‘Employee communication’ -- Learn it in the real world!

*Note: All pictures belong to Corporate Communication Department of Curtin Sarawak

After finished my first week internship, I would like to share with you what I have learned and observed while doing my internship. Due to the holiday period in Curtin University Sarawak, so our department does not have any event to deal with the students, but only event to deal with the staffs (internally).

There is an event called "Staff farewell & Welcoming Gathering for outgoing & Incoming PVCs" held in REC hall. They gathered all the staffs to give a farewell event to our Pro Vice-Chancellor, Professor lan Kerr whom is leaving and also welcome our new Pro Vice-Chancellor, Professor Jim Mienczakowski. After that, there was a photo-taking session and refreshment for all the staffs to allow them to communicate with each others. There are around 135 staffs who participate in this event. This event had been hosted for one and half hour. They manage this event so successful and well time-control.

Pic 1: Prof. Kerr and Prof. Mienczakowski proceed to the rostrum for 'handover'

Pic 2: Prof. Kerr and Prof. Samyudia proceed to rostrum for presentation of gift

Pic 3: Photo-taking session

Pic 4: During refreshment

Throughout this event, allow me to understand that PR responsibility not only to deal with stakeholder outside the company but also the stakeholders internally. Employees are the organisation's best possible 'goodwill ambassadors'. Employees play an important role of stakeholder because they help the organisation move on and achieve the objectives directly. Therefore, as a PR specialist, they need to concern of this group of stakeholder whom directly reflects to organisation’s success and failure. This event allows to me remember "employee communication" which I had learned on my PR 300.

What is the important of employee communication?

Relationships are based on communication and the functioning and survival or organisations are based on effective relationships between individuals and groups.

Communications help individuals and teams to coordinate and perform tasks to achieve goals. (Harrison 2012)

PR staffs play an important role in improving employee perceptions of their leaders through the interactions between employees and employers. In addition, translate corporate strategy into day-to-day basis and explain to employees also the responsibility of PR staff (Harrison 2006). As happen in the event "Staff farewell & Welcoming Gathering for outgoing & incoming PVCs", although it seems like a farewell party for outgoing and incoming PVCs, obviously the purpose for the event is to update the organization situation and everyday news to them. Besides, the purpose is a place for staff and management to interact with each other in order to have a same personal goal to achieve organisation's objective.

I am grateful to have the opportunity to attend this event during my first week internship. Hope all of you enjoy my sharing! Wait for my next post! ;D

Best Regards,

Corina Ling

15108931

Curtin Sarawak

Practice the Ethical Theory in Public Relations: Confessions of a Public Relations Intern

 

 

 

In a working environment, it is the moral philosophy to be ethical in your decision making. It based on the working values, honesty, fairness, loyalty and respect in between stakeholders and individuals. It is all about on how honesty the business dealing is.

The ethical duties are applicable in Public Relations for the client, the society, within the profession, and among the employees in compromising with others under the standard code of ethics. It is important to analyze the ethical decisions to avoid any ethical dilemmas. Sometimes it depends on the situation for example when under pressure the decision making can cause conflict needs  and interest in between the relationship in the organization and the external stakeholders.

Recently at Momentum Forum Events it had been hectic in seeking sponsors. With Men In Black Ball night around the corner, the time is crunching. By this time, any updates on corporations joining for premium sponsorship would be exciting news to Momentum.

Recently there is an interested corporation in joining Momentum. This  premium sponsor is a high profile corporation and due to privacy concerns I will not mention it in this blog. Momentum Forum Events managed to get this premium sponsor on board. Veritably this is really good news for Momentum in gaining exposure. The interested party had communicated back and forth which even included logos to be released and authorized to be printed on the Men In Black flyer.

During that time the Men In Black flyer was reprinted with the added sponsor’s logo. There were around 2000 flyers printed. The flyers were to be distributed to the main clients and stakeholders of the company. Later that week, the sponsor contacted Momentum. Unfortunately they are no longer on board with the sponsorship. Reason being was the company did not meet the requirements on having a specific registered license for a charity to apply with the sponsor’s program. There is a legislation needed from their side.

