The Institute for Public Relations has commissioned research into the skills, expertise and competencies required in the years ahead for top public relations advisers and corporate communicators. Dr Tom Watson of the Media School at Bournemouth University in England is leading the research, which will be reported at the Institute’s next European Professional Colloquium in 2010. Here, Dr. Watson outlines the context of the research and some of the issues being addressed.
As a public relations academic, there are times of the year when I am suddenly very popular. Here’s a clue: it is not always (or often) with students around assignment deadlines. The sudden popularity comes when the same students are coming up to graduation and PR employers are looking for talent.
Some are very direct with a “Tom, old friend, tell me who the really bright students are.” Or, it’s “Hi Tom, I haven’t seen you for a while. Why don’t we have lunch soon?” Either way, the search for talent has an annual cycle and, at Bournemouth University in England, we have many very employable students.
But when it comes to senior appointments, I get a different message from old colleagues, headhunters and other industry contacts. The phone message is nearly always along the lines of: “We are looking for a really good senior communicator, but it’s tough to find them these days. Who can you recommend to us?” This is often a phone call with a tinge of desperation.
When starting the research on competencies needed for future senior communicators for the Institute of Public Relations, I did my own phone and email research with contacts as I wanted to identify senior communicators who would take part in our study. In some parts of the developed world, there were many people to speak with, but as I moved to the developing world, the question was often reversed to “There’s nobody here, who can you recommend to us?”
In this world of very fast turn-around and dynamic communication flows, it is apparent that in developed world markets like North America and North Europe, there are many technically able communicators who are comfortable on the home cultural terrain. In the developing countries of the Gulf, South and East Asia and Southern Africa, however, there is a dearth of both local talent and of senior-level international communicators. (I have omitted Latin America and francophone Africa as these have not been researched).
So why are there so few truly international, senior level communication advisers who operate with some confidence across cultures? How can they be developed? These are questions that I have started researching for the IPR. With my colleague, Dr Chindu Sreedharan, we reviewed academic and professional journals and media for the major issues that will be shaping high-level corporate communications and PR.
Our aim is to guide the public relations industry on what it takes to prepare the next generation of leaders in globally integrated organizations. The reputation of organizations is increasingly challenged in this age of rapid response. Communicators need to be educated and trained on higher skills than ever before and this research will identify the most important skills and knowledge areas.
Communicators are now operating in Thomas Friedman’s ‘flat world’ of working without borders for corporations that are global entities with new rules of engagement. It is also an information age that is ever more complex. Here are headlines on the challenges and the future needs:
The challenges for communicators are:
- PR and corporate communications are “behind the curve” on social media; slower to adopt more technologically complicated tools
- The need to change PR and corporate communications from broadcast machine to community participation
- Greater importance for ethics, CSR and sustainability
- More and complex demands for communication from ‘internal audiences’
- Need culturally-sensitive communication in a changing world
- Getting to and operating at C-Level
- Give proof of PR and corporate communication’s contributions to strategy development and realization
Future communicators also need to:
- Be flexible communicators, capable of adapting quickly (eg. new media)
- Able to interpret changes and trends in communication practices and technology; guide implementation, but not necessarily as a communication technologist.
- Have broader analytical and critical thinking skills
- Become closer to trends and policy-making, especially on CSR/sustainability; often actively participating in the discourse
- Possess a more inter-disciplinary set of competencies so they can act as advisors with equal standing to senior colleagues in other functions
- Have negotiation and relationship-building and management skills
- Coaching and mentor senior management to communicate, manage relationships and deal with changing demands
A study to test these propositions is under way among senior communicators in North America, Europe and other markets. It will report in early 2010. The research is made possible by a grant from Coca-Cola to the Institute for Public Relations.
Dr Tom Watson is Deputy Dean of the Media School at Bournemouth University in England. A former consultancy MD and chair of the UK’s Public Relations Consultants Association from 2000 to 2002, Tom is a member of the IPR Commission on Public Relations Measurement & Evaluation.
Hi Tom, Interesting work. I note the comments about the need for language exposure in public relations education and practice. We have just added Mandarin to our suite of programs in the School of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations within the Facultyof Business at QUT in Brisbane, Australia. We also have the International Business programs located in our School so there is quite a deliberate focus on ensuring strong global business skills and cross cultural awareness are embedded within the curricula.
This is great! Cant wait for the full report! My name is Nicolás Holguín, Communications and PR Manager for ICONTEC International (http://www.icontec.org).
What are the chances to include Latin America in this investigation?
Tom, what we need is good knowledge, skills, entrepreneurship, leadership, and attitude for Public Relations professionals with touching, feelings, controlling emotions, and kind-hearted.
Hi Tom, From my experience training PR people from Africa and Asia who come to the UK to learn from Western practice I’ve found the biggest issues are culture and understanding of what PR is.
Both culture and ways of doing business are very different, hierarchies are stronger, different interpersonal skills are valued and encouraged. Thus international PR professionals need to be flexible and have a degree of humility that means they respect and can work within the differences. Empathy, listening, adaptability are as important as PR skills.
