Employee Relation and CSR

Employee Relations is "The maintenance of employee/employer relationships that contribute to satisfactory productivity, motivate employees and ensure healthy employee morale.  This is generally the representation of an organization's management to inform or motivate employees through training, award programs, rewards, internal communications, or other events. 

For many companies communicating regularly with employees is important in keeping employees informed of corporate programs, sales incentives, personnel issues, as well as keeping them updated on new products and programs. Companies use a variety of means to communicate with employees, including Intranet, email, online and print newsletters. In larger firms an in-house PR department often works in conjunction with the Human Resources Department to develop employee communications.

Employee Relations is one of the function of PR in a Company.Recently, many companies are developing their employee relations plans to help increase the morale and productivities of their Employee. There are several factor that can influences employees  morale and productivities (Fujita and Miura, 2009) :

1. Understanding - Employee must understand the all aspect of the company and in turn, the leaders of the company must have a good understanding of their employee. In this case, a PR can be a mediator.
2. Apreciation & Recognition - People often leave an employer because they have not received the recognition they want, or feedback on how they are doing. One of the way to communicate appreciation to your employee is through a regular internal newsletter or special event.
3. Involvment - Many individuals want to feel the essensial to the success of their company and in order to do so, they should feel free to make suggestions to their managers. Not only giving suggestions or idea. The employee involvment to the company program is also important. 
4. Compensation - Employee need to feel they well compensated, which means having salary and benefits consistent with or better than other people doing similar place.
5. Management Loyalty - Manager must treat employees as they would expect to be treated, and they must lead by wxample.
6. Work Environtment - Employee are happier and more productive when the physical location of their workplace is clean, comfortable and pleasant.
7. Social Responsibility - People judge firms from their philosophy and level of customer service, their involvment in community activities, and their commitment to moral, environmental and even political issues. Nowadays, employees are concerned about wheter the values of the company for which they work are compatible with their personal viewpoints. 

From the factors below, we can conclude that Employee Relations are very important for the company. And on of the factors that could affect the employees is Social Responsibility.

EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT IN CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) frequently evokes thoughts of the environtment, engaging with social community and shareholders, and issues ranging from pollution to fairness and ethics. Employee are frequently engaged in delivering project or working in partnership with others to help their local community. Nowadays, the recognition and the imperative need for increasing employee engagement has raised. CSR initiatives are not any different. The company may chart out a policy, draw up a plan, and invest funds, but it needs complete endorsement and active participation by employees to carry it forward and implement it as perceived.

Employees are among the key stakeholders for any of the CSR strategy or program. The critical first step in the mission, vision, values and strategy development is to understand the key concerns, priorities, and perspective of all key stakeholders, particularly employees. Employees who were consulted and engaged in the development of new programs and approaches are likelier to follow through with their implementation. Many companies or organizations consult and engage their employees in the development and like mentioned before, delivered to their community involvement and charitable donations programs. 

It is expected that as CSR becomes an acknowledged component of employee engagement and therefore driver of business value,CSR alignment will become a more critical tool for fostering corporate success over time. Nowadays, the CSR program has been proved to impact the employee engagement. It is a key driver of shareholder value in a firm and is becoming a key metric for monitoring corporate performance by Board and management. The level of employee engagement are evolving to several levels (Melcrum, 2006): 

• “I’m aware of the message” -  in which employees are familiar with the CSR strategy and how it helps the company meet its objectives
• “I understand the message” - wherein employees learn the reasons behind the company’sCSR objectives and begin to understand their role in making the company successful. 
• “I believe” - where employees feel conviction towards the company’s CSR values and objectives.
• “I am committed to act” -  Those employees who are and feel their basic job needs are being met and who achieve this level, will be inspired to act in ways that help the company reach its goals.

This is employee CSR engagement at the most engaged level – employees helped to align their total work experience with their community and home values become highly engaged, motivated and loyal employees. 

In addition to ensuring employees are included in key decisions, an employee CSR involvement and participation program can help develop the employee value proposition that can foster retention and enhance recruitment.  It is important not to miss this step as organizations that fail to engage their employees in key decisions and in their CSR embedment will generate low employee engagement resulting in employees that either quit and leave or quit and stay.

Sources:

Melcrum, Employee Engagement. 2006. Melcrum Publishing. (in http://www.ic.gc.ca) Access: Oct, 2012

Vembu, Renuka. Article: Engaging Employee in CSR. 2001. Indian Express Newspapper. (in http://www.expresscomputeronline.com) Access: Oct, 2012

http://www.managementstudyguide.com Access: Oct, 2012

Fujita and Miura, Blog Article: Get Great Employee Relations. 2009. in http://www.yourpubliciswaiting.com Access: Oct, 2012

Community Relation

As we speak about Corporate Social Responsibility Program, automatically we also talking about Community Relations. There is a reason for this statement, CSR is closed to the community especially for Public around the company environment. There are a lot of CSR programs made for community. 

