10 things journalists do that annoy PR pros

For PR pros who keep up with industry news, it isn't rare to see lists compiled by journalists highlighting things they hate about dealing with PR folks.
Some of these journalists make excellent points. As in everything in life, there are practitioners who are marvelous at their jobs and others who just aren't.
However, it goes both ways. Maybe it’s time to turn the tables and let journalists know 10 things they do that PR professionals don't like. Fair is fair.
After more than 25 years in communications I have pretty much seen and heard it all in the media relations field. I even wrote a book titled “Confessions of a Corporate Sycophant." I began my career as a newspaper journalist and then shifted over to "the dark side” of PR/communications a few years later. I've seen both sides. With that in mind, here are a few things PR folks hate when dealing with journalists:
1. Don’t call me 15 minutes before your deadline and demand to speak to the CEO about a story you likely have been working on for weeks. It can be a real challenge to pull the CEO out of a meeting with shareholders to meet your needs.
2.  When an interview is scheduled for 10 a.m. with a top company officer, please show up on time. When you saunter in 30 minutes late, it makes me look stupid and also says to the person doing the interview that you do not value his or her time.
3.  No one expects a journalist to look like a fashion model, but when you show up in a tank top, cut-off blue jeans and sandals, it sends a weird signal.
4.  Take a few minutes to read the stuff I sent you as background information about our company. When your first five questions are about the information I sent you, it is kind of embarrassing.
5.  Make sure your recorder is working before you do the interview. Calling me a day later in a panic because your recorder didn’t work really puts me in an awkward position, and makes you look like Bozo the Clown.
6. Don’t get all huffy when I tell you we cannot comment on some issues. In all honesty, we cannot discuss things for a variety of reasons: personnel, health, financial, proprietary, legal, etc.
7. When I offer to pay for your lunch, don’t act like it was some sort of bribe and an affront to your journalistic ethics. If you can be purchased for a lunch, it is you who has an ethics problem.
8. Believe it or not, you make mistakes in stories. Don’t get mad at me for pointing them out. It is likely my bosses are furious and I am trying to calm the situation.
9. Yes, journalism today does not lend itself to long-term employment. However, asking me about any potential openings at our company prior to an interview makes me feel really uncomfortable.
10. Do not allow someone at my company to review your story before it runs/airs. I have briefed interviewees ahead of time that real journalists don’t allow that practice. When you do, it makes me look stupid.

What pet peeves would you add to this list?
By John Landsberg

Employee Engagement Ideas: How To Get Your Staff To Stop Job Hunting

This post was featured in Forbes.com.
  

Studies show that engaged employees generate an average of between a quarter to a third moreprofits for their companies.  Fantastic, right?  But here’s the question: do you think that most of your employees are engaged?

If you answered yes, chances are you’re dead wrong. According to one eye-opening study, fewer than a third of all employees can be classified as actively engaged at work.  Put another way, some industry statistics show that 66% of employees are disengaged and 60% are actively looking for work.

This rampant disengagement or semi-engagement hits where it hurts – your bottom line.   As HR.com writerDavid Bator put it, since you pay a disengaged employee 100% of their salary for 50% effort, if we assume that the average salary of an employee in a 500 person organization is $50,000, then the annual cost of disengagement for that company is over $8M, or $34,200 per day.

Yikes.

So what can companies do to reverse this trend?  How do you keep your employees engaged in their work day after day, month after month, year after year?

Sure, positive employee recognition is a great way to make people feel empowered, and by extension more engaged.  But a party or a gift basket will only deliver a temporary jolt of enthusiasm and won’t do much at all for the greater dynamic of your organization.

Let’s talk about some longer term strategies and tactics that will.

The driving goal here is that each and every member of your company has a great answer to the question, “Why do you work here?”  And the answer shouldn’t be “the pay” or “the half-day summer Fridays.”  Salary and benefits alone do not lead to employee engagement.

What does?  Well, it has to be something that feels like it originates from within each individual employee… something that empowers them.  Something that makes them say “Listen to what my coworkers and I did the other day…”

Now, I hear what you’re saying: “But Ryan, we did the ropes course with the whole design team last year! Eight out of ten “trust falls” went great, too!” (OK, I know no one said anything like that. Surely it was a 90% success rate with the trust falls.) And the answer is no; the usual seasonal-engagement crutch of holiday parties in the winter and cookouts in the summer simply doesn’t work as the sole “cohesion creator.”

Instead, to keep your employees enthused and engaged, you need to have programs that your employees feel that they are a part of every day. And these initiatives must make employees feel like they are contributing to the company, yes, but also, in the most successful instances, like they are a part of something even bigger.

So think big.

