A mistake that public relations professionals and/or organisations (and PR researchers/academics?) make too often is ignoring employees when it comes to the application of two-way symmetrical communication. Manifestations of practical outcomes where public relations should be achieving outcomes for employees include them having more control over their work activity, varying tasks, their work being respected and work expectations being clear.

Employer branding is something of a chic sub-section of contemporary branding, yet marketing has yet to get its head around how to leverage PR to achieve a best-possible outcome. Actually, marketing has yet to figure out how to leverage marketing to best effect! But it’s an exciting and incredibly worthwhile dimension of business communication and one where dialogue/conversation/change based on feedback really does have an opportunity to occur.

The value of employer branding is becoming clearer each day as the battle for workplace talent gets increasingly fierce. Australia, for instance, is going through a severe skill shortage crisis in key areas. Yet many organisations are lagging in their thinking and application of employer branding, including how public relations can be incorporated into this quite specific, and generally marketing-aligned, business communication activity.

I have continually witnessed deep levels of engagement by audiences in events that companies run. I see this form of communication being a vital part of marketing, public relations, employee engagement and reward & recognition communication strategies.

In a nutshell, public relations is about creating, enhancing and/or maintaining mutually beneficial relationships between an organisation and its stakeholders. When operating at its optimum level it is less about control than facilitating dialogue and understanding.