Earlier this month, we shared a blog about remote work and travel. Here, PR Manager Hari Rajagopalan shares some photos of some of the interesting food and sights he saw while working in India this year.
A stuffed, pesto marinated paneer steak with onions and spices on a bed of roasted potatoes and arrabbiata sauce.
A view of a restaurant center in Bengaluru, India.
An Indian take on a deep-dish pizza with veggies and a burrata bomb on top.
A view of nearby buildings and nature in Bengaluru, India.
A quattro formaggi pizza with an Indian twist, with a range of spices included.
We live in a TikTok world with countless Americans (me included) drawn to dramatic online videos of real-life joy and sorrow. How many of us have turned to our phones to watch one brief-but-compelling video, only to find 10 minutes or more have passed as we watch video after video? And those videos filled with relatable, emotional moments, are often the most compelling.
In 2018, Melanie Sanchez was recorded at her college graduation taking a cell phone call from an employer offering her a job. The video went viral, and we all shared in Melanie’s joy. One of my favorites was from about 10 years ago. Marina Shifrin posted an interpretive dance resignation video for her employer. It was fun, with a bit of dark humor, and showcased her creativity in the process. The video went viral. Marina hit the talk-show circuit and even landed a book deal.
Of course, there are also heartbreaking videos. Brittany Pietsch made headlines a few months ago when she recorded her Cloudflare layoff-via-video, showing us the dark underbelly of not only remote work but also how poorly some employers plan these challenging discussions. There are too many examples like Brittany’s, and not enough of those like Melanie.
For employers, however, there are lessons to be learned as we continue to break new ground in a world of hybrid and remote workers. The biggest lesson from a communications perspective is to be human and humane in these discussions of hiring and firing.
When Hiring
Check the Tech: Before you dive into the conversation, make sure the technology platform you’re using works for all parties. Shaky or delayed connections create misunderstandings and frustration. Don’t proceed if the tech fails or is of such poor quality that the messaging you wish to convey is at risk. This step applies to both the hiring and the firing process.
Be in the Moment: Video meetings are part of the new normal of workplace cultures. Treat them like in-person meetings. Greet the candidate and be warm and conversational. Work to maintain a high level of eye-contact by looking at the camera when speaking and listening.
Set Expectations and Don’t Let Suspense Linger: Be transparent about your process upfront. Outline the steps in that process and your approximate timeline clearly. And if you are calling to offer the position to the candidate, be upfront rather than leaving them waiting to know if they have been selected. No one needs to be on pins and needles across an entire conversation waiting for the big reveal at the end.
Record with Consent: If you plan to record the interview to share with colleagues or even for your own internal review, ask for the candidate’s consent first. Show respect for their privacy. And remember, in some states and jurisdictions, it is illegal to record someone without their consent. Parties who break these laws can face serious legal consequences.
When Firing
Privacy First: In addition to checking the tech as noted above, privacy is critical. This is a devastating moment for the employee being released from your employ. Both you and the employee should be in a private setting.
Be Empathetic: Job loss ranks alongside death and divorce as a major life stressor. Demonstrate kindness and empathy as best possible. Acknowledge the hurt and distress of the moment.
Be Direct: Clearly communicate the decision to end the person’s employment without mincing words. However, be kind in the process. Avoid jargon or corporate speak; simply act like a human and treat the person with respect.
Provide Resources: Your human resource representative should join the employee’s manager or supervisor on the call. The manager or supervisor – someone who knows the employee and his or her work product – is there to discuss the decision and provide feedback, while the HR rep should explain any severance package, unemployment benefits, health insurance options (if applicable) and any other services the organization plans to offer following separation. At all times, the employer should be respectful and be sure to truly hear the employee while still keeping the call focused and brief.
As employers continue to hire digital natives, the likelihood of a business matter like hiring or firing becoming click-bait for the rest of us rises exponentially. Millennials and GenZ are the first truly digital generations whose lives online are rarely separate from their offline experiences. So, employers would serve themselves well to consider those hiring phone or Zoom calls or the difficult layoff discussions via Teams or speakerphone might take on lives of their own online. These discussions could put your organization’s reputation on the line and even threaten your bottom line.
Remember, these discussions have the potential to become tomorrow’s headlines. Plan accordingly.
As we revel in the “Luck of the Irish” this St. Patrick’s Day, we thought we would look at how to get lucky with public relations.
