PR, marcomms, recruitment and all the bits in between

Diversity

Colin Byrne of Weber Shandwick put the cat amongst the pigeons recently by questioning in a PR Week opinion piece why the PR sector still doesn’t reflect the diversity of British society. And if his analysis is right, the industry may be missing out on a significant pool of talent it can ill afford to ignore. As one of the experts in this field, Abbas Jaffer, head of diversity at investment bank Morgan Stanley, puts it, “No organisation can be complacent about the nature of top talent because the old perception of key people being white, middle class males is being swept away. Brains don’t have a colour and ability is distributed right across the ethnic spectrum.” As in the banking industry, part of the problem may be a failure in communicating to potential new entrants right across the board that PR can provide realistic career options for anyone with talent and application and is not the closed shop it may at first appear. And if a sector that earns its way by communicating can’t do that effectively, you’re left wondering just which one can.

Disadvantages

So they told you that you didn’t get that last promotion because of your account management skills/ your specific experience/a stronger candidate, etc, etc. But could there be more to it than that? A study by the University of Florida suggests that tall people are more successful in life than their shorter counterparts with every extra inch in height being worth £400 in annual salary. Research by Yale university found that 43% of employers and 53% of co-workers discriminate against the overweight, while yet another study came up with the theory that people with the initials ‘A’ and ‘B’ do better than those with the initials ‘C’ and ‘D’ (we assume that if you are called Yvonne Zebadiah you might as well just give up). And if you are a male who is losing his hair, you are also in trouble. A German study found that bald men are only half as likely to get a job as those with luxuriant locks because they are seen as ‘less dynamic’.

Levelling the playing field

Although the PR industry is one of the few areas of the British economy where female directors are actually quite thick on the ground, it seems their counterparts in other industries are dwindling in number. The latest analysis from Cranfield business school of the FTSE 100 has found that the number of women holding executive directorships dropped in 2007 to 13% of the total whilst only 3% of chief executives were female. The Fortune 500 in the USA has only a slightly better record - there some 15% of directors are women. Despite the fact that women now account for 60% of all university graduates in the EU and USA, it’s a sorry fact that relatively few are making it to the boardroom or the partnership table. In Norway, the government decided to tackled this in a radical way by mandating that all pubic companies would need to have at least 40% of their directorships in female hands by the beginning of 2008 or face heavy fines. So has it worked? The short answer seems to be, not really. Given the lack of women already working at senior management level, what are now known in Norwegian business circles as ‘golden skirts’ have ended up with as many as 30 directorships each, leaving us wondering just how effective they can really be in each role. Nice try Norway, but more long-term planning seems to be vital if this solution to a male dominated workplace is ever going to work.

Emails – useful tool or office timewaster?

So apparently, worldwide, we send 196 billion emails a day and the average employee spends up to 2 hours a day dealing with emails. Some firms are also introducing ‘no email days’ to encourage employees to phone each other or talk face to face. OK so maybe we get a bit lazy sending emails across the office asking who wants coffee, and sometimes picking up the phone can be a much more efficient way of doing things. But is it really a “broken business tool”? How else would we send huge documents in the click of a button, communicate with a wide range of people all at once and keep copies of all our conversations? A few extra emails and a bit of amusing spam is a small price to pay for a tool that makes business life a whole lot easier.

Perks under fire

A while back, our old friends at HMRC were cracking down on the self-employed. This time it’s the turn of those on the corporate payroll. Not content with taxing the company car towards the brink of extinction, the government is now considering proposals to tax workers’ parking spaces as a ‘benefit in kind’ (the chair you are currently sitting on will very likely follow before to long), as well as taxing employers for having the effrontery to provide car parking facilities. Of course parking a car in many of our major cities has long been a major challenge, resulting in many employers paying for taxis home when their staff have to work late. Now new guidelines from the Revenue and Customs have shifted this particular perk into the ‘benefit in kind’ box, so expect your tax bill to rise unless you can prove real necessity – and heavy bags, the horrors of much late night public transport or simply being worn out will not count.