Building local community relationships can be the most important communication activity undertaken by an organisation, yet it is often overlooked. Community relations refers to the various methods companies use to establish and maintain a mutually beneficial relationship with the communities in which they operate. The underlying principal of community relations is that when a company accepts its civic responsibility and takes an active interest in the well-being of its community, then it gains a number of long-term benefits in terms of community support, loyalty, and good will.

There are several activities can be used as a tool with an effective communication strategy and PR plan, can be highly effective in raising awareness of your business within your community:

1. Media relations

• In a community relations program, it is very important to build relationships with key journalists from the local media outlets. By doing this, you have an already established rapport with them which could be of a huge benefit in times of crisis.

      2. Sponsorship

• This could mean, for example, sponsoring a local event (community day or fair), donating new sports equipment to the local soccer club or donating a prize to the local schools speech night. This type of sponsorship is reasonably inexpensive yet can be capitalised on to make a great local newspaper story.

     3. Business and community groups

• An increased involvement in key business groups should also be introduced as part of the promotional activities. This involvement will help create visibility of your organisation within a business and community audience, therefore increasing the chances of developing strategic partnerships with other local businesses and groups. There could also be an opportunity for cross promotion in the business groups' members' newsletters, publications or website. 

From those activity, as a PR we must get involve in it.

What is The Differences between CSR and Community Relations?

Community relations is a PR (Public Relations) function, which means it's essentially marketing the company to the community it operates in. Social responsibility has nothing to do with marketing (not that it can't or won't be marketed and used by a company seeking to enhance its community relations). CSR is about doing things that actually make the community better or at the least don't harm society, such as environmentally friendly products, cleaning up any toxic pollution the company produces, or contributing to schools.

Types of Community Relations Program is various. According to Norman R. Soderberg in his book Public Relations for the Entrepreneur and the Growing Business, small businesses can become involved in their communities in any number of ways. Some recommended routes toward increasing community involvement include: taking an active interest in community problems; sponsoring youth activities; participating in local government; joining business and service groups; purchasing materials and supplies from local companies; encouraging community education and culture; making offices or other facilities available to community organizations; supporting local charity drives; and taking part in civic activities. 

Soderberg stresses that for a small business, community relations should involve more than just an annual contribution to the United Way. Instead, the small business owner should become personally involved in the effort, and should encourage employees to participate as well. A company's employees should try to represent it well in all their interactions—from practicing good manners on the road while driving company vehicles to treating customers and even visiting salespeople with courtesy. In order to motivate employees to be good company representatives, small business owners should take whatever steps are needed to boost morale. These might include maintaining an open-door policy, setting up a complaint box, or recognizing employees who are helping the community.

Corporate Social Responsibility and Public Relations

There is no universal definition of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), because the concept is always being redefined to serve changing needs and times. It is up to each company individually to define the values and principles it stands for. The fundamental of CSR remain the same everywhere, different emphases are found in different parts of the world. The issues vary in nature and importance from industry to industry and location to location. 

The concept of Corporate Social Responsibility means that organizations have moral, ethical, and philanthropic responsibilities in addition to their responsibilities to earn a fair return for investors and comply with the law. CSR is related to business ethic, but it is not identical. While CSR encompasses the economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary responsibilities of organizations, business ethics usually focuses on the moral judgments and behavior of individuals and groups within organizations. 

There are eight-step program for CSR Issues Management (Ogilvy PR, 2012):

• Identification: What issues could arise either because of the client's industry or its scale?
• Prioritization/classification: Which of these issues could cause significant damage to the client's reputation or business operations if not managed effectively?
• Monitoring: How is this issue evolving, on a monthly or even daily basis?
• Preparation: How can we anticipate the course of this evolution and devise an action plan?
• Action to influence issue: What steps can we take to change the course of an issue's progression?
• Issue/crisis response: If the issue developed into a crisis that threatened the company's ability to conduct business, how would we react?
• Evaluation: Did we respond effectively to the issue, preventing its emergence as a crisis? What lessons were learned?
• Re-classification: Has the issue lessened in severity over time? Is it still a concern moving forward?

If we look further, there will be a question "What is the relationship between CSR and Public Relations?"

We can answer this question in short : CSR is a blessing for PR but also a curse for PR. It is a matter of which come first and what is the intention. 

Public Relations is vehicle for a company. If the CSR program done properly, PR could show the progress of they are making, or what the world may not know about them. Done improperly, PR is publishing the "sins" of the company to the public. True CSR guides the company away from making the “sins” or mitigating them in the first place.

