March 12th, 2010 by Steve

Finale: Gen Y, a whine of the times

This is all a bit odd.

Here we are, the end of this five-part series that has gripped (a very small PR sub-set of the) nation all week. Ish.

I’ve tried to poke into each corner of the issues that PR agencies and their employees are facing as Generation Y becomes a more prominent factor in the workforce. I’ve even tried to be objective about it.

And you know what? When I started this on Monday, my sense was that on Friday I’d end up writing about why Gen Y should just suck it up, snap out of it and get back to the harsh realities of toil.

Yet that is not the conclusion of this strange little blogging experiment.

Bosses must lead, tension is their gig
Instead, it is this: the people running PR agencies have to stand up and be counted over the growing issue of differing generational attitudes and outlooks amongst their staff.

Secondly, Generation Y needs to avoid going down in history as Generation Whine. The stereotypical whingeing of today’s teenagers is tarnishing the self-honesty and modern pragmatism of Gen Y in the workplace. It is up to Gen Y to change this, with the support of bosses.

Thirdly, all other generations need to pull their heads out of their fast-maturing arses and realise that we are all part of the problem and can all help to improve understanding.

The growing, oft-silent tensions in PR agencies today between people with differing ambitions, approaches, goals, motivations and communication techniques are the by-product of rapid technological, economic and (to a much lesser extent) political change. It’s the job of bosses to tackle it. If your boss isn’t, or isn’t even prepared to acknowledge it, perhaps you should ask them why.

So let’s go through some ‘learnings’ from all of this. Some points that each generational group (although many people have commented that they’re not quite sure which bracket they fit into) should probably take on board if they’re going to enjoy their jobs and develop their careers:

Generation Y
1. Think about how you’ll be the boss. I don’t mean be career-hungry and obsessed with rapid progression. I do mean think about how what you do now will enable you to manage, motivate and lead people in the future. If you don’t think the way you’re managed, motivated and led now is necessarily the right way, it probably isn’t. Don’t whine, have a discussion and figure out how you’ll do it better when your time comes, by which time workforce motivations should be even more diverse than they are today

2. Understand the business. Whereas Gen X was brought up on 1980s greed, boom ‘n’ bust and exploiting the property ladder, Gen Y has it different. But if you turn a blind eye to how the business works, how it makes money and the commercial realities that govern how you can reward and develop people, you’ll struggle to develop personally and professionally. PR businesses are simple anyway: a five-year-old could grasp the basics.

3. See it from the perspectives of others. Yes it does not make sense to be seen to work long hours any more: doing that for no good reason beyond impressing the boss is just stupid. Work long hours if you’re getting something out of it by developing your career and the business. Go home on time whenever you can. But remember that Gen Xers had it differently when they were younger: you must make them understand the value of what you’re doing. Sell yourselves more and it will go a long way.

Generation X
1. Get real. Some people will inevitable just be lazy bastards and blagged their way through those interviews, but many Gen Yers have desires on your job. They may just struggle to show it. They will show ambition in different ways. Their enthusiasm may not be overt. Get under the skin of why, work with them rather than dismissing ‘kids today’ as disengaged drifters. Unless they are, in which case consider encouraging them to find another career.

2. Take a long hard look at yourself. You didn’t really want to be that Michael Douglas character in Wall Street did you? Secretly, you may be a bit envious that Gen Y has the nonchalance and career outlook that it does. You thought you’d turn out like that, until the machine got hold of you. Be honest with yourself rather than bemoaning the differences of others.

3. You’re in a position of responsibility, and it is – probably – your generation that has the biggest role to play in cracking this generational change issue. You’ve got to lead by example and transition agency approaches to flourish from the diversity of motivations and attitudes, not sink under their weight. It’s not like me to write things that look a bit like self-serving political correctness, so let’s be clear that I don’t intend it to be. But I do mean it.

Generation Jones
1. The in-betweeners. Obama is a much-lauded example. The future now rests in their hands, it’s said. Not in PR it doesn’t. But what Gen Jones must do is realise it is different. You are very different to Gen Y, and Gen X has more of an opportunity to understand the younger generation. I think your best role is to help Gen X to open its eyes to the differences in generations by telling them what you’re thinking, and how you struggle to get to grips with the pace of change.

2. Use the tools. If you don’t get to grips with how PR is modernising because of digitising media, you won’t only hit professional snags but will increasingly struggle to understand younger colleagues. Don’t try to get down with the kids, but don’t shy away from change, grab hold of it with gusto.

3. Think about how you can rebrand your generation, because the Jones thing sounds really sh^t.

Baby Boomers
Interestingly, I’ve had some really insightful comments from people in this category in the past week, with the benefit of experience coming to the fore. My thinking is age and experience make it easier for them to spot the signs, but the pace of change remains frightening. Beyond that, boomers should really look at the points for Joneses above.

