Report: New study highlights PR's deficiencies

This is one report card we might not want to hang on the fridge.

The Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations, in conjunction with Heyman Associates, recently surveyed 1,185 PR leaders and managers to get a bead on how well the industry is functioning and highlight where deficiencies exist. Their 2017 Report Card on PR Leaders—which let respondents air grievances and assign grades for leadership performance, job engagement, trust in the organization, work culture and job satisfaction—uncovered a bit of bad wood underneath the veneer.

Notable findings include significant gender differences when it comes to workplace engagement and opportunity, as well as a chasm between workers’ and bosses’ opinions of leadership performance.

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According to the study, women in PR were “less engaged, less satisfied with their jobs, less confident in their work cultures, less trusting of their organizations and more critical of top leaders than men.” Thirty-nine percent of female respondents said they were “not engaged” at work, up from 33.6 percent in 2015.

	Engaged		Not Engaged		Actively Disengaged
Demographic	2017	2015	2017	2015	2017	2015
Total respondents	57.2%	59.7%	35.9%	34.4%	6.8%	6.0%
Male professionals	62.1%	57.9%	32.5%	35.2%	5.4%	6.8%
Female professionals	52.9%	61.3%	39.0%	33.6%	8.1%	5.1%
Top leaders	71.7%	72.3%	24.5%	24.5%	3.8%	3.2%
Non-top leaders (all others)	50.1%	54.2%	41.6%	38.6%	8.3%	7.2%
Males (non-top leaders)	54.7%	52.7%	38.7%	39.6%	6.6%	7.6%
Females (non-top leaders)	46.4%	55.5%	43.9%	37.7%	9.7%	6.8%

In terms of leadership performance, workers gave their head honchos a “C+”, while the bosses deemed themselves “A-” material. Since the same study was conducted in 2015, report card grades in the categories of “job engagement,” “job satisfaction” and “culture of organization” have all slipped.

The study identifies three significant “gaps” in PR that require immediate attention:

1. Gaps between perceptions of top leaders and their employees

2. Gap separating the existing culture and a culture for communication (or the lack of two-way communication and a dearth of diversity)

3. Gaps between perceptions of women and men in the profession

Bill Heyman, CEO and president of Heyman Associates, commented on the findings: “Social tensions in our world today have likely exacerbated these issues. We need to be bigger leaders to close these gaps.”

“Bigger leaders” are certainly welcome, but it may take more than that to cure what ails public relations. Taking concrete steps to bridge the gender gap and giving more diverse voices an influential seat at the table seem like a fine place to start.

As the report states regarding women in PR, “the pay gap is real; the opportunity gap is real; and the being-heard-and-respected-gap is real.” So long as that’s the case, the industry will be stunted.

You can download the full report here.

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