Company who do not understand CSR is about business sustainability as much as social program, often make the mistake of CSR a marketing of PR program/problems. PR should lightly handle CSR initiatives until the CSR program has momentum and there is something to actually celenbrate and brag about. In CSR, it is not good for PR to celebrate decency and expected behavior. PR should let the public know about the existence of the CSR program, there will be a report, and some of the program are under development, or highlight historical CSR efforts. But the report on the activities is not out of proportion to the other activities of the company.

CSR program takes time to mature and years to yield significant, sustainable result though quite often are substantial change that occur the first year. The true test of sustainability and a company committed to CSR is history of improvement and performance. Unfortunately these initial documents tend to be fodder for PR and Marketing departments, which in their need for short term results and fantastic figures tend to overstate or understate the findings as they try to make the company look good. In CSR, however, the proof is in the year-to-year changes, the response from stakeholders, the integrity of the companies actions and words (Rochte, 2009)

CSR is about smart business practices. It is about constant improvement and integrity. PR is about reporting on the events as they occur or showcasing a history of events and trending. The danger is when the showcasing precedes the actual work.

The foundation of the relationship between an organization and its various publics depends upon whether that organization behaves responsibly. If it does, then its relationships will have a solid foundation; if it does not, those relationships will be incredibly difficult to sustain. I’d go so far as to suggest that an organization can’t have good PR without good CSR.

CSR benefits for a company is because it leads to improved relationships with many publics: employees are more motivated because the company has a purpose beyond the enrichment of shareholders and senior executives; customers are more loyal because they see an organization that shares their values; legislators and regulators are more favorably disposed because they see an organization contributing to the greater good; and so on.

In a well-run organization, CSR and PR are symbiotic, inseparable. In a company that’s truly committed to both, they’re synonymous (Holmes, 2011)

Source:

Goodwin, Felicity W. and Bartlett, Jennifer L. (2008) Public Relations and 

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) - Working Paper.

Holmes, Paul. (2011) PR and CSR: symbiotic, inseparable, and synonymous - Blog Article (http://blog.holmesreport.com) access: Oct, 2012

Rohce, Mattew. 2009. (http://www.opportunitysustainability.com) Access: Oct, 2012

http://www.ogilvypr.com Access: Oct, 2012

Defining Problems: The Key to Solve Issue

Sometimes, we often see problems as a simple things and easy to solve, but actually many problems/ issue needs deeper thought. They may contain more complex factors that need resolving and defining. One way to cut to the core of the problem or issue is to clearly define it as a problem statement. The problem statement should refer to the main likely impact on your organization, including possible impact on your corporate reputation or ability to continue operating, as well as on your financial standing (Harrison, 2005).

From the sight of PR, fact finding and defining problems are the very first important step to encounter issues. Issues are possible to evolve through five stages lifecycle: early, emerging, current, crisis and dormant (Dougall,2008). As the issues moves through the first four steps, it will started to attract public attentions and become more difficult for the company to manage the issues. If a company or organization issue management process are able to detect issues in the earliest stages, more response choices are available for the decision makers. As the issue matures, position of the issue become more entrenched and more stakeholders, publics and other influencers expands and the option for the issue handling are shrinking.

Ask the basic 5W + 1H questions (Why, What, When, Where, Who, How) to defining problems. Or you can do a research by asking people some questions relating to the issue or develop questions to yourself while analyzing data. 

In trying to defining problems, avoid laying the blame on individual or groups, it will make the situation get worse. Fault finding invariably provokes people’s defense mechanisms, resulting in defensive and antagonistic attitudes. It is also important to pay attention to people who affected by the issues - issues may arise because it created impact to someone. For example, who gets the most impact of the issue, that is the one whom we must give attentions the most - or issue might evolved more complex. Having issues evolved, it will affect the company image. People may think that the company are having no compatibility to manage problems, public trust started to diminish, and it is also possible for the company to stop operating. 

You may feel the problem is simple and obvious, and it may well be, but quite often problems prove to be complex, with several interrelated causes, and so you will want to ensure you have got to its core. If you are dealing with an interdepartmental committee, you may find that the committee members own views are colored by the way the problem affects their area (where they stand depends on where they sit!), and therefore it is important to reach agreement on the core problem. The answers to the key questions will enable you to succinctly summarize the main facts of the problem in a sentence or short paragraph. Write or type your summary because the act of turning it into words on paper helps to clarify your thoughts and the thoughts of the people who have briefed you. Ensure your problem summary or statement is written objectively. Don’t get drawn into offering initial thoughts about the solution until you have learned enough facts to do so confidently. At the least, you can say they are only your initial, tentative thoughts and that you need to do some more preparation before you can develop goals, objectives and recommended action (Harrison, 2005).

