WHO'S TALKING TO YOUR STAFF?
By Terence Fane-Saunders
Chairman and Chief Executive, Chelgate Ltd

For most companies, if you were to apply the POSA criteria, and start listing key publics, the most important single public on the list should be the public inside its own walls. The employees.

But in many businesses, PR professionals have little or nothing to do with employee communications. That's the responsibility of the personnel department. And that's a dangerous flaw.

Here's one of my Ten Rules of public relations: No company can build or sustain an external reputation if that reputation is not supported and endorsed by its own employees.

The staff know the inside story. And the inside story has a potency, a credibility and a reach that even the most expert opinion can't match. Think about it. Would you buy a car if a friend working in the factory told you the brake system couldn't be trusted? Or put money in a bank if the head cashier said you'd be crazy to risk it?

When you recognise that employees are an absolutely central conduit for comment and information to the outside world, then you see how important it is that the in-house PR professional builds a real partnership with the Human Resources team.

It really has to be the Public Relations professional's responsibility to ensure that relevant information, supporting corporate PR strategies and objectives, reaches the right employees in a timely and appropriate manner. But this needs the active support of personnel professionals on staff.

Public Relations and Personnel can never operate in air-tight compartments. Their responsibilities stretch into almost every area of corporate activity. And if the two functions don't work effectively together, then neither will work effectively alone.

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