Institute for Public Relations

The idea of communication professionals as consultants and enablers of communication has been expounded by a number of researchers. This is usually linked to the ‘consulting role’ as one of multiple roles enacted by communication professionals. Nevertheless, the specific dimensions and practices of internal communication consulting and its various objectives, forms and specifications have not been researched until now. This paper provides an initial step to close this gap by developing a theoretical framework based on research in business consulting and on existing public relations role models.

As we conduct ongoing soundings and best practices reviews among our clients and other leading companies, we’ve learned that employee communication has evolved from a perfunctory component of corporate communication and human resource (HR) functions to one that is firmly tied to corporate strategies and business objectives. Companies are putting more money and effort into their employee communication programs, and employee communicators are being more aggressive in pushing their leadership teams to see them as strategic consultants. As a result, employee communication has evolved from a state of sharing information to one of driving employee behavior by helping people understand how ...

Over the last century the managerial view of employees and their communication needs has evolved, at least theoretically, from seeing employees as one-dimensional laborers who must be tightly controlled and directed. Organizations today realize that employees are their most important competitive advantage, and effective communication helps unleash their talents and energies. Once considered a “soft skill,” employee communication is now seen as having “hard business impact” in customer service, product quality, innovation and other areas. However, there is no greater folly in too many organizations today than the employee communication practices used ostensibly to engage employees, build trust, increase commitment and ...

One in five Americans knows and regularly talks with a General Motors employee. Employee contact is one of the most credible sources of information about the company and the products. So how does GM measure the effectiveness of employee communications? This presentation offers a case study. Click on the preview below to advance to the next slide, or download the full PowerPoint presentation.

This study examines the critical roles that employees play in an organization’s relationship-building with its publics. The findings suggest that employees who have high levels of commitment and use symmetrical cultivation strategies contribute significantly to positive organization-public relationships. The study also found that employment empowerment can occur through participation in public relations programs for external publics.

This paper contends that corporate alumni networks serve a public relations purpose more than they do a human resource purpose. Through interviews with two developers of corporate social networks and a former employee who started an alumni network, the paper shows that these networks represent an opportunity and a moral imperative for public relations. By institutionalizing an ethic of care, which emphasizes responsibility and compassion, public relations can enable these relationships to provide value to those inside and outside the organization.

This paper explores several ethical issues about weblogs and employee communications through a web-based, international study of public relations practitioners. The following research questions form the basis of this research.

This study is asking public relations new hires how prepared they think they are and how satisfied they are with their university-level preparation. In addition, this research is surveying those public relations professionals who are hiring these new employees about their levels of satisfaction with the new hires and educational preparation of the new hires.

Dr. Berger’s article outlines the subject of employee/organizational communication, describing its importance and basic internal communication processes, networks and channels. Highlighting important issues in current practices, the article concludes with 15 principles of effective communication and an interactive list of recommended readings. “The greatest continuing area of weakness in management practice is the human dimension. In good times or bad, there seems to be little real understanding of the relationships between managers, among employees, and interactions between the two. When there are problems, everyone acknowledges that the cause often is a communication ...