The end
So there we have it. Hardly academic, not particularly pretty but hopefully an interesting read at least.

Gen X: the ball is in your court. As well as our industry modernisation challenges, we’ve got to make PR jobs engaging and emotionally fulfilling for all. We’ve got to think beyond salaries and benefits. We’ve got to think bigger. We’ve got to pull our fingers out.

Gen Y: cheer up, liven up, realise how good you are or can be.

If anyone has any ideas for other PR topics I should tackle, do let me know. Mistakes execs make, account managers with a power complex, sadomasochism in the boardroom, whatever; I’m game.

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March 11th, 2010 by Steve

Part four: what Gen Y means for a PR industry in pain

The emotive word there is pain. Let’s not spend too long on that though, because hopefully anyone who reads this blog regularly, or has tripped across it and reads through some of the other posts, will recognise my point of view on this – PR is in pain because it must continue to modernise, and too few people who call the shots have figured out what to do about it.

I state that as if it were fact, while of course it’s merely my opinion. Feel free to challenge it, but be prepared for a passionate barrage of evidence and anecdotes that add elephantine weight to the argument.

Like pre-lunchtime tummy rumbles, I feel a list coming on: here are 10 points of pain that are making PR agency bosses feel most uncomfortable at the moment:

1. Digitising media. The media doesn’t know what it’s doing either mind. But PR agencies either have digital ghettoes of coneheads while the big bosses fight shy of the internet or they’ve given the whole job a digital lick of paint, or they’re clinging stubbornly to the darlingluvvy world of print. All will founder if they carry on that way.

2. The value of media relations (as we knew it) is sliding away

3. Most agencies have a fudged take on what the future holds for them so struggle to communicate any meaningful vision to their staff, instead banging on about how they influence influencers and such like

4. The counsel that’s most valued is about how media is changing and how we can create new value for clients, yet too many just want to stick to their knitting

5. Too much international or global business is held by firms that are part of large listed groups beholden to advertising. Advertising is even more pained than PR. So investment in modernisation for the agencies who have those big global accounts is hard to come by, and the fear is they’ll fall behind. Double ouch

6. Lack of transparency about business plans and performance can leave staff feeling undervalued. But those who haven’t started modernising may not have much good news to share, beyond the short-term

7. Everyone feels they should talk about how the market seems to be looking up, but they know that’ll mean people who’ve had pay freezes want more money. Modernisation costs money. Quick fix or long term improvements – what balance is best?

8. Evaluation is no longer woolly stuff that can be pulled over the eyes. It needs to be done properly. But without having modernised to embrace all media it is difficult to do it meaningfully. And clients can be reluctant to pay for it – you could make them understand the value, but that might mean they see you haven’t got the bigger picture of the conventional/digital media future cracked (in fact you’re turning a blind eye to it)

9. People are getting itchy feet because they’re not getting the skills they need to allow them to do the PR jobs of the future, and the recruitment fees for replacing them might wipe out your training budget. Catch 22.

10. Some are still not convinced that digital isn’t just a passing fad. Perhaps their predecessors used to think the same about TV

What’s the impact of the Generation Y issue on all of this?
Doesn’t help, does it?

To be honest, I don’t think that’s really what the point is. It’s more that with everything else that’s going on in the turbulent world of PR at the moment, the growing issue of Gen Y seems to have fallen by the wayside. Which is pretty short-sighted.

And fair enough. Agencies do need to modernise. The PR people who call the shots and set the commercial wheels in motion do need to knuckle down and transition their businesses, their management approach, their services and their marketing to meet the rapidly changing needs of where the industry is heading.

PR has enough problems without Generation Yers not pulling their weight (at least that’s the kneejerk view of some senior/experienced agency people).

But if PR agencies aren’t able to modernise in a way that enthuses and engages Gen Y, the impact of the modernisation won’t be long-lived. Because Gen Y will sod off to do something entirely different.

Should Gen Y just wise up and fall into line with everyone else?
No, of course not. Honest guv. Agency businesses are not charities (despite the odd expenses claim I have to sign off) and can’t model themselves around the new needs of a new generation. Equally though, agencies have to wake up and get to grips with generational change and the pace of evolution now in play.

Tomorrow I’ll try to blog some conclusions. Which won’t be easy. But I have some ideas.

Thanks for those who’ve sent comments, collared me in person and sent emails/DMs with input this week. Some interesting views. Strangely though, very few from Gen Y.

Perhaps the crusties do read blogs after all.

