JEDDAH, 29 January 2008 — Successful and thriving internal public relations of any business improve the outside image of the enterprise, which eventually increases profit, public relations (PR) practitioners said.
Saud Al-Mosaibeh, consultant at the Interior Minister’s office, criticizing the public relations deficiencies in the government sector, said “government bodies are falling short of the required PR roles. There’s a low spirit of performance. It’s about time that PR in government sectors follow the country’s direction toward reform.”
Speaking at the Third Public Relations Forum’s “Ethics and Values” yesterday at the Hilton in Jeddah, he also noted that university graduates on public relations with no English proficiency and lacking in skills, qualifications and computer literacy would negatively influence the future of PR industry here.
Abdulaziz Al-Mgoshi, deputy director of cultural and media affairs at Sultan Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud Foundation, said the absence of finances along with trained and qualified cadre lead to poor PR performance.
“Unfortunately, little money is spent on PR although so much is dedicated to the media and marketing. There’s also a lack of cooperation and coordination between departments of the same company and sometimes between marketing and PR departments,” he pointed out.
The Random House Unabridged Dictionary defines public relations as the art, technique, or profession of promoting goodwill between an organization or an individual and the public, employees, customers, etc. The American Heritage Dictionary defines it as “the art or science of establishing and promoting a favorable relationship with the public.”
Jehan Abdulkarim, PR and executive communications manager at Cisco Systems, and Hala Alturki, head of Employees Affairs at KPMG Al-Fozan and Al-Sadhan, shared their experiences and factors that contribute to internal PR for making a positive result. Both stressed the fact that only the image that employees gain from their company can be properly anchored in the public consciousness.
“Employees are always the last to know about their company’s news. The morale of employees and their exposure to company information can play an important part in productivity,” Alturki said. “We use newsletters, letters, postcards, text messages, video conferences, internal campaigns … to increase channels of internal communication between employees.”
Abdulkarim said communicating with staff at all levels and ensuring every member of staff feels part of a thinking team is crucial. She displayed a video of Cisco TelePresence that creates life-like, in person experiences between individuals, businesses and events to stimulate and enhance the process of communication.
“Internal public relations are as important as external PR. the more successful internal communication, the better the company’s outside image,” she said.