Two days after his meeting with top management, he calls an impromptu meeting with five senior members of his staff to talk about the problem and outline a plan.
After lengthy discussions, the PR staff concludes the problem is one of ineffective and poor communication lines between management and employees. Advancement opportunities exist. The problem, however, is that employees are not aware of them. And if they do hear about an opening, they're not sure how to go about qualifying for it.
Over a four-day period, the public relations staff maps out a plan calling for the publication of bulletins informing employees of job openings and how to qualify for them. To give it priority, they decide to publish a special eight-page edition of the company newsletter, telling employees about advancement opportunities and preparatory company-sponsored courses. Again, the goal of the public relations department is to improve employee relations and to open up the communication lines so information can flow freely from management to employees and vice versa.
Scheduling Budget Conferences
Our busy public relations department also has the yearly chore of scheduling budget conferences with the company's regional managers. The PR department has to be concerned with the total functioning of the company. It would be simple if all they had to do was coordinate activities within the corporation's main office.
However, the company maintains 25 regional offices throughout the United States and the PR department has to keep in touch with all of them. To keep abreast of regional happenings and to revise budgets for the next year, the company schedules yearly budget conferences with regional heads and the senior executive staff.
The job of planning the conferences and making all the necessary arrangements falls into the public relations department's lap. The first thing the PR staff has to do is decide on a convenient time period when everyone can attend. Once a time is established, all the necessary arrangements can be made. Transportation is arranged and hotel rooms are reserved months in advance. And finally, conferences have to be scheduled over a three-day period, giving the executive corps enough time to accomplish everything that has to be done.
Once this event is successfully completed, chances are there is another important conference or meeting six months down the road that has to be scheduled, planned and coordinated.
Relationships
As you can see, the public relations department of a large corporation occupies a pivotal position. At some point it is involved with all facets of the corporation. In order to achieve effective public relations, PR representatives have to maintain a good working relationship with all departments within the company. In the process of creating a productive relationship, PR workers are concerned with improving upward and downward communication.
Downward communication refers to the communication lines between management and employees. Management uses a variety of methods to keep the communication lines open so information flows freely. Vehicles of downward communication include employee magazines, newspapers, newsletters, bulletin boards, films, announcement posters, reading racks, letters, ceremonies and interoffice memorandums.
Typically, the upward communication lines are not as well developed and more often than not present a challenge for public relations staffs. Vehicles of upward communication are usually suggestion or complaint boxes and open group meetings where employees can express opinions and make their needs known. As a company expands, the public relations department is faced with the challenge of formulating workable upward communication lines so employees are in a better position to improve their positions within the company. With tight and functional upward communication lines management can better deal with problems as they occur, instead of waiting until a crisis arises.
Public relations workers who work exclusively with internal public relations and maintain free-flowing downward and upward communication lines have a full-time job. To appreciate how complications can arise, imagine gathering 100 people in one room and asking each person the same question. What kinds of answers do you think you'll get? There's a good chance you'll get 100 different answers. So you can appreciate the challenges facing PR workers who devote most of their time to internal public relations.
A public relations worker's relationships extend far beyond the company's home office, where the executive staff manages and directs the company's operations. Often, a PR worker will travel to a distant regional office to gather information, or merely as a good will trip to make sure everything is functioning as it should.
To sum up, as management representatives, public relations workers try to maintain good working relationships with the entire staff, whether they be management or unskilled workers on an assembly line. A public relations worker's responsibilities extend to all employees, regardless of rank, status and salary level.
