#FuturePRoofing public relations

Sarah Hall1 November 2016

About SHC

About meCIPR President-Elect 2017 and Chartered public relations practitioner

Editor of the industry-wide, global community project #FuturePRoof aimed at asserting PR's value as a management discipline and the role it plays in achieving organisational success

Policy director for the PRCA and global body ICCO

In 2014 awarded the Sir Stephen Tallent’s medal by the CIPR for exceptional achievement in PR practice

Digital marketing certificate from Google, MA in Marketing from Northumbria University’s Newcastle Business School and BA (Hons) in French and Media from Leeds University

About #FuturePRoof

About #FuturePRoof

A handbook for senior practitioners looking at the changing face of the industry

The story of public relations as a management discipline

www.futureproofingcomms.co.uk@WeArePRoofed

About #FuturePRoof Over 2500 combined downloads and book sales for book one

Policy director for PRCA and ICCO – current project on mental health

Regular speaking engagements and podcast

#FuturePRoof: Edition Two just launched; ranked in top ten management, sales and PR and marketing books on Kindle

Back to the future

In 1999, Dr Jon White presented a paper to the Swiss Public Relations Society that stated the future was bright for PR practitioners.

This was dependant on practitioners recognising ‘the opportunities presented by the environment and management needs’ and ‘taking steps to educate and train themselves’, as well as making ‘full use of communication technology, to provide reliable, if not indispensable, services to managers as they seek to deal with complexity and manage successful businesses.’

The challenge today

No need to redefine public relations – we need to reframe our approach

The role of public relations professionals is to find organisational purpose, agree and test company principles and keep the publics that the business is there to serve front of mind

A public relations role

“<Organisations> are being forced to re-thinktheir purpose and how they gain and maintaintheir legitimacy not only with their immediate stakeholders, but to society more widely.”

Professor Anne Gregory

We need to #FuturePRoof PR

Public relations is a powerful management tool and the department that organisations should appoint to lead the wider marketing function

But this still isn’t happening

According to a report called Exploring Strategic Risks by Deloitte and Forbes Insight, 40 % of executives cite reputation as the number one boardroom risk

Why not? We are stuck in a loop

The challenge todayTo improve our value as practitioners, we need to shift away from tactics and outputs and think holistically about the business benefits that public relations can bring

How does our work help an organisation achieve its objectives? How can we report our results in Board speak?

Talking about public relations as a management discipline changes what we do, how we talk about it and the approach we take to our continuous professional development

It changes how employers see us and the worth they accord to our work

The challenge today

“PR’s place should always be in the room if not at the table when organisations are making critical choices. That place, recognised, consulted and included as a business discipline, has to be earned but it is essential to have for PR to fulfil its purpose.”

Mike Love

Are you any good?

Good public relations consultants need to have strategic, leadership and ethical capabilities

We need to understand how organisations work and hold management and financial qualifications or have completed non-executive director programmes

Are you any good?

“There are very few standards in publicrelations. It’s surprising for a business that is tasked with the critical role of managing the reputation of an organisation.”

Stephen Waddington

Are you any good?

There’s no excuse for us not to be delivering at the top of our game

The Global Alliance Global Body of Knowledge (GBOK) project continues to move forward with the establishment of a competency framework which maps from entry level upwards

Individuals need to take personal responsibility and not rely on their employers to set their training needs, equally employers need to invest appropriately in staff training and development

Workshop time

Exercise oneSerious skills – what’s the role of public relations today and what skills do you need to be successful?  

Exercise twoTools and technology - choose a brand and consider how one of the following could be used within a campaign. - Gamification- Artificial intelligence- Augmented reality- Virtual reality 

Your call to action

Reframe public relations as management discipline in your own head

Read #FuturePRoof – www.futureproofingcomms.co.uk

Check out www.globalalliancepr.org and ensure you have the skillset to deliver at the highest level

Tell everyone who will listen why PR should form part of the strategic management function and its importance to organisational success

That’s how the future will remain bright for public relations practitioners

Thank you – any questions?

Sarah Hallsarah@sarahhallconsulting.co.ukwww.sarahhallconsulting.co.uk07702 162 704

Join the #FuturePRoof community

www.futureproofingcomms.co.uk@WeArePRoofedLook up the Facebook group