And what’s bigger than, say, the earth itself?  What?  Well, yeah. Jupiter.  And yes the Kuiper Belt is really huge, OK!  You know what I mean.  What I’m talking about is establishing a green recycling program that will make your employees aware that when they participate, not only are they doing good for the company, but for the planet as a whole.  A recycling program is something that each and every member of an organization can participate in each and every day and it’s a fine starting point for much bigger things.

Taking things a step further, how about establishing a comprehensive corporate volunteer program, the strongest cure for employee disengagement?  Few things engender a deeper sense of camaraderie than doing charitable work side by side with others.  And the spirit established on an oil-slicked beach or in raising a house for a family fallen on hard times will not fade in the company lobby on Monday morning.  Rather, it will pervade every aspect of every board room and cubicle.

The reason for this is simple: when people share in common cause, they grow closer together. The myriad moving parts of a larger company can often seem to function in seclusion, but by creating an exterior common cause, you can bring the varied parts – the employees from different divisions, teams, etc. – together to work in concert.  The same is true for companies of all sizes, of course, but the larger the organization, the harder it can be to keep numerous employees engaged.

So you need some employee engagement strategies, then, don’t you?  Well, then, let’s talk about a few:

1. Be a company people like to work for 

Sounds simple enough, right?  But I don’t mean that you have to be Google or some place that can afford Olde Time Pop Corn machines and Nerf arsenals in every kitchen (or even the kind of place that would want that stuff).  Instead, just be the kind of place that is satisfying to work for but also provides so much more than opportunities for “work work.” That means opportunities for charitable giving, volunteering, community serviceactivities and the like.

2. Provide opportunities for employee involvement

Involvement and engagement aren’t quite synonyms, but they’re really close friends.  And by involvement opportunities, we aren’t talking about overtime.  We’re talking about facilitating giving and volunteering efforts that help employees feel connected to their communities and, by extension, your company.  People like doing good things.  In fact, they love it, it’s just often hard to know where and when one can do the most good.  If the place they already work becomes the conduit for doing good work, you’re going to have happier, more engaged, and more productive workers on your team.

3. Listen up

Maybe you think things are going smoothly and your staff seems happy enough.  But if you don’t allow your employees any autonomy in where their giving and volunteering efforts are aimed, they may end up feeling “voluntold.”  Give your employees the gift of supporting their support for the charities and causes they care about most.

4. Bring employees together

Conversely, while you should allow for some cause autonomy, you also want to create opportunities for common cause.  Organizing days of service, leading team volunteering events and turning fundraising ideasinto reality are the key to uniting employees on a much deeper level than could ever be achieved in the workplace alone.

5. Be persistent

Your work is not done after one successful weekend spent coordinating a company-wide riverbank cleaning session.  Nor is it done after a months-long partnership with Habitat for Humanity.  The fact is that your work toward furthering employee engagement is never done. And that should be exciting, not daunting.  Indeed, charitable work never goes out of style, and it’s the best way to inspire engagement.  So try it out.  Frequently.

The occasional cookout or margarita never hurts, but if you want to demonstrate staff appreciation, provide opportunities for staff satisfaction by giving your employees cause to help causes.

TOP TIPS: The 10-point guide to effective employee communication during a company crisis -

1. Plan ahead and be prepared A successful response to a business crisis typically demands making and effectively communicating far-reaching and emotionally difficult decisions while under pressure and perhaps lacking complete or fully accurate information. Proper crisis preparedness planning therefore inevitably calls for putting the necessary organizational structure, processes and tools in place before a crisis hits.

Develop, implement and continuously improve a crisis communication strategy and matching crisis communication plan tailored to the company’s needs. Assign responsibilities and thoroughly train the designated employees and their back-ups. Put communicators on the corporate and, if applicable, the regional and local crisis management teams. Conduct vulnerability audits and use the findings to build realistic crisis scenarios upon which recurring media training and crisis management drills are based. Remember that effective employee communication is a crucial component of any comprehensive crisis management strategy and indispensable to minimizing crisis-related damage, seizing the opportunities a crisis may present and converting resulting organizational change into competitive advantages.

2. Maintain ongoing dialogue You have a much greater chance of achieving your communication objectives if there’s already an ongoing and constructive dialogue with your stakeholders long before a crisis occurs. Unfortunately, many companies fail in this and also lack an issues management program and a risk-communication strategy. In-depth stakeholder analysis is a prerequisite for compelling and targeted stakeholder communication. Use automated Internet and intranet monitoring to identify and better understand stakeholder needs and customize your external and internal crisis communication accordingly. If employees are used to regular communication through certain channels, use them in times of crisis along with communication tools that were developed for specific crisis situations.

