Week 3- Internal Affairs

Week 3

Internal Affairs

Halo...Greetings twice again.....

The readings made me think about Public Relations in that it injects itself as ‘gel’ coagulating within organisational functions and performing varied managerial roles. The contents of Chapter 11 could easily be found in any Human Resource Management textbook.

Internal Public Relations

The realisation on the importance of maintaining employee relationship have seen organisation adopting a proactive approach. This explains the investment in efforts to build trust amongst its employee. This inevitably involves a two way communication channel to facilitate mutual understanding and promote a healthy relationship.

From the organisation perspective, it is common business sense to maintain a harmonious relationship among its workers and to contain the powerful trade unions. I would be inclined to view it as a necessary illusion for control and significant to the company’s bottom line.

Nevertheless, I am lighten by the notion of organisational activists put forth by Holtzhausen and Voto (2002), which suggests practitioner could indeed serve as conscience in the organisation by resisting dominant power structures. This in my opinion paves way for a balanced relationship and offers a more genuine attempt towards mutual benefits.

However for such approach to be realised, I believe that Public Relations executives undertaking such role should be bestowed upon them certain decision making authority and not merely performing advisory roles, subsidiary to management departments.

Internal tools of communication

Among the varied channel of communications mentioned, with some leveraging on technology such as video conferencing, I concur that interpersonal or face to face communication would function most effectively. This is especially so for conveying important information that has direct implications on the employee such as decisions to cut wages during an economic crisis. To explain such decisions and seek their understanding on such matter, a human face is needed to demonstrate a certain level of respect for the workers. Imagine if such news was simply conveyed through email. It certainly does not reflect well on the management attitudes towards their employee.

Community Relations

In a contemporary context where information could be obtained and disseminate on the instant, companies could no longer ignore their external environment from which they operate from. The ability to garner support from the masses on certain issues such as environmental concerns meant that organisations have to take the effort to engage the community to ensure the public of its intentions and in the long run protect its reputation.

It is no longer enough for a company’s operation stick within the parameters of the legal barricade. The perception of the public is important because they are also active consumers of their products. Any perception of wrong doings may result in a boycott and tarnish the image of the organisation.

By maintaining an open channel with its surroundings, organisations could prevent such occurrences. Goodwill could be forged by contributing back to society in the form of sponsorship and community building. I believe such measures are necessary especially in the age where corporations are being viewed negatively.

Having read the case study 11.1: Breakout and cultural transformation at ANZ, I could see that adopting such measures requires a cultural transformation within the organisation itself. It is certainly not an easy task to change the mindset of management which traditionally view the success or failure of an organisation based on its financial health. The case study however demonstrates the possibilities by realigning its company’s mission statement and values which its operation is based upon.

I think the key points to remember from this week's readings were the importance of internal communication which translates into tangible benefits for the firm. The move towards corporate governance could be mutually beneficial for both the public and the organisation. The manner in which organisation choose to carry out this relations may varied but ultimately requires a paradigm shift from employing financial data as a yardstick for success to deploying other measurements–one which accounts public sentiments and employee relations as important components for the organisation.