public relations

the essence of collaboration

Posted on by Becky Green (was McMichael)

I saw a tweet from Robin Bloor last week, quoting a well known saying and it struck a chord with me.

His tweet was, “a candle loses nothing by lighting another candle” and I feel that this has never been truer than today, due to the collaborative spirit and willingness to help that I am seeing spread across our industry.

So yes it is a bit fromage-tastic but it sums it all up for me and surely the more candles that are lit, the lighter and brighter the whole room becomes.

*no more cheesy posts, I promise*

flexible working…5 must haves

Posted on by Becky Green (was McMichael)

Had a lovely breakfast the other morning with my pal and ex-colleague, Stephen Waddington who, like me, has recently opted for the co-location lifestyle and moved to the wilds of Northumberland.  He is continuing to run Rainier PR with Steve Earl in London.

Unsurprisingly, a large part of the conversation was about flexible/remote/home working with both of us comparing notes about the benefits and pitfalls of being out of (and indeed in) the office.

Anyway, I had been meaning to start something about the traits you need to be a good homeworker and make this strategy work for you in the long term so thanks to Stephen for giving me the renewed focus and here goes……

5 must haves for flexible workers

Respect from clients and staff about working practices – it has to be part of the fabric of the agency….jibes about working from home or trying to cover up flexible work arrangements to clients is a strategy bound for failure – be proud of your agency’s attitude; don’t try to cover it up – people want to work for an agency that embraces and encourages flexible working, not one that merely tolerates it

A flexible attitude – there are times when you just have to be at a meeting in person or in the office. Regular office visits are good for team and individual anyway as they keep you in touch and provide a chance to catch up in person

The right skills – namely, talent, experience and focus.  Flexible working does not work in all cases, people need to be integrated into the agency and spend a period of time getting to know staff, clients and the agency’s culture, in order to work in the expected way.

Individuals need to take responsibility for networking and socialising either where they live or making an effort to attend company socials. The increase of social media and networks has made it much easier for home workers to stay in touch, do business out of hours, attend events/lectures through podcasts and keep up to date with the industry

Trust. Your work needs to speak for itself. Clients need to want to work with you, teams need to feel they can approach you and respect the way you work and your boss needs to trust you.

I am going to tag some other people in the PR industry to see if they have any thoughts to add. Over to you Stephen, David, Will, Jonathan, Ged and Paul.

getting to the point

Posted on by Becky Green (was McMichael)

The subtitle of this blog is PR: Family Life: Having it all: Having a ball and as yet, I have failed miserably to write about much of it…

So, after four months of random posts, I am sitting down tonight to finish a post on the topic I originally intended this blog to be about (before I got sidetracked writing about other stuff)

Making flexible working actually work…

As a woman, a mum and someone passionate about what they do (PR if you haven’t figured it out yet or are new to this site), I am always keen to fly the flag for the intelligent, passionate and hard working people that all have the following in common…those who want:

a) a career

b )a family

c) a life outside of a major city

d) a permanent job

So answer me this. Why is it so many PR agencies are so backwards in their approach to letting staff work flexibly, for example part time or from home or adopting a dual location/time splitting plan?

The percentage of my friends and ex colleagues’ jaws that hit the floor when they hear that I a) work permanently for a London agency b) I spend the majority of my time working from Cornwall and c) I run a division which includes managing people, is shockingly high.

In an industry that has flogged the arse out of the work life balance issue for many years, why are we so bad at practising what we preach?

Is it a pure and simple trust issue?

Are agency bosses unsure of the skills needed to manage people remotely?

Is it the short term, knee jerk mentality that so many PR agencies have when responding to clients’ demands (“I NEED TO MEET YOU TODAY”)?

Surely it is a no brainer for agencies looking for a sustainable business model, less churn and lower overheads? Why are examples so rare then?

Or are they there and I have missed them?

I’d love to hear from anyone working in agency or who has had a flexible work request turned down….and if you have good examples of agencies offering real flexible work programmes, please also get in touch.

communicators….who inspires me?

Posted on by Becky Green (was McMichael)

Thank you kindly to Stephen for tagging me in the personal communicators meme started here by Andrew Wake.

“The idea’s simple. We’re asking you to list the three communicators living or dead who have most influenced your way of thinking professionally and perhaps personally too. Who do you think the real innovators are? Who’s been most responsible for kicking the industry forward? And just who are the communication PRunks?”

Here goes my top three…

Anita Roddick for managing to adhere to and communicate such strong brand vales whilst achieving commercial success for such a long time. Roddick was a trailblazer for ethical supply chains way before CSR was even on the fashion radar. A leader, a mother and an inspirational businesswoman.

My absolute favourite teacher of all time Mr Mumford. A slightly batty but immensely passionate history teacher, who regularly popped out of lessons for a crafty fag. Mr Mumford persuaded me to study the subject for far longer than I planned due to his infectious passion and amazing narrative around the topic. The single most important thing I remember he taught me was about how to identify bias and value your information source. He tried for years to persuade me to become an archivist but I opted for PR instead…not sure quite what he’d make of that really!

My Dad. Dad was a teacher (and now tutors privately) so my upbringing was highly educational (*example* the one and only game I was bought for my first ever computer, aged about 10, was a grammar game where you had to shoot words with different weapons based on whether they were nouns, adjectives or verbs…no wonder I spent the rest of the time programming code out of massive thick books and screaming in distress at the masses of syntax error line 54 messages I used to get….and all that to get HELLO scrolling across the page…hardly worth it really!) Anyway, I digress, Dad taught me the most important skill of all…how to conduct a well researched argument backed up with facts and how to use what you know to help you with what you don’t. Basically, how to win a (verbal) fight and how to blag your way out of anything…..two skills which have got me out of many a situation so thanks Dad.

So Steve Earl, Drew Benvie, Colin Byrne and David Brain – here are your tags….what you think?