Tom, I would add some points that are necessary for a practitioner to get involved in decision making process, no matter in what organization he / she works. 1) How to sell communication values to senior management 2) how to apply interpersonal skills among internal stakeholders 3) how to prove that communication does have and contribute add values to management.
From my experience as both academia and practitioner, I think that a public relations practitioner should never stop learning – the sky is the limit.
Many thanks for your explantion in London recently.
tom, it is agood researsh about expertise and competencies that will be required for top public relation
May I offer a different perspective, having worked as a PR communicator across Asia for over 20 years? Most practitioners in this region “grow up” in the industry speaking and using several languages for business, and operating across national and cultural boundaries. Many also move around to live in different countries. There are a good number of experienced, competent senior-level practitioners in Asia today; perhaps we face other challenges. I would suggest one of the main factors that hampers our continued development is the shortage of opportunities for senior practitioners to work as senior-level corporate managers.
Thanks to everyone for their feedback. The comments on language skills and cross-cultural experience are very relevant. It is notable in anglophone countries that there is a sizeable decline in students taking languages alongside their other studies. This may offer opportunities for more rapid progression for those who come from countries where the norm is working knowledge of two or three languages.
Another factor that may impact on the internationalising of communicators is that major corporations have been limiting the international movement of staff for cost, visa and security reasons. So there may be structural challenges to development of senior communicators.
In other responses to my research, there are early indications that technical skills of communicators are seen as easily obtained through professional education and experience but the emphasis needs to be on leadership, financial literacy and organisational understanding. This can be taught or trained through universities or specialist academies.
At this stage of the research, our emphasis is on identifying the competencies rather than the point of delivery as some organisations have been historically strong in training staff whilst others have obtained higher skills though recruitment or reliance on universities and professional bodies.
We soon will be launching a graduate program at Kennesaw State University to respond to this need. It will be a 16-month, professional-oriented, cohort program offering a Master in Arts in Integrated Global Communication. Students will be in the classroom for two semesters, will work or study abroad during a summer international experience, then return to campus for the fall semester for a colloquium and an international communication project. Courses will certainly address the challenges Tom mentions. The program includes a conversational foreign language course the semester before the international experience. Cohorts will be limited to 20 -25 students, and the tuition will pay for all textbooks for classes and travel for the international experience. Kennesaw State University is a 22,000 student university located in metro Atlanta. Contact for more information about this masters program.
Tom, your research is magnificent and can be as reference for colleagues and students in study program of Public Relations at President University, Kota Jababeka, Cikarang, Bekasi, Indonesia.
I believe that the best part of Public Relations practitioners always be characterized by interaction, or interactive participation among sources and receivers of communication.
Public Relations is mostly persuasion.
Tom, your research is on ‘the expertise and competencies that will be required for top PR advisers and corporate communicators’. Where do you foresee these sr PR people to be trained–post graduate? Senior undergraduate? Professional associations/ professional development seminars? This is related to my previous comment.
I am from South Africa, involved at various universities where PR is taught in the Management Sciences. The name of the degree obtained is PR Management. Compulsory 1st year subjects include economics, business management, statistics, accounting and then the specific management context such as HR, marketing, PR, etc. Students are thus ‘automatically’ equipped with general management, as well as PR management, knowledge and skills.
The debate here is about the ‘technical’ PR skills they absolutely ‘have to have’ to be able to get a job at the entry level since nobody hires a ‘PR manager’ for entry level positions. With a curriculum full of management and PR management, tough choices have to be made. There is little room to maneuvre.
In your opinion, which are the top PR technical skills they should be provided with to find a job in the future? There can be no doubt that they will need social media skills, but what are the others? (Once they are employed, their path is open. But at entry level they have to compete with PR students from universities of technology or colleges highly skilled in the usual PR techniques).
Well, working and living outside one’s own home country are key, of course, as are language skills, but most PR practitioners are narrowly focused within their own social/cultural.political milieu and I have, like Dr Watson’s colleagues, found precious little international or inter-cultural breadth in our profession (although this problem may be especially acute here in North America). I believe this is true to a far greater extent for PR than, say, in marketing, where there is a well-established international/global marketing tradition of adapting global campaigns, paying attention to cultural differences and tailoring programs accordingly.
All of which tells me Dr Watson’s research is both timely and necessary, and kudos to him, Bournemouth and Coca-Cola for this initiative.
I agree with the assessments of both Dr. Watson and the above comments. True international experience cannot be garnered from a text book but must be achieved in the field. It is not enough to be well versed in the language of PR. One must be well versed in the language of the country where you are doing business and the nuances that come from doing business in other cultures. Perhaps Masters programs and companies should offer training programs in their global bureaus to create a truly well rounded professional.
Having worked for many years outside of the United States and in another language, I understand the challenges that communicators face. I also see that having international or global experience is not as prized or valued as it should be at home.
I would add, Been there, done that. True global communicators should have lived abroad (ideally anyplace other than London or Paris) and have experienced first hand different cultures. Travel experience around the world also helps to get a wider, more global sensitivity.
As an academic I have worked in International PR for NGOs for some time and I must add to Dr. Watson’s lists of recommended needs for future communicators the ability to communicate at a high level of fluency in two or more languages.