 3. Talk to employees first Whenever possible, internal crisis communication should precede external crisis communication. It’s vital employees don’t hear negative crisis-related news from outside sources first, as it may alienate them and hinder the successful crisis response and recovery. Engaging in an honest dialogue with as many employees as possible also fosters better understanding and employee support for possibly unpopular yet necessary steps company leadership may have to take to manage the crisis and secure the future of the business. Whichever method of internal crisis communication a company may choose, the more upfront management is about what is happening, the better-informed and more entrusted employees feel. Those employees who are communicated with in an open, timely and truthful way are not only able, but also often willing to represent their company and support its goals internally as well as externally. This is especially true in a crisis.

4. Eradicate uncertainty Underestimate the importance of effective employee communication during a crisis and you may suffer significant economic damage due to, among other factors, a lack of trust, low morale and the subsequent loss of trained and dedicated employees. In a crisis situation, it’s necessary to increase the internal communication frequency since employees have a high demand for updated information as well as the desire to provide continuous feedback. Ask these questions before communicating with employees during a crisis and as part of the post-crisis evaluation and ongoing crisis preparedness planning: What is the desired outcome of the communication? What will be communicated? Who will initiate the communication? Which groups of employees will be communicated with? How and / or where is the communication going to happen? When will the communication take place? Ask these questions after communicating with employees during a crisis and as part of the post-crisis evaluation and ongoing crisis preparedness planning: Was the communication objective met? How can we do better?

5. Tackle employees’ questions Employees’ questions and concerns should be anticipated, identified and responded to on an ongoing basis. Because employees’ trust in management’s ability to handle the crisis is crucial, even those questions and concerns that seem unimportant or inconvenient should be addressed. Especially in cases where the company may be responsible for any harm to employees and their loved ones, consider communicating regret and empathy as well as a clear explanation of the steps the company is taking to deal with the situation and to prevent recurrences. However, don’t base the messages on the views of management alone. Be sure to take into account the perceptions, opinions and expectations within the different stakeholder groups. Also bear in mind any legal and other restrictions on the dissemination of certain information relating to the crisis.

6. Create communication allies Don’t forget that employees have a vested interest in working with management to prevail over the crisis – many are eager to put in extra time and effort to turn the ship around. Guide employees in their effort to speak up for the company. Empowering employees to take charge in times of crisis creates valuable communication allies who reinforce messages internally and also carry them into the community. Remember that despite the wealth of technology at the disposal of today’s communicator, face-to-face communication between supervisors and their direct reports remains one of the most effective tools.

 7. Be consistent in messaging With the goal of coherent messages and simultaneous communication in mind, many companies implement a one-voice-policy: It means only appropriately trained and designated employees, who are electronically linked with senior management and one another, may act as company spokespersons. The one-voice-policy may be difficult to uphold in times of crisis because employees have a natural tendency to talk about stressful work-related events with family and friends, perhaps criticizing management’s handling of the situation. A disgruntled employee talking to the media may, however, pose a much more serious risk. Not only would this behavior sabotage the company’s one-voice-policy, but it may also threaten the entire crisis response.

 8. Convince leaders on feedback Employees appreciate and increasingly demand feedback options such as face-to-face meetings and two-way intranet-based communication. But the best-laid crisis communication strategy may not work if feedback is not included in management’s decision-making. Use the following three arguments if you need to convince senior managers of the value of employee feedback: Employee feedback allows you to track whether messages have reached the intended groups of employees and achieved the desired results. It enables you not only to track employees’ opinions, perceptions and expectations, but also may reveal what colleagues and external stakeholders are saying to employees. Employee feedback often contains valuable information and suggestions for minimizing damage, seizing opportunities and preventing future crises.

 9. Involve senior management Business crises can cause immense pressure and uneasiness for employees. To prevent rumors, false information and panic, senior management must be involved in providing distressed employees and managers with relevant information, guidance and motivation. Aside from communicating with employees through traditional channels, intranet-based crisis blogs are becoming increasingly popular. Executive or CEO blogs are an excellent listening tool that allows senior managers instant two-way communication with employees around the globe. They can aslo easily be updated during a crisis and create an intranet-based record of opinions and facts that helps to control rumors and speculation.

10. Consider external help No matter how much emphasis a company places on crisis prevention, it will never be completely safe because crises are part of the organizational lifecycle. The key to business survival therefore lies in maximizing the company’s crisis preparedness. If you don’t have the necessary theoretical knowledge or crisis communication experience, consider retaining qualified external consultants. They can assist in boosting the company’s crisis readiness as well as its ability to effectively respond to and quickly recover from business crises. -

 See more at: https://www.melcrum.com/research/engage-employees-strategy-and-change/top-tips-10-point-guide-effective-employee#sthash.rrWWWoSI.dpuf