This seemed unexpected, with the flyers being printed and distributed, with the logos of the sponsor being released by the authorizer this was an unfair bargain to Momentum when the sponsor bailed at the last minute.  

It was not Momentum at fault but the misleading confirmation from the other side of the sponsor corporation verified that they were agreeing to sponsor for Momentum. In short it was poor ethical decisions made from this specific sponsor marketing department in which they claim to deliver but was unable to. This was not expected from such a high profile company. It was a public relations disaster. Momentum Forum Events had to stop distributing the flyers and make amendments which was time consuming and costs money to redesign.

This is my main point with the essence of ethics in decision making; one must follow the standards and qualities in building trusts and maintaining relationships with other clients. Even though, this was an unfortunate turn of events, the communication building between Momentum and the specific sponsor is still under professional terms. I have learnt that the performance to overcome controversial and conflict issues is to face the problem and solve them to avoid any negative perceptions. 

The specific corporation that could not deliver apologized on behalf and made amends by keeping their bargain in exposing Momentum by providing sustainable management in promoting Men In Black Ball 2013. Therefore in conclusion, the importance of ethics is to address morality in influencing others to practice responsibility through policies and activities. This is socially expected in the working place that should be practiced ethically to increase the corporate social responsible performance among the internal and the external stakeholders.     

 

Below is a Cartoon image to put some humor in relevance to my situation. Have a good day ahead everyone.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Confessions of a Public Relations Intern: Communication is Key

 

I am now working as an intern in for Momentum Forum Events. I can’t believe that I am involved with events!  It is one of my passionate areas of public relations that I was looking forward to as a student. The upcoming event, Men In Black 2013 which is on the June 15^th is the event to raise awareness on men’s mental health. As the date gets nearer, it had made us busy on our feet in seeking for sponsors and donators.

The company has been busy preparing for the event by composing newsletters, media releases, corporate proposals, news articles and web designing for the main website mainly for our stakeholders which includes other interested parties that would like to be involved.

Communication is the main key in public relation thus the reason with preparing the public relations materials. It is to update the stakeholders on what is our event is about, who are going to benefit from the event, how it works, when is it going to be held, highlighting the key points on what would be important to the stakeholders. Basically it helps to raise awareness of the event to the stakeholders by presenting these materials to them. As a student, I now have a broad idea on the teachings of our public relations unit on why it is necessary to prepare these materials.

The public relations material tools functions as a form of consistent communication that helps to achieve the goals and objectives of the event. By using the right tools, it serves to engage and collaborate with the main stakeholders.

As an intern, I have been contributing ideas to the composing of media releases and news articles. My manager, Barbara McNaught and the PR team have been very welcoming and open with ideas and discussions. It is definitely true that in public relations one has to have a creative mind.

Recently, I have contributed an original idea when the PR team was discussing on what to post in the news article column for the main website. It had to be fresh, informative and eye-catching to readers. With the Men In Black event coming in mind, I contributed the idea on posting a news about celebrities that faced depression. I thought it was a good idea because it just goes to show that even celebrities have problems in mental health and the community can relate to their story. This links in to the Men In Black event because it is an event to raise awareness on men’s mental health featuring the guest speaker sharing his journey to overcome depression.

Here is the link to the main website and the news article I contributed. Have a read. http://www.momentumwf.com.au/news-item-127.html

It is definitely a challenge to put together the ideas and the public relations materials to promote them. I would know that coming from my experience but at the same time it is so much fun to see the outcome and results of how it all comes together. Thank you for reading my blog and news column, if there are any enquiries or feedback, feel free to comment. In the mean time, I’ll keep updating my blog as my journey continues from the Confession of a Public Relations Intern.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A need to succeed - Employee communication

We have always been taught how important stakeholders are for an organisation. In this post I will briefly discuss how my internship keeps this at a high satisfaction level.

