Kim Leslie’s PR Blog

The PR practitioner’s role in actively advocating and implementing successful internal/employee communication now extends to social media. The importance of this role is evidenced by social media mishaps which turned into full-blown crises. In other, but fewer cases, mistakes were corrected because organizations listened to and engaged conversations on social media. Media mishaps gone wrong include the Dominos YouTube videos, the Amazon.com gay and lesbian book sales ranking disappearance, and IBM’s silence to internal and external stakeholders a week after a VP of the company was arrested.

In addition, the Metro Bank name-change crisis tells of similar internal/employee communication problems. The crisis began as consumers posted stories about the complications they had experienced due to the bank’s name change. Metro Bank employees decided to join the conversation, and fueled the crisis. Employees discussed the disorganization and confusion within Metro Bank, all the way up to the Regional Presidents of the Bank. One employee even used profanity toward consumers and called them bad customers. If Metro Bank’s PR practitioner(s) had implemented a crisis communication plan for employees, many of the negative effects of the crisis could have been eliminated (the company also should have had a better crisis communication plan for external stakeholders, especially consumers). PR practitioners should have educated employees about social media use and its consequences for the company. Most importantly, PR practitioners and company executives should have focused on engaging employees. The actively disengaged employees who responded to consumers’ blog posts did not feel loyalty to or have a deep connection with the company. Thus, PR should mean engaging not only external stakeholders, but internal ones as well.

PR practitioners should have an active role in employee/internal communication within organizations. Employees should be viewed by organizations as their most important stakeholder group because employees determine whether an organization will be successful or not. Practitioners should encourage organizations to view employees this way and communicate with employees in a way that reflects this view. Engaged employees have a special connection with the organization that causes them to act in the best interest of the company, ultimately benefitting the company (often made possible by PR practitioners). In addition, engaged employees have an increased level of job satisfaction, lead to more profitability for the company, and lower turnover rates and operating costs. Not only do engaged employees provide these benefits to the company, they are also loyal to the company and stay employed there, perform well, encourage others to perform better, and serve as ambassadors that recommend the employer to others and build a positive image of the employer within the community.

PR practitioners can create programs that increase the number of engaged employees in an organization. To do this, practitioners must build trust with employees and encourage transparent internal communication. If internal communication is transparent, communication with external stakeholders will also be transparent, and the organization will be viewed as credible. Practitioners must ensure that internal communication is frequent, authentic, and builds quality relationships with employees. Practitioners already work to build these types of relationships with consumers and other external stakeholders, and are experts on how to engage various stakeholders.

If employee/internal communication and engaged employees are beneficial to organizations in so many ways, why are some organizations not turning to PR practitioners who can offer invaluable expertise?