In drafting up our PR consultancy, some of the team members assessed public profiles and achievement of various PR personnel over the past few years. According to Nuji and Sulaiman in their Public Relations and Job Performance (2015) paper, the excellence of a PR has a lot to do with the image; therefore drafting a PR profile for stakeholder requires close examination of their image at work, public profile, and professional performance. A fundamental strategy I applied in devising a potential list of PR stakeholders were focusing on how best the targeted group would understand each other as stakeholders must realise a PR strategy or what the company intends to do; achieved through communication. Also, those stakeholders who can have influence, especially, a positive impact were potential candidates for stakeholders.
PR is highly reliant on influence. In general, the team employed PR strategies such as transparency, verifiable representation, honest character, and authentic representation for communication of management issues. In some cases, the team had to keep some information confidential. Professional ethics or Ethical PR requires disclosure of information that affects clients and stakeholders. However, for as long as a piece of information is vital for the company and does not affect a stakeholder, we kept it confidential until there was a need for its disclosure. When a new slimming product that was still undergoing clinical trial was discovered, non-disclosure policy required to keep that information secret. It was upon the PR professionals to keep it confidential. However, this strategy did not work as a junior account executive disclosed the information. The best companion of a PR office are newsletters, press release, and editors, however, company regulations and PR ethical obligations must be followed at all times. Breach of non-disclosure policy is subject to dismissal in our moral conduct principles. Breach of non-disclosure clause made our confidentiality strategy fail.
Integrated public relations functionalities, Public relations as an independent and autonomous function of an entity, press agentry, a two-way symmetrical model, two-way asymmetrical model constitute the ethical and PR best practice sphere (Rhee 16). In all the communications, the team shuns unnecessary publicity while utilising productive PR media attention as defined by the theory of press agentry, which also guided our email template for communications when required by the CEO. Some of the contexts for employing this strategy in media-related PR communications was in communicating advertising needs of Phytochemica’s new slimming chemical to consumers. These theories were also useful in the deliberation of duties in the tasks performed by the team. The team favoured a two-way symmetrical PR model as opposed to a two-way asymmetrical model that informs the application of an unbalanced form of communication or deliberations.
Transparency in communication and authentic as well as a correct representation of the company by the team members were two PR strategies that proved successful in our duties. Most of the tasks at the company entailed communicating, interacting or making decisions that affect stakeholders, customers, policymakers, board and the CEO among other senior members of the team. A lasting impression of trustworthy and credible image emanates from the authenticity of the parties involved. Clients also need to trust us in our respective capacities. Therefore, these strategies formed part of our social media campaigns, website impression, and physical inactions. Stakeholders are concerned with communication strategies; one of the successful strategies that worked for me is observing ethical communication especially over emails.
I made all my ethical decisions focusing on the company policies and principles of ethical PR practice. Principally, I concentrate on accurate information, observing professional integrity, keeping a positive and composed state of mind, and treating all information as confidential before a direct communication to make it public knowledge as most of the information about the internal control and clinical practice in our company majorly require absolute confidentiality. With hindsight, I would have done everything the same way as I have always conducted myself with professionalism, maintaining and observing ethical PR practices the same way research by Christensen and Langer supported consistency as a way to add value and gain legitimacy by PR professionals in an already complex and interdependent arena.
I learned that the image of a company is a collective responsibility of those in the PR department and by extension other departments. Key lessons learnt from professional conduct include deceit and media relations. PR professionals must offer credible and reliable information as a lie is a short-term strategy and when uncovered, which is inevitable, the damage is irreparable, to both the company and the PR officer. Our best allies are journalists; our profession exists side by side with media houses, credibility and resourcefulness matters. Ethical conducts such as honesty, accountability, advocacy, expertise to acquire and use responsibly specialised experience and knowledge among others, are critical guidelines for our work (Fitzpatrick 112).
In dealing with stakeholder group, I learned that fair treatment of stakeholders, especially customers are the greatest ethical assets of PR practice. Aside from the PR practice moral codes, stakeholder theory recognises fair treatment of constituencies of a company as a way to improve company performance and competitive advantage (Weiss 40).
I am a good communicator and a good interpersonal, an employer in a PR sphere requires theses personal skills. Professionally, I can design communication templates according to the company, or an employer defines. My public policies and strategies are some of the industry best, especially for an employer with an intention to improve its relationship and partnership with the media.
In conclusion, PR strategies that work always benefit both a company, the PR office, stakeholders, and improve the relationship with other entities. A company with credibility and confidentiality to protect while enhancing media presence must involve PR office with the best reputation and expertise. Some PR strategies and theories work while others fail, it is upon the professionals and teams to employ those theories and practices that suit their respective situations while maintaining ethical codes and PR best practices. Over the past few weeks, I have one primary lesion, consistency in a workplace and conduct is good for a professional reputation. However, flexibility is also important for an ever-changing PR environment regarding principles and strategies.
Contribution and Details of Tasks Performed in Crisis Deliberations
I was a participant in a panel that deliberated on the dismissal of one of the employees for violating a non-disclosure policy. My contribution focus on employee conduct against ethical practices and legal obligations a company faces under perceived legal dismissal. I was involved in tasks such as:
Identifying stakeholders, Devising PR strategies for our internal and external correspondence, and Document the importance of PR to the organisation
Works Cited
Nuji, Mohd Nur Najmi, and Wan Idros Wan Sulaiman. "PUBLIC RELATIONS AND JOB PERFORMANCE: THE TRANSFORMATION IN MALAYSIA." e-Bangi 10.2 (2015).
Rhee, Yunna. The employee-public-organization chain in relationship management: A case study of a government organization. Diss. 2004.
Christensen, Lars Thøger, and Roy Langer. "Public relations and the strategic use of transparency: Consistency, hypocrisy, and corporate change." Rhetorical and critical approaches to public relations II. London: Routledge, 2009. 141-165.
Fitzpatrick, Kathy R. "From enforcement to education: The development of PRSA's member code of ethics 2000." Journal of Mass Media Ethics 17.2 (2002): 111-135.
Weiss, Joseph W. Business ethics: A stakeholder and issues management approach. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2014.
