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Employing the best PR staff, mitarbeiter, pessoal, personeel, personale, personnel, personal

Today the PR industry is diverse, sophisticated and global. Agencies and in-house communications departments alike have had to evolve in the last three decades from mere tactical implementers into strategic communications partners with their clients. To do this successfully, things have had to change, not least of which are the people employed to carry out the work.

That was then… 

When PR was a fledgling industry its practitioners were often ex-journalists who worked hard at either getting their clients coverage, or keeping them out of the press. The activities were largely tactical and not usually carried out as part of a larger marketing or business plan.

…This is now 

Now, things couldn’t be more different. Practitioners must operate at a much higher management level than their predecessors, demonstrate expertise in many industry sectors and provide real strategic advice to clients. This all translates into the need to hire skilled professionals who can successfully represent PR in their clients’ boardrooms as well as in their markets. 

On the surface it may seem simple enough; recruit people with relevant PR experience. But it is not always quite so cut and dry; choosing candidates purely because of their PR skills in today’s global marketplace may be a flawed strategy.

To interact with clients at board level, a candidate with strong business background can be a real asset. The downside? Candidates that fit the business bill but who don’t measure up when it comes to other, traditional PR skills may not be hired. 

Finding the best 

For agencies or in-house corporate communications departments operating today in multiple sectors, a well-rounded staff is not just a benefit – it is vital for success. Cultural diversity, for international operations, is equally critical. (See Case Study below) 

When recruiting, consider the position that needs to be filled and choose a candidate that best matches the role. Fitting into company culture, coupled with having the right soft skills to forge a successful relationship with the clients, may sound like extremely basic guidelines, but things can go very wrong if these fundamental principles aren’t upheld. 

Think mix 

The right mix of skills and personalities improves a team’s coherence and competitiveness. Clearly key PR skills are important bedrocks, but a deficiency of them shouldn’t necessarily rule out a candidate with other valuable expertise. This shortage is where training comes in.

Employers have a duty to give their staff – junior and senior – the right tools to be able to do their jobs fully. Identifying the skills gaps and providing appropriate training is crucial; don’t force all the juniors to do a writing course if not all of them need it. On-going training, for senior players, is also essential for continuing professional development. 

Keeping the best

So you’ve hired that perfect person – now what? The old adage goes that the salary you offer has to be competitive, but what’s really important is what it’s like to work at your company. So after the time, energy and effort recruiting employees, you don’t want them to walk out the door after two weeks. Be upfront from the start. One of the major reasons new recruits leave is that the picture painted isn’t accurate. 

Conclusion

Hiring excellent staff is critically important as they are the greatest assets PR teams have. But the process can be time-consuming and often frustrating; done properly and successfully, however, it can be a rewarding and mutually beneficial experience. PR teams are truly the sum of their parts, so the components must be chosen carefully. 

Case study: Diversity
By Lisa Shaddick, deputy managing director, Davies Associates

When Davies Associates was established in 1984, its founder, Barbara Davies, was determined to create an agency that did things differently.

Having come from an in-house European PR role, she worked with a network of PR agencies and spent most of her time liaising with each one. 

The inception of Davies Associates meant a new approach to international PR – meeting clients’ needs by employing multilingual, multinational PR professionals all based out of one London office. Today, with a staff of 15, Davies Associates operates campaigns in 11 languages. Most of our largest clients have been with us for over 10 years. 

Getting all the elements right for a successful business can be hard, but dealing with multiple languages and nationalities adds a further dimension to the challenge. 

Anyone who works in international PR will know that one of the most fundamental issues is getting the language – or even dialect – right. We demand, and our clients expect, account handlers who are true native speakers. From there it becomes trickier. A Belgian French account handler, for example, will not be acceptable for a French client. Equally, a German client will not usually tolerate a Swiss German account handler. 

So recruiting can be a difficult task. It also means we do our utmost to retain our staff and we’ve been successful; 73 per cent of our employees have been with us over 2 years and 46 per cent have worked here over 5 years. Most of our staff are products of multilingual households. Then there are those who, by nature of the area of Europe they are from, have spoken a handful of languages from birth – Belgians who speak English, French and Dutch. 

One of the beauties of employing so many diverse nationalities is seeing how different cultures interact; it’s incredibly interesting and a benefit to the whole team. Ultimately it’s our clients who benefit most from our multilingual ability. They reap the rewards of having account handlers who fully understand cultural sensitivities and enjoy the cost and time efficiencies of briefing one account director on an international programme. With over 20 years of in different countries and what doesn’t. We run specifically tailored country campaigns, while policing an overall strategy, ensuring objectives are met across the board. From my perspective our approach to international PR is the right one, and a team with so many nationalities is a joy to work with. 

Did you know?

While the English tend to take lunch at their desks with a sandwich, in Germany employees will always have a break, unless they are very busy. They will go to the Kantine or bring food in from home and eat in a common room together. 

The Italians take full advantage of the lunch break and use the opportunity to sit with their colleagues in the canteen and have a proper meal. If a company doesn’t have a canteen, it will usually provide employees with vouchers to spend in a nearby tavola calda.The French are much the same, except only half of their vouchers, tickets restaurant, are paid for by the company. 

The Dutch don ’t go out for lunch; between 12.30pm and 1pm they will generally have a ham or cheese roll and drink a glass of milk. 

Covering the phones over lunch also differs throughout Europe. Most Italian companies ask all employees to take lunch at the same time, while in England employees are encouraged to leave somebody in the office over lunch. And there is no point calling Spain between 2pm and 4pm as there will be no-one there to answer your call!