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March 5th, 2010 by Steve

PR’s generation why? A blogfest begins

There’s a contentious conversation doing the rounds in PR agencies in the UK. It’s one that most people running businesses and managing teams acknowledge is a big issue for them, but few are prepared to talk openly about it. But believe me, they have whinged to me. In technicolour.

The issue is Generation Y. The struggle agencies are having, so these people have told me, is that Generation Y can become a straightjacket for personnel and client development in agencies. People who have entered the workforce during a certain period have unrealistic expectations of their careers, their workloads, their salaries, their employers and what they personally have to do in order to get ahead. This is a sweeping generalisation of course, but I’ve heard it enough times now to get the sense that it’s an issue that’s not going away.

I did say it was contentious.

I’ve been planning to blog about it for some time, but have been scratching my head about the right format. How can you do justice to something like this, how can you be fair and accurate (I still remember my NCTJ training, thank you) in covering the topic?

This morning it finally dawned on me. A five-part serial. Like Corrie or EastEnders for one of those seminal storylines, albeit with a slightly smaller audience.

So each day next week I’ll be tackling PR’s Generation Y: what the issues are, how agencies are trying to deal with it, what generation Y is thinking, what this may mean for a pained industry struggling to modernise/adapt and what it means for other ‘generations’ working in agencies today.

Everything I have been told to date (and it’s something of a dirty dossier) will be treated in the strictest confidence. If you want to leave a comment on this post, please do. If you want to tell me your point of view on this, do DM me.

Stay tuned.

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February 19th, 2010 by Steve

Money’s too fright to mention

There can be few more contentious issues in PR than salaries.

I did a quick search on what bloggers have written about the topic and found nothing. A few bits and pieces on the debate about work experience slavery morals last year, including something I wrote, but nothing that tackles the guts of the topic – do we get paid the right amount?

I could make this a very lengthy post. But in the interests of my time and your sanity, here are what I see as three major salary factors in the PR industry at the moment:

The money must be there
If you work for an agency, that agency must make enough money in order to be able to pay more in salaries. This is blindingly obvious. Yet so few agencies, despite being in the communications business, seem to do a good job of getting their teams to understand that. There are essentially three levers in a PR agency: staff costs, overheads and profit. That is it. These aren’t complex businesses. The greater your income, the more you can increase staff costs. And those income increases can come both from growing your client list and increasing your fees. A good starting point for anyone wanting to increase their salary might be to demonstrate consciousness of ways of generating new client income and ways of charging more for services, where there is a market demand and where the market will accept that pricing.

It is a similar picture with in-house positions. A growing, thriving business will typically have ever-larger and more sophisticated publicity needs as its reputation develops. A stagnant or shrinking business will not.

Agencies must benchmark better
Most agencies will tell their staff that they pay reasonably well. They’ll use phrases like “in the upper quartile” or “aim to be industry-leading”. In an age when most are advising clients on the commercial virtues of truth and the challenges of maintaining credibility across diverse media, this does seem to be wearing a little thin.

Agencies should be benchmarking their rates and their salary brackets versus the market at least annually. Speed does it twice a year. We’ve just done one actually, taking data from recruiters and competitors (don’t worry, we won’t reveal any specifics!) and comparing that with what we offer. This is not a foolproof approach as job titles vary, some figures are given as broad ranges and sector specialisms come into play. But without blowing our own trumpet too much, we’ll be showing this information to all staff. No spin, no massaging the figures, no rushing it before the eyes so it doesn’t sink in. I doubt many agencies are that transparent.

If your specialism is media-linked, watch your earning potential erode
Ah, the digital divas. The above stuff about benchmarking currently has one fly in the ointment – that fear is forcing some agencies to pay unsustainable salaries to digital specialists. I don’t know why, but my guess (and, as I tell my wife, I am not often wrong) is that the agencies paying them are fearful of missing out on the modernisation of media and its implications for PR, so are chucking money at it rather than taking a more commercially grown-up approach.

If we had had such a developed PR industry 50 years ago, we would probably be in the same boat over the development of TV. People would have set themselves up as small screen specialists, touting the end of print and charging a big premium for their services. Only the sector wasn’t even in its infancy then, and the development of TV as a medium was far slower than the internet, hence the lack of a panic factor.

A far better approach is for agencies to train all staff to be able to handle all sorts of media. Conventional PR operators must master digital. Digital PRs must do the opposite – all media may eventually be digital, but understanding the fundamentals of journalism must be meat and drink to all PRs.

Media is changing fast, but whatever we call it today before long it will all just be media. A new, exciting, challenging and diverse media that can both move in the blink of an eye and pause to think shrewdly.

If you tie your earning potential to just part of that media today, do not expect it to keep on growing. And as a client if you’re being charged an unfair premium for what amount to niche media services, perhaps you should question that.