Contrary to some thinking, luck has little to do with landing a good media placement. In fact, a reporter’s connections with journalists is barely a factor. While relationships can be part of getting the right journalist connected with that pot-of-gold placement, its only one of the many components that go into a successful PR campaign.
Unlike that pesky little leprechaun of General Mill’s fame, we’re willing to share the lucky charms we employ to land a good PR placement.
A Recipe for Success
The first step toward a public relations win is twofold: Identifying your key messages and understanding your target audience.
If your key messages double as marketing or sales copy, your luck has run out right from the start. In this world of smaller newsrooms and overworked journalists, language that even hints at self-promoting messaging will be ignored almost immediately. Today’s media climate requires brands to build authentic messaging that informs, educates or solves a significant problem of the outlet’s audiences.
Every company has a product or service to sell. Every nonprofit or charitable organization has a mission to promote. The question is, what does the target audience need? In most cases, it isn’t a sales pitch or information about a product or service that will save them time, money or convenience. Rather, messaging needs to work backward from the audience’s need, educating them on the situation and options, and positioning the brand or nonprofit as a reliable resource. Once you understand your target audiences, you can refine your message to attract the interests of journalists courting those audiences.
Another important component where most brands and organizations come up short is credibility. Public relations is not marketing if only because it is not — and should not be — about sales of products or services. Confusing the two is about as unlucky a step as one can take in business.
We hear from companies all the time that want to issue press releases about a fundraiser or new product or service. If these companies have done the work of building credibility, there are opportunities to be had. That hard work includes making executives available for commentary on industry trends and issues. It includes demonstrating industry knowledge and insight on matters that have nothing to do with the brand or organization’s products or services.
Credibility is built on being responsive and helpful to journalists who reach out seeking quotes, background and general information. This means fostering and maintaining a relationship with the outlets that matter most. Absent these things, a press release from an organization that is not engaged with the outlets and journalists covering that sector of the economy are of little interest to those media professionals. This is the number one reason why one-offs or project work often proves to be difficult.
You can’t buy your way into the Wall Street Journal’s news coverage. However, you can pay for a comprehensive public relations campaign that positions you as a thought leader in your space by showcasing your insights, commentary on industry trends, sharing of best practices and reacting to news of the day. This requires a steady stream of diverse content — owned and earned — across multiple channels to establish credibility and raise your profile as a go-to source for media covering your space. Consistent messaging and a consistent industry presence demonstrate credibility and brand commitment.
Additional Tactics for Good Luck
Thought leadership, the sharing of innovative ideas, insights and opinions — in the form of contributed content, owned content or in-depth media interviews — not only build relationships with media, but they demonstrate that vital credibility media needs to validate you as a source. Contributing to the discourse of your industry or field in this way often results in third-party endorsement by media (because they publish you as a reliable source) that provides reputational fuel, and a bit of luck, for your brand.
Newsjacking provides time-sensitive opportunities to help journalists understand or contextualize breaking news or emerging trends, often in the wake of actions taken by others. This type of media engagement helps determine the next phase of the story and, when done correctly, positions your organization as a trusted source.
Social Media has ebbed and flowed in terms of influence, and some channels are better suited than others to reach certain audiences or carry certain types of messaging. For business professionals and B2B industries, we continue to find value in LinkedIn. Between LinkedIn’s newsletters, live events, self-published articles and regular engagement by and with executives, LinkedIn consistently proves to be a powerful tool to reach key target audiences as well as media professionals searching for and vetting industry sources. Social media continues to be the investment some organizations are reluctant to make but would be lucky to have supporting their mission.
A Lucky Match
Finally, finding the right public relations agency for your business is less about luck than it is judgement. In fact, here’s a little secret: most PR agencies do most of the same things, with the same tools and connect with the same journalists. While many will point to a raft of key differentiators, from our perspective it comes down to one big one: matching personalities.
Public relations is, after all, a relationship-building business. While many of us trained the same way, have similar experiences and employ a range of not-too-dissimilar tactics to achieve our own lucky placements, it comes down to asking with whom you would prefer to work. Do personalities align or clash? Do you truly achieve a meeting of minds in that first meeting or is the pitch for the work simply pandering to your ego? Do you want to be surrounded by those who simply agree with you to please you, or do you want the expertise and insight you will pay for to be offered constructively, candidly and all to serve your best reputational interests? If things go wrong, is the PR pro or team you are considering the same individual or team you want standing by your side to fix it? Has the PR team pitching you on their abilities earned your respect and proven their value?