In a PR profession, communication with the internal stakeholders such as employees should always be kept on a satisfied level. In essence, without good communication skills within a company, the external communication could never succeed.  At TAC, the employees’ satisfaction is highly regarded by the organisation. By the use of different communication methods such as; email, face-to-face discussion, regular lunch-dates on Friday’s and mid-morning tea at least once per week, the atmosphere in the office is always on a positive level. It is also visible in the employers, as many of them have been there for a long period of time, although it is common in a Government position to switch departments.

In addition, every second Friday, TAC holds a regular toastmaster meeting for its employers, to improve the verbal communication and appearance skills from its employees’. After measuring the outcome of the toastmasters meetings by doing a survey, the toastmasters’ members said they were 100 per cent pleased of the improvement of the verbal and appearance skills. However, they also said that they enjoyed the toastmaster meeting because the interaction with friends on a non-serious level.

TAC also acknowledges its staff members birthdays, both on the Intranet and with a celebration in the office with presents and food provided by the department.

In conclusion, TAC has successfully created a good communication strategy with its internal stakeholders, and it is definitely shown in the quality of the work within the organisation.

You can only please some of the people some of the time

“I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.” - Bill Cosby 

Stakeholder Management 

Ah, stakeholders. They don't realise how important they are to us. As we have learnt through uni and as I’m sure others have discovered firsthand, different stakeholders in an organisation require communication - not just the what or message itself, but also how the message is transmitted. 

Whilst completing my placement at Student Edge, one of the key projects I was assigned to and given complete ownership of was the corporate enewsletter (sent via email). Student Edge is very good at communicating to it's student membership, but not so consistent with communication to their clients. But clients cannot be neglected! As our lecturers say, 80% of business comes from 20% of clients, and so the relationship between a business and its clients requires nurturing. 

Primary school flashback - the 5 W’s

Image source

As my supervisor Sharyn says, do not underestimate the importance of the 5 Ws – who, what, where, when, why (and how). Before beginning any project, these 5 Ws need to be answered so both yourself and your colleagues have a clear idea of the project objectives and end result. 

So, the corporate enews – the objective behind it was to provide an update on and to present news on the happenings of Student Edge from a business to business perspective. Student Edge clients are not as interested in the latest student discounts as they are with how Student Edge fits in with their communication plan (and if they are not aware of us – how we can help!). For this newsletter, I had to think not from a student point of view but from a B2B perspective – what would a client be interested in reading about? I focused on recent success campaigns, as well as “fast facts” on the Student Edge membership demographic. Overall, I showcased what Student Edge can do for their partners. 

Based on my previous experience of working in media, my email inbox was inundated with a minimum of 50 new emails per day and often a lot of my 'newsletter' emails would be deleted – so I had to make the Student Edge corporate enewsletter short, sharp, snappy and digestible! Knowing how I used to go through my emails in the past, I had less than 15 seconds to capture the recipient's attention. 

You can only please some of the people some of the time  

I presented my first draft of the corporate enews to my supervisor Sharyn, who was overall positive but whose main piece of criticism was the enewsletter not being clear enough on who were the target stakeholder/s? My first draft of the enewletter had focused heavily on successful advertising campaigns, but she reminded me to take my ‘advertising’ hat off and put on my ‘public relations’ hat again. She said that the enewsletter had to position itself as coming from the board as opposed to business development (those in the business who are in charge of gaining new accounts). So, I had to steer away from the advertising emphasis and provide more of an general overview, but again as mentioned keep it short and sharp. 

It doesn't stop at copywriting - next steps, briefing design! 

One the copy had been finalised the next step was to brief the design team. Wouldn’t it be easier if everyone could read everyone else’s minds? That way, a designer could see exactly how I was seeing the newsletter in my mind and work their magic to create it! But alas. It was not to be. Keep an eye out for my next post, where I explain exactly what happened (or didn't happen!) with design ... 

In the meantime, PR Daily provides some further food for thought - 5 questions to ask before you write anything (and if you don't subscibe to their enewsletter already, I highly recommend it!)

Rachel