Week 3 - Internal and Community Relations

Internal and community relations are oft-neglected and under-utilised facets of public relations practice. However, they have been scrutinised of late and recognised for the enormous potential value they can add to an organisation. Having said that, I surmise that the key points to remember from this week's readings are that social responsibility and and strong internal relations are vital to an effective public relations programme, and that they are not necessarily at odds with an organisation's profit margin and economic objectives. I shall now examine these two components in turn for a better understanding of their intrinsic worth to public relations practitioners.

Internal public relations involve building and maintaining positive relations with internal publics such as employees and association's members. This can be achieved by generally being inclusive and open about company policy and goals, as well as emphasizing the employees' roles in the larger scheme of things. Companies can communicate with their employees through newsletters, noticeboards and memos. I recall my national service days, in which I was the writer for my camp's newsletter, with some degree of fondness, and can attest to the sense of pride engendered by my fellow servicemen in seeing their pictures and hard work acknowledged in print. The idea is to nurture a sense of ownership in the employees, so that they remain loyal and satisfied with their work lives. Studies has demonstrated a positive correlation between employee satisfaction and profitability. Moreover, building good internal relations helps an organisation to retain their pool of skilled talent.

The same basic principles also apply to community relations, which entail engaging with their target communities and starting a two-way relationship in which external publics can participate and play a part in decisions that may affect the community at large. Some initiatives to achieve these aims include consultation programmes and joint community projects. A good example that comes to mind is the Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund, an ongoing fund-raising effort aimed at raising awareness of impoverished children. Such community relations programmes, if undertaken with sincerity, can go a long way towards raising the profile of the company - which translates into long term economic and strategic gain.

As discussed above, internal and community relations can enhance the company's productivity and public image respectively. Organisations must realise that genuine two-way relationships with their external and internal publics is the way to go in today's world. This leads me to think more about public relations theory and practice in that Grunig and Hunt's two-way symmetric model might be an advantageous framework to look at when formulating public relations campaigns. Organisations aspiring to cultivate intellectual capital and social responsibility would do well to examine the two-way symmetric model, to ascertain which aspects of this approach to public relations may be applicable to their particular working environment.