for the survival of any PR firm that aims to succeed. I remember the first event I was involved in for one of our clients turned a little unpleasant as the client was unhappy about some minor details and my manager talked to me about it and asked me to come up with an idea to fix the issue, my first reaction was to be defensive and say how great we did and how well the event went, he stopped me and said “it doesn’t matter, if the client is not happy, we have to make her happy, this is client management, we will never learn if we are defensive”. This is excellent advice as we often make this mistake, thinking the work we have done is already the best, and we often become defensive when we are criticized, but if we take the criticism and turn into positive input to make our work better, the result will continue to improve.

Client relations, like any other complex relationship between human beings includes fulfilling certain expectations from both sides. For instance my boss believed in handing the client what they needed before they even had to call back and ask about it. However it was inevitable for the client to call at times and ask about the progress of our work on certain tasks. Usually following the call we would send the client a progress report to let them know work is being done, however not all clients ask for this so its not a necessity but a positive small touch that makes a world of difference to the client.

I also had a chance to work with NGO’s that have a different corporate culture and require a different sense of communication. When working with NGO’s we were faced with some hostility at times as they expressed their disappointment with the way our client had behaved in the past. This is where damage control came in, we took their criticism, assured them that it will be looked into and asked for their expertise and advice in guiding us to make things better not only for out client but also for the betterment of the society that we planed to work with. Using this approach they seemed to face us with a different attitude as they realised we wanted to work together with them.

In the end I felt that while we may learn the major things from the textbook, the work environment teaches you little details that make or break the deal at times. In FH we are constantly taught to respect teamwork, results, quality service, ethics, clients, media, public, and personal success. The lessons we learn during our internship are truly valuable and unforgettable, this will be our stepping stone and platform to go places in our lives. It was definitely worth the terrible work hours, long trips on the bus and the never ending stress of work and deadlines.

I thank the people who made this internship fulfilling and gratifying on all levels.

All the best to future interns and the rest who are ending theirs soon.
Anna
LUCT

Internal Relations

A week ago we organised an annual Karaoke night which is one of the internal activities for Perception Management. I was asked to write an article on the event for an internal news article to be published for the employees and this is my first draft you can have a look and give comments and corrections on the style of writing and anything..

Karaoke Nights

“A team that plays together works together. We need to do this much more often,” said Perception managing director Millicent Danker on her appraisal of the success of the first Karaoke session to close the year 2008 held on the 4^th December 2008 at Red box.

The evening started at a slow pace with the booked room having to be cleared of the occupants who seemed to have taking more than allocated time. A smaller room was offered while in the waiting giving participants time to rehearse and sharpen there voices.

The night was well attended with all the Perception Management and Mentor Communication staff present. First to take the stage was the master of ceremony Suku Gopal who is also a member of the organizing committee.

Love was in the house as Mr. Master of ceremony opened the floor with the greatest love song from Leanne Rimes ‘how do I live’. A great entertainer he is, with his moves he was able to lure the Human resource manager Mis Rosmala to the dance floor celebrating the love which was evident in the house.

A lineup of talented vocalist was read-out for participants to know their time slots with the ladies going first to set the pace and indeed the standards were a handful.

A tag team of (ex staff) Mahyon and Ros was performed a beautiful Malay piece titled Bossanova which simply translate to ‘be happy’. They finished the song by encouraging everyone to be happy and to enjoy every moment the spent together.

To challenge the tag team section was mentor communication training manager Christina and perception management client services & regional business Kishore who took on a Hindu classic titled kuch kuch Ho Ta Hei. The familiarity of the song made it a walk for the tag team only if they could have given an entertaining performance like the song itself they could have posed a serious threat to the tag team competition.

With the tag team act finished it was now time for refreshment break. Jillyn who confessed she could not stand the high standards of the competition was given the platform to try on a piece. “I’ve never really been a fan of karaoke (didn’t think I could sing!), said Jillyn. What was posed to be the worst performace ended as the most entertaining display of team work as the house went on to sing along with Jill giving her the space to stand on her ground singing a piece by west life titled You raise me up. I truly enjoyed myself that night Jill added.

It was a scene not to be missed when the soloist took to the stage you could tell a fierce competition was about to start. First to take the stage was the Kachepa who ultimately emerged the best soloist. He staged a competitive performance with the classic Stand by me by Ben E. King. With his deep and bold voice he left the audience mesmerized, Ros was the number one fan who had to stand by Chepa helping him with the stepping.

Following up to take on the challenge was Christine who sang on a piece by Ronan Keating tittled When You Say Nothing At All. A romance electrifying performance spreading love in the house.

Nor Azilah brought the house home singing a local song Senggol-Senggolan by Mas Idaya. A melodious piece well suited for her electrifying voice.

I was next to give a piece, as a new comer the participants did not expect me to pose a challenge to the competition but almost walked away with the crown, performing a reggae piece by Bob Marley titled No Woman No Cry.

With the competition having ended it was now time for the judging panel compromising of the managing director Millicent Danker, chief executive officer Martin Manen and Suku Gopal.

In the Duet category the judges saw a tough fight between Christina and Kishore (Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, complete with beautiful vocals and Bollywood moves by Christina) and Ros and Mahyon who won with their Bossanova number.

The 'Tone Deaf' prize went to Thila whose was the only voice not heard. “Instead of Karaoke Thila will do Sudoku, which is another Japanese invention after all”, jokingly remarked the MD.

It was a successful event which stretched until 2 am thanks to the organizing committee for a job well done.

by Tlotlo Raymond Kgakatsi

from LUCT