Public Relations and Public Affairs - Essay Example

Order # 424675 d 28th March Organizational Communication Analysis: Public Relations & Public Affairs The success of any organization mainly depends upon the strategic human resource management, technical know-how and its efficient public relations and effective communication with various public agencies (Solis and Breakenridge, 2009). This requires the optimum balance between the internal resource management and external communication process. The areas in which the dissemination of the information related to the company aids in its brand value addition and effective marketing of its products have to be identified and focused for future growth. At the same time, the strategic decisions are required to be taken inside the close chambers of the company and the secrecy of the same has to be maintained which calls for confidentiality in those selected matters and policy decisions. This necessitates the company to recruit a specialized public relations and public affairs officer who would maintain the ideal balance between the confidential decisions and effective dissemination of the information related to product design and marketing. Public relations means a process of research and analysis, policy information, programming and communication and feed back from the public. It is also defined as the management function that evaluates the public attitudes, maintains the mutual line of communication and identifies the policies and procedures of an organization with public interest. In the present day world, the stakeholders of any organization would certainly anticipate the access to the company information. This may be the case of consumers or share holders, or employees or dealers or distributors. In addition, the general public may also be interested to know about the happenings of the organization related to its recruitment policies and environmental protection mechanism. In other words, the right to information by the people cannot be restricted by any organization and it should strive to improvise the public affairs and public relations. This requires an effective communication outcome which must be positive in nature. However, at times, there may be challenges in the form of blocks to communication process which should be tackled effectively by formulating future strategies. Every company faces such circumstances where communication process is challenged by some unexpected developments. The effective conflict management is required for tackling the issues or crises arising out of unforeseen incidents. Keeping this in view, the present essay focuses on the probable situations that may result in communication challenges and effective means for reducing the negative effect with a final objective of improving the public relations and public affairs of the company. The effective recruitment of public relations and public affairs functionaries would be the starting point for the management strategy in facilitating effective communication process. The role of the public relations officers must be to identify the possible problems or threats that may arise in the nearby future for the prospect of the organization. As declared by the Public Relations Society of America, The necessity for evolving effective communication strategies is felt in the way of improving the organizational efficiency (Wilcox and Cameron, 2006). Several factors contribute positively for the communication transfer between he organization and the out side agencies and people. The two way strategy should be followed focusing on the internal confidential decision making process and the transparent out side communication release process. The internal process must be restricted to key strategic decisions which will help the organization in developing an innovative and competitive products. The maintenance of secrecy in this matter is the necessity for the prospects of the company and the share holders also would be benefited by this as it protects the company from the threat of competition from other players in the market. The outside communication release policy must be clean and very dynamic so that the information related to the new products and their uses would be effectively communicated to the clients and other people in the society. The arrangement of timely and regular press meets related to the features of the new products of the company and the dividend declared and the selection of new executive committee members must be communicated well in advance to the public. This would also help the organization in aggressively campaigning for the new products so that the sales outcome would be enhanced tremendously. The timely and systematic release of information would be helpful to the organizations in enhancing their public relations. Several times, the policy decisions taken by the Governments would affect the prospects of the companies. For example, the decisions taken by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) would affect the growth rate of several food processing companies. Hence, the improvement of public relations and lobbying by the food processing companies has helped them in modifying the food pyramid declared by USDA. The conflict management is a specialized branch of science that deals with the unforeseen consequences arising at times in any organization. It may help us in improving the communication process between the organization and public agencies. The experience of some of the big companies like Wal-Mart during the crisis times and the way of tackling those tough times by these corporates would be of significant use for the new companies in dealing with the conflicts. The scope for the conglomerates in conflict management and effective public relations also would aid in the effective communication process. The organizations must be aware about the legal complications related to the release of the information to the public. At the same time, the legal problems may also arise from restricting the information to the public related to some important aspects of the products of the company. For example, the negative side effects of using some specific drugs must be released by the company as a mandatory practice, otherwise, it may lead to organ failure and in some cases even death. Hence it may lead to legal cases filed against the company for hiding the most valuable information. Even the expiry date for the product use must be accurately decided and communicated to the public, otherwise, it may lead to health problems and mortality and the company may be ceased in extreme cases. The information provided by the companies must be proved if necessary according to the legal principles. For example, Federal Trade company filed charges against 3 diet firms for their failure in proving the factual evidence for their advertisement related to weight loss. This also necessitates strong and professional research on the product preservation life cycle and the public relations officers must be well aware about the product features and the care has to be taken to declare the most accurate and detailed information about the products to the public. There is a strong necessity to organize the public awareness campaigns related to the product features and its limitations if any. They should also explain the social commitment actions from the organization side. In some of the occasions, the steps taken to maintain the transparency in staff recruitment and measures taken for the environmental protection must be communicated to various agencies and public functionaries. Some times the conflict management would also be applicable to improve the relations between the two nations. The efforts taken by Saudi Arabia to improve its public relations at international level in general and USA in particular after the 11th September attacks in 2001 will come under such type of examples. The efforts initiated by China to better its public relations at international level for organizing the Olympics in 2008 also gives us enough scope to learn regarding effective communication strategies. There is always a possibility of conflict between the right of the citizens and privacy maintained by the company related to its some strategies. This can be avoided by creating a win-win situation between the company and the public. The objections raised by the public related to its environmental and staff recruitment policies can be solved by active negotiations with the public representatives and corporate social responsibility can be initiated by the organizations which would lead to win-win situation. The success story of various apparel and foot wear manufacturers like Nike and Reebok by solving the labor policy problem through negotiations with labor and human rights groups can be cited as a good example in this context. No sector is exception for poor growth rate during tough economic times. The travel sector also faced severe problem in terms of sudden decline due to economic crisis which could be overcome through effective public relations in 2004 (Chabria, 2004). Overall, the effective management of different forms of communication release process is vital for success of any organization (Scott, 2010). It may in the form of right time of release of information through public speeches, press releases and electronic media including radio, television, and the Internet. The transparent and clean public communication would always facilitate ethics in the work atmosphere and would finally lead to organizational truth. The effective and strong leadership in any organization is required for better public relations (Werder and Holtzhausen, 2009). The two-way communication process must be encouraged so that the gap between the company top management and the consumers would be narrowed down and public relations would be improved. The staff must be trained in basic principles of public relations like problem solving, creativity, inter personal communication, logistics, facilitation and research. The workers must be provided with better working conditions in the company and public should be allowed to examine the same. References Chabria, A. (2004). “Travel takes off again: Travel has picked up in 2004, but the industry still has numerous challenges to overcome. PR Week. Dated 18th October 2004. P: 17. Scott, D.M. (2010). The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Social Media, Blogs, News Releases, Online Video, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly, 2nd Edition. Wiley publication. P : 320. ISBN-10: 0470547812. Solis, B. and Breakenridge, D. (2009). Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media Is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR. FT press publication. P: 352. ISBN-10: 0137150695. Werder, K.P. and Holtzhausen, D. (2009). An Analysis of the Influence of Public Relations Department Leadership Style on Public Relations Strategy Use and Effectiveness. Journal of Public Relations Research. 21(4) : 404-427.  Wilcox, V.L. and Cameron, G.T. (2006). Public relations : Strategies and tactics. 8th Edition. Allyn and Bacon publication. P: 620. Read More