When I started my career in New York in 1967, public relations was a distinct job category. Everyone in business, politics, academia, and all the other realms of work had a reasonably good idea of what PR people did, and they mostly left it up to the professionals. That was more than half a century ago, however, and how the world has changed! Now in the third decade of the 21st century, the lines that once separated public relations from other job categories have blurred or even disappeared. PR is no longer viewed as a separate and narrow tactic isolated from other activities.
The evolution of PR
The consequences of this dramatic change reach virtually every organization of any size, which has to be reflected in how more and more workers in those organizations are trained. The need for your employees to understand good communications — the hows, why’s, what-to-do’s, and what-not-to-do’s — has become enormously important. This is particularly true for senior and even middle management — and sometimes down to the rank and file when they are engaged in any significant interaction with the outside world.
I’ll go a step further and say the need for clear communication, connections, and understanding at every level of society has never been greater. In the digital age, when almost of us are joined in a global community, using effective communications to forge, nurture, and sustain relationships between and among people and their organizations and institutions is at the core of a functioning society.
That is why one of the most important trends in recent years has been the integration of public relations into virtually every phase of work and life, from the political and nonprofit world to business, colleges, universities, and beyond. Your workforce must be prepared to deal with various people, issues, and subjects.
This is not to say there is no need anymore for trained PR people. The profession doesn’t go away just because many more people are now involved in communications. For example, emergencies or crises can require immediate responses in both external and internal communications, especially with the media, that only trained professionals can handle quickly and effectively. My point, rather, is that organizations that engage with the world at large need to recognize that it is more than just the public relations department that must be trained in communications skills.
Or, to say it another way, it is a given nowadays that public relations must be linked with other activities and disciplines within an organization. It is also a given that planning and implementing a public relations program must harmonize with overall objectives, whether that means selling a product, raising money, or advancing a cause or a candidate. All the more reason, then, for employees to get some training in communications so that everyone involved understands the objectives and can contribute effectively.
Bear in mind that considering how to train employees in good public relations that it entails time, development, and relationships leading to understanding. Think of it as an organization-wide enterprise whose characteristics can change depending on conditions but whose core principles of credibility and truth-telling remain the same.
Three key elements of a public relations training program:
- Virtually every part of human relations has changed in the digital world. And it will go on changing — the learning process must always continue.
- Always gather intelligence, and keep on gathering intelligence—as I said, everything around us is constantly changing.
- Content is key. How you deliver, it is important, but formulating the message comes first. Always select and adapt your language and images to convey just what you want to communicate. You may need to improvise later, but start with clearly defined content.
Beyond those general principles, the specifics of any communications training program will vary depending on what it is your organization does and what you want to achieve. Among the areas to consider are these:
- Traditional media. In today’s interconnected world a smart reporter can reach deep into an organization, contact employees, and establish a dialogue that management doesn’t know about and may not approve of. Training your people in handling such approaches — and making them understand that how they respond can do serious damage to the organization if it gets into print, is broadcast or goes out over the internet— is crucial.
- Social media. This is, if anything, a more dangerous arena than traditional media. Employees need to understand that nothing is off the record now, that a casual tweet, Facebook comment, or any of a dozen other public postings can come back to haunt everyone for a very long time. As the saying went during World War II, loose lips can sink ships.
- Investor relations. This is a specialized area, but it’s also one of the most important functions of public companies. For all the organizations involved, getting communications training and learning how to stay on message — an indispensable discipline — is essential.
- Speech-giving. Again, not something that everyone is going to do. But there are bound to be workers you have now who will one day be making presentations or formal addresses, and they need to be taught how to do it well. The kind of training this requires involves many lessons, but the most important I will leave with you is this: In today’s highly connected world, a speaker is never just talking to the audience in the room. The words he or she says can, and often will, be spread to the larger audience beyond, maybe even to a national or global crowd. All savvy politicians know they are really talking to two audiences when they speak in public and sometimes even when it’s in private. It’s a lesson that — now more than ever — everyone needs to learn.
