PHOTO
Getty
The TV show MythBusters had a great run. For 15 years, a group of smart, creative scientists tested over a thousand myths — some plausible, some ridiculous — determining whether you could, for example, cook a meal under the hood of a car or get plants to grow faster by serenading them with rock music.
PR agencies have been fighting to bust myths of our own. PR myths, like those in other industries, at one time may have had some basis in reality, but they’re untrue today — and they’re damaging our ability to keep prospective employees from looking for in-house PR jobs. How effectively we rally together and deal with these perceptions will say a lot about our ability to deliver strong, valuable client service in the years ahead.
You’ve probably heard the myths:
• Agencies are “sweatshops” — frenetic, with long hours and endless stress.
• Agencies lock you into a “career silo,” giving you one path to follow.
• Agencies are all about “dialing for dollars,” focusing on quantity over quality.
Does this sound familiar? If you’re an agency leader like me who doesn’t resonate with the above, you probably hate it when negatives like these distract people from all the positive elements many agencies have to offer. You want to hit those myths head-on. You want people to know the truth about how far agencies have come, how important our workers are to our future, and how much we value our workers’ peace of mind, creativity and ambition.
So, how do we go about quashing these myths? If you’re like me, you’ve spent plenty of cycles thinking about how to highlight positives. My thought: Don’t ignore the negative perceptions and hope they just go away. Talk directly to employees and prospects about the ways your company thinks differently. Develop programs that show workers an environment where they can succeed, grow and be happy.
Let’s bust a few myths.
Tactic No. 1: Adopt a ‘work smarter, not harder’ approach.
Work-life balance is on people’s minds. After compensation, the biggest frustrations or challenges PR pros face are volume of work (38%) and the “always-on” nature of an agency (36%), according to a recent survey.
Let it be known that the “sweatshop” concept is a nonstarter at your firm. Encourage staffers to keep reasonable hours and enjoy time off fully, without chaining themselves to projects. Discourage late-night calls and emails. Offer flex time and work-at-home benefits. Come up with creative stress relievers. For example, we’ve closed our offices early for summer Fridays for years and recently instituted work-at-home Fridays and “no meeting Wednesdays” for the whole staff. Make sure teams cover for teammates when they’re out of the office or in heads-down mode working to meet a deadline. If something’s not urgent, recommend that it be handled during work hours.
There will certainly be times when things get busy. If you have a product launch or a client crisis, that’s when things get fun. We’re like athletes in the final minutes of a crucial game: We like to compete. Embrace those moments as a team, as a firm. Then, when crunch time ends, encourage individuals to carve out some “me time.” Go for a walk. Talk to your colleague about her accounts, or his weekend. Take time to decompress before thinking about the next client challenge.
Tactic No. 2: Break down silos.
The days when PR agencies placed all workers onto the same narrow career track are long gone. At one time, this was no myth; it was a reality. When I rose through the ranks, everybody followed the same basic trajectory: Start as a pitcher. Move to team manager. Then perhaps ascend into upper management. If you had other ideas, there weren’t any alternative tracks.
Today, the evolution of the PR industry has created more options for agencies — and for employees. As PR and marketing overlap, clients want agencies to help them engage better with more audiences. Clients need written content. They need high-quality creative materials. They need experts to manage their social programs.
Agencies are responding by creating new jobs and new career tracks that encourage workers to spread their wings. Set up regular discussions with employees about their long-term goals, and work together to create customized career paths. We’ve established content, media and marketing/analytics teams in response to employee interests and client requests.
Tactic No. 3: Unleash the creative forces.
Metrics, of course, are important in our business. Clients sign up with us to deliver results, and a component of any media-driven program is delivering coverage. But the “dialing for dollars” concept no longer leads the conversation. Clients are looking for more strategic engagement, leveraging more channels. They don’t want clip books. They want to know if they’re reaching the right audiences with the right messages.
This is good news for employees who want to exercise their creativity. Clients need new ideas, and agencies have the resources to wow them with memes, videos, social contests or hosted events. We recently established a dedicated creative team and put a strategic leader in charge to foster a more inspired, collaborative approach to both client work and business development.
Open up brainstorms to employees at all levels. Create in-house awards to encourage out-of-the-box thinking. Get employees to play more consultative roles. This can energize your teams, impress your clients and perhaps convince more employees to stay longer.
Lessons In Mythology
Not every PR agency outlook is negative. My students at Syracuse’s Newhouse School enter the field with plenty of positive perceptions. They see agencies as places where they can experience new things every day, and they’re right. Working with so many talented individuals allows you to contribute your own ideas and learn from others. Agency life exposes practitioners to a range of industries, strategies, challenges and team situations that in-house positions can’t match.
The negative myths that dog us can be overcome. We just have to bust them, once and for all.