Bloggers beware

The joys of blogging and social networking seem to have taken over our modern lives and have created outlets for ordinary people like us to vent our frustrations and let our creative juices flow. But fellow bloggers and networkers, type with caution.

It was only last summer that employees from the well known directory enquiries company were facing the sack after setting up a Facebook group insulting their customers and claiming that amongst other things they had (and I quote) “wrote a few a******* callers’ numbers on the wall of public toilets and pasted them on many an internet site. Haha.” Oops.

Now it has come to light that a mystery civil servant blogger, known only as the “Civil Serf” is likely to face disciplinary action after her attack on the Government (as soon as they find out who she actually is.) She has ridiculed the PM and claimed that politicians are lazy and indecisive, saying “Ministers only take decisions at the weekend (probably) because they have their spouse and/or political adviser to do it for them.”

The lesson we should take from this? Remember that it is a small world out there - but that the virtual world is even smaller! At Hanson towers, we’d advise avoiding disclosing any unfavourable information about your workplace on the World Wide Web. It only takes one person to see it, for it to spread, leading to some uncomfortable conversations with HR and your boss and maybe even costing you your job. Alternatively be very clever and don’t get caught. Bloggers, take note.

Sleep

Or rather the lack of it makes us less able (if not downright dangerous) in the workplace according to sleep expert Dr Neil Stanley of the Norwich University Hospital. Sleep is as important as diet and exercise when it comes to the nation's health,” says Dr Stanley, “but we place no importance on it in our culture. When you are sleep deprived you are putting yourself in a stress situation. In our culture it is socially acceptable to have had no sleep and go into work, even though your ability to function is severely impaired and you could be dangerous.”

The good doctor recommends ‘power napping’ as a way of countering the effects of too little rest. “A 20-minute nap gives you an amazing boost, it's much better than having a coffee,” he says. “Even closing your eyes for 20 minutes is better than nothing, but in the UK it is culturally unacceptable for us to be found napping with our head on the keyboard. However, it's fine to pump yourself with caffeine even though it it's nowhere near as effective.”

Whilst nodding off at work is still largely unacceptable here, across the world in Japan it’s almost mandatory. Know as ‘inemuri’ or ‘to be asleep while present’, the custom is seen as a demonstration of how committed you are to the job (i.e. you are exhausted because you are putting in so many hours for the company). So well regarded is inemuri that many workers apparently fake it even if they aren’t really tired just to impress their bosses. Interesting place Japan. You simply couldn’t make this sort of stuff up.

Work/life balance

Given the fact that we live in the country with some of the longest working hours in the West, it could be argued that the whole concept of work/life balance is a bit misleading, but it’s popularity seems to know no bounds. A new survey from the research firm, Universum, has found that 40% of junior employees (up to eight years’ experience) and 50% of senior ones (with more than eight years) valued flexible working above any other benefit. Work/life balance was also the number one short-term career priority for 43% of the juniors and 60% of the seniors and extra holiday beat performance related bonuses into second place as the most attractive form of compensation for both groups. Perhaps what it all boils down to is that some people don’t to be at work at all.

Fit for purpose

If, like so many of us, you over-did things during the festive season and are looking for ways to get back into shape, here’s some handy tips from Canadian fitness guru John Douwman, also known as ‘Johnny B. Fitt’ (any alarm bells ringing yet?) Douwman says that a little activity at work can help you feel strong and focused all day long. “There's lots of different things you can do,” he helpfully explains. According to him, sitting on a Swiss ball, instead of a chair is a good way to get the blood flowing, loosen the hips, improve posture and strengthen the lower back. “People can just sit on it and bounce a little bit, or they can do pelvis rotations on it.” He goes on to encourage his readers to use the ball and their own body weight for all kinds of strengthening exercises during the day - everything from heel raises (which work the calves) to squats (by standing up at your desk without leaning on it, and sitting down again on the ball). “Now some of the people in the office might think they're a little strange, but once this becomes more and more accepted, more and more people are going to be doing that," says Douwman, optimistically. Why not try this in your office and then let us know how you get on. And when you will be leaving. You simply couldn’t make this stuff up.