Sources:

1. http://www.instituteforpr.org

2. http://www.cuttingedgepr.com

PUBLIC and PR

Publik merupakan himpunan atau kumpulan orang-orang dan lembaga atau organisasi yang berkepentingan serta berada di sekitar badan atau perusahaan dimana organisasi itu berada (Suhandang, 2004: 32).

John Dewey, dalam Effendy (1992), mendefinisikan publik sebagai sekelompok orang yang bersama-sama dipengaruhi olehsuatu kegiatan atau gagasan khusus. Cutlip dan Center menyebut bahwa publik merupakan sebuah kata benda kolektif bagi suatu kelompok- sekelompok orang yang sams-sama terikat oleh suatu kepentingan yang sama dan menunjukkna perasaan yang sama (dalam Soemirat, 2004: 105).

Publik dalam PR biasanya dikategorikan menjadi publik internal dan publik eksternal. 

Publik internal adalah publik yang berada di dalam lingkungan organisasi, seperti karyawan, manajer, dan pemegang saham. 

Sedangkan pubik eksternal adalah publik yang berada di luar lingkungan organisasi, seperti lembaga pemerintah, pelanggan, pemasok, bank, media/ pers, dan komunitas. Namun baik publik yang berada di dalam maupun di luar organisasi, sama-sama mempengaruhi ataupun dipengaruhi oleh kegiatan organisasi (Iriantara, 2004: 8). 

Publik dapat dibedakan menjadi 7 golongan berdasarkan kepentingannya masing-masin (Soemirat, 2004: 16). 

Publik tersebut adalah:

-     Masyarakat sekitarnya : tipe masyarakat di dalamnya aka n bergantung dari macam usaha yang  ada. Hal yang perlu diingat adalah bermula dengan lingkungan terdekat yang digarap dengan baik sebagai langkah awal yang positif. PR Begins on the doorstep.

-       Karyawan perusahaan: disini akan terlihat banyak ragamnya ditinjau dari kedudukan, masalah-masalah status ekonomi, usia, dan karakteristik demografis lainnya.

-       Pers, radio, televisi: pers dapat dibagi dalam pers nasional, regional, lokal, dagang, dan profesional.

-       Konsumen dan pemasok: di sektor tertentu pemasok dan pelanggan tergantung satu sama lain.

-       Investor: kelompok pemegang sahampun sangat berbeda. Kadangkala sebuah perusahaan besar membagi investor menjadi beberapa kelompok dan mengembangkan cara berkomunikasi dengan setiap kelompok. Hubungan baik dengan investor dapat menghasilkan imbalan yang menguntungkan dalam bentuk modal pinjaman untuk membiayai proyek-proyek besar. Meningkatnya perhatian pemegang saham dapat mendukung reputasi perusahaan dan meningkatkan kepercayaan. masyarakat.

-       Distributor adalah suatu publik yang pekerjaannya menangani barang-barang konsumen dalam partai besar dan hadir diantara pembuat barang dan para pembelinya.

-       Pemuka pendapat (opinion leader): siapa saja yang dapat mengajukan pendapatnya yang dapat membantu usaha itu sendiri berkembang atau justru merusaknya.

Dalam prakteknya, seorang PR yang baik harus mampu membina hubungan yang baik terhadap masung-masing publiknya. Untuk itu diperlukan adanya strategi dan pendekatan kepada publik sesuai dengan kepentingan nya masing2. 

sumber: http://repository.usu.ac.id/bitstream/123456789/16248/3/Chapter%20II.pdf

(For my Class) Kuliah 1 dan tugas

This post is my presentation about "Public Relation" Management.

In general, there are Four steps of Public Relations Management:

     1. Fact finding and defining problems. (Analysist)

     2. Planning and programming (Strategy)

     3. Taking actions and communications (Implementation)

     4. Evaluation (Assesment)

To conduct a case study, the PR management process will be used to simplify the case analysist. 

The detail of each process will posted next week. :)) 

INTRODUCTIONS

Hi...

my name is Dias P. I am a Bachelor of Communications from Universitas Pembangunan Nasional "Veteran" Yogyakarta, Indonesia. I work as a Junior Lecturer/ Well.. this is my second blog actually. My first one is talking about my life in general (which is a little bit unnecessary).

In this second blog i will try to share some knowledge i've got from my collage. and of course, some of my post will inform about tasks for my students and also some teaching material.

If there's any correction or suggestion for my blog.. It will be my pleasure to use it as my correction. And hopefully this blog will be usefull...

Thank you,
Dyiidee