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February 19th, 2010 by Steve

The school reunion (agency style)

I could be generalising. I could be being unfair.

But from what I know, the vast majority of PR agencies do not welcome former employees with open arms and warm wishes after they’ve left. Instead, there’s a typically sniffy attitude from both sides, with the employer sometimes feeling slighted and the employee feeling unwelcome, or jaded. The connections made through social media are changing this, but nevertheless a malaise remains.

PR agencies are people businesses. People do get on with other people. Some of my good mates are people I worked with years and years ago and I still meet up with them from time to time. So it’s natural that when people leave agencies they will stay in touch with former colleagues. In my opinion, the best scenario is if they stay in touch with the employers too, and that everyone appreciates the contribution people make in working hard and their achievements in developing their career.

Of course some people leave jobs with a bitter taste. A shame, but it does happen. Employment law being what it is, it can be difficult for these things to happen in the way both parties would really want, and can be far from ideal. Equally, some seem to struggle to move on and it takes a while for them to give up tapping into gossip networks. If they’re particularly lacking other things to focus on, the wooden spoon can come out.

Which is all a bit daft. One of my former employers, now operating as Ketchum Pleon, started doing an annual reunion about 10 years ago and it has spawned various (positive) splinter factions of people who get together for drinks occasionally. They make contacts, they remember what was good about working there, they wonder at how old some people look these days.

Speed has been on the scene for nearly a year, but its short history goes back further, to the roots of BMA Communications, Mantra, Lighthouse PR and Rainier PR, and a spin-off, Custard PR. Over (in some cases) 20 years many people have passed through the doors. Most have left smiling. Typically the teams were good at retaining people and most got a lot out of it. Many have gone on to develop PR and marketing careers that those who founded the agencies are rightly proud of. Which is great; how it should be.

After work on 23 March we’re asking them back. We have contact details for most, and if not we know people who know people. So it’s an open house. It won’t be glamorous, but we’ll have food and some booze in the office and a crowd of people nattering. So very much like old times.

Agencies should take their alumni seriously. People should be, ideally, proud of where they worked and the bosses should be proud of the people who worked there. Here’s hoping the rest of the PR industry can do something similar.

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December 21st, 2009 by Steve

Final top five of 2009: bad agency Christmas videos

Bah humbug. Actually these are surely in the festive spirit, given the boundless hilarity they give to viewers?

message

Send a card, make a donation, but do not attempt to be funny in front of a video camera. The result of an office poll of the worst agency Christmas videos:

1. Ogilvy. It had to be. Thankfully, given ’tis the season of goodwill, words fail me.

2. The Anthill Mob. And a wierd fake horse.

3. Wolfstar had us howling last year.

4. Lewis. Alright, at least you had the guts.

5. Shout, shout, let it all out; these are the things I can do without.

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October 20th, 2009 by Steve

Idiotic approach to agency leavers: chapter one

Most PR agencies are pretty responsible in how they treat people when they leave. Sure, some can take it a little bit personally, but given it’s a people business that’s only natural, to a degree.

But some agencies are just plain idiotic and let the industry down with how they handle the situation, and can bear a grudge for no justifiable reason.

I’m thankful that I haven’t witnessed much of this sort of thing in my career. I’ve talked to people who’ve had some pretty nasty experiences so I’m fully aware that some shenanigans go on – people not getting paid what they’re owed, getting the cold shoulder, being given guilt trips and the like.

So a recent situation that cropped up amazed me in its new depths of stupidity. Some context first: it’s common for an agency PR to get asked at some stage why they left their previous job. The majority of us are charitable and professional – even if the experience was not a happy one, we’ll typically make reference to it not being the right fit, wanting to work on different types of clients, the desire to work more on strategic counsel versus purely on events and stunts, time for a fresh challenge, etc. There is nothing to gain from running agencies down.

A contact of mine thought the same. In a recent conversation with a former client, she was asked the question and said much of the above. She gave a diplomatic answer that was a fair reflection of her reasons for leaving and what type of agency she wanted to join, which avoided (she assured me) the finer, gory points of why she really decided to leave the old job.

Having heard about this, the head of that agency then called her current employer’s office in a rage, threatening legal action for defamation, slander and libel (advice: read the scope of the Magistrates Court Act 1980 so you actually know your arse from your elbow about the basics of this area of the law, which as a senior PR you should really know already). Not only does this smack of paranoia, it shows utter mistrust in – and respect for – people who used to be colleagues. If you can behave like that now, God only knows how you conducted yourself when they were actually on your payroll.

Point: people will leave jobs, and the vast majority of them will be professional when in the future they’re asked why. Bosses should get a grip and focus on making their business a place where people want to work, rather than acting like vile children when someone seeks green pastures.

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