We advise prospective clients to understand all PR agencies offer similar approaches and resources. Some have deep industry specialties while others are generalists. What should matter in a lucky public relations partnership is the professionals doing the work, their knowledge and understanding of your industry, their track record, their ability to write well, their creativity, trustworthiness and their respect for your organization and its reputation.
Maybe there is a little luck in finding the right PR partnership, but the work itself has nothing to do with luck. It’s about tenacity, credibility, creativity and knowledge. If you find that in your public relations strategy as well as your PR partner, well, that truly is a lucky combination.
Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to work from India where much of my family currently resides. This made for a refreshing shift in day-to-day work, as on any given call, I could be speaking with someone just starting their day while managing a snowstorm outside for example, while in India, the sun would just be setting on another warm day.
While there were challenges, such as navigating the 10.5-hour time difference, the experience allowed me to continue delivering my work to clients while being able to spend quality time with family and friends whom I do not get to see often. This was all possible because of remote work.
Despite the continued return to office push from many businesses, remote work does not appear to be going anywhere anytime soon. Data from Buffer found 98% of workers want to work remotely at least some of the time. According to Upwork, by 2025 approximately 22% of the workforce will be working remotely.
This rethinking of where work happens has become a core component of the future of business because of the flexibility and convenience it offers. While there are some aspects of the in-person experience we may miss, such as the classic water cooler conversations or conference room meetings, that incredible flexibility and convenience found only in the remote work experience tends to make up the difference. In fact, the same study from Buffer determined that remote workers have found it easier to accomplish more focused work, manage stress and avoid common workplace distractions.
At Kimball Hughes Public Relations, we were already set up to work remotely as needed before the pandemic. In our business, you have to be able to work from anywhere, be it the back of a hotel ballroom or your kitchen table. So, when businesses shut down in early 2020, we were prepared. Staying a fully remote company has given our team several opportunities to further develop our professional careers while also pursuing personal endeavors. For me, the best part of a fully remote workplace has been the ability to travel and work concurrently.
Working on the Road
Since our agency transitioned to a virtual environment, I have had the opportunity to work while traveling through different states, countries, time zones and even continents. My laptop joined me while visiting destinations near and far from my homebase in Philadelphia to North Carolina, Massachusetts, Illinois, Florida, California, Mexico, France and India. The flexibility of the remote workplace allowed me to bring my job on the road, working with journalists and leading client Zoom meetings all while experiencing new geographies and cultures and visiting family and friends.
The ability to combine work and travel makes for a more interesting, diverse work-life balance and has served to elevate my engagement with my work. That said, working from the road does require some adjustments. Below are some best practices I recommend considering before attempting to combine business and leisure travel:
Plan Ahead: Several weeks before any travel, compile a list of upcoming and ongoing work projects. Share this list with team members and continue updating the list until the date of departure. Similarly, make sure to keep other team members copied on all client communications. Team members should also be looped in on any client meetings so they can assist in case of any issues. This way, in the event of any technical difficulties, coworkers can jump in and cover as needed.
Consider Time Zones: Time differences can be difficult to manage. Whether it’s a three-hour time difference working from California or 10.5 hours from the family living room in India compared to the location of work colleagues or clients, proper time planning is key to ensuring you don’t miss meetings, deadlines or experience burnout from working different hours. Work with your supervisor ahead of time to develop a schedule that will enable you to enjoy your travels while contributing to your team and completing your work.
Manage Your Time: Managing a longer time difference can be difficult, as your work hours may bleed into the evening, complicating sleep and the time you may like to spend with family, friends or exploring. Proactively building out a schedule can be very helpful. Ahead of my trip to India, I planned out times where I would step away from the computer to go out to dinner, spend time with family, or even just go for a long walk, and communicated these plans with my team. On days where I was particularly exhausted, I also reached out to team members to see if they could cover me on certain projects while I took a quick rest. Open communication and proactive planning can make it much easier to enjoy travel while working.
Have the Right Technology: Traveling internationally can create additional challenges to consider. Ensure you have the right technology and adaptors on hand to continue work. This could include purchasing international data or a local SIM card or reaching out to your contacts at your destinations to confirm they have adequate internet for regular video calls, and more.
The flexibility remote work provides can be invaluable. We can travel, extend trips, and no longer have to choose between asking for time off for a beach trip with friends or a visit to see family. With proper planning, remote work can introduce travel opportunities that can lead not only to an improved work-life balance, but renewed interest in the work you do.
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