How To Stop Your Publicist From Quitting
An image of a publicist about to quit their job in two minutes.
Even though public relations is a field made of mostly women, leadership in top management teams (TMTs) are mostly men with women of color even more disproportionately underrepresented.
A 2018 analysis of federal labor statistics by Harvard Business Review found the public relations industry is 87.9 percent White, 8.3 percent African American, 2.6 percent Asian American, and 5.7 percent Hispanic or Latinx.
These numbers become even more stark in C-Suite. Women make up 70 percent of the entier PR workforce, but represent only 30 percent of agency executives.
Despite the expectation that the United States will become a minority White country in the next 20 to 30 years progress on hiring people of color has been slow. In addition to bias at the executive level, recruiting students from certain colleges and universities creates a mostly White talent pipeline.
Underrepresented students are “less likely to build a professional network in PR, build a strong support group among other public relations students, and experience comfort interacting with other students in the classroom and in extracurricular activities,” according to a 2019 study by the University of Alabama and North Carolina A&T University published in the Journal of Public Relations Education.
If you are part of a DEI committee, consider yourself an ally, or have ever written the words ‘Black Lives Matter’ on a social media post we’ve compiled a list of six actions to make belonging real in public relations so you can stop your publicist from quitting:
1. Create access for financial growth across race and gender with competitive compensation packages, promotions, and raises every year.
2. Narcissistic leaders build toxic environments by hiring people who agree with all of their decisions and enable their abuse. Limit interaction by securing quotes for press releases and interviews in writing.
3. Public relations cannot be successful without access to pertinent information — both good and bad. Silos excluding public relations only open everyone to risk, damage, and distrust.
4. Working in public relations with local, regional, national, and international media means working 24/7, Thirty6five so a traditional 9-5 schedule doesn’t work to effectively manage the media. Instead of measuring public relations efforts within a rigid schedule or micromanaging employees by asking to be CC’d on pitches create a time and method for results to be communicated weekly in a way that works for the PR practitioner so they can remain on the media’s schedule to not miss potential placement opportunities.
5. Support the professional growth of junior publicists with access to the professional development networking group or certification they choose to advance their learning.
6. And last, protect whistleblowers in their efforts to speak up on ethical issues. Publicists are perpetually scanning the enivronment for risk. If they ring the alarm, listen — or risk going down with the ship.