Mrs Elaine Sam Kwami (left) and Mrs Adiki Ofeibea Ayitevie

Corporate communications and public relations: Differences and the pitfalls

Emmanuel Bruce Opinion Jun - 22 - 2015 , 23:07

They both necessitate that you excel in fundamental communication skills, speaking, writing, and an educated and innate ability to know what critical information needs to go to the people who need it, and when they need it.

However, in recent times, there have been issues about what public relations is about, who qualifies to speak for the government, political party or corporate organisation, the key steps involved in managing a crisis, and what happens when different officials contradict each other.

It is against this background that the weekly motivational radio talk show on Joy FM, Springboard, Your Virtual University, dedicated the seventh session of its new series on entrepreneurship and business growth to discussing the topic: “Corporate communications and public relations.”

The show, hosted by Reverend Albert Ocran, brought together two resource persons, the Senior Director, Communications and External Relations at Newmont Africa, Mrs Adiki Ofeibea Ayitevie, and the President of the Ghana Institute of Public Relations, Mrs Elaine Sam Kwami, who both educated listeners on what corporate communications and public relations entailed.

PR versus talking

Mrs Sam Kwami noted that there was a disconnect between various organisations and their audience, explaining that the complaints and dissatisfaction being expressed by people tells communication is not going the way it ought to.

She said the messages and ideas of organisations were getting lost or misunderstood due to poor communication approaches.
Mrs Ofeibea Ayitevie, for her part, said organisations often underrated the need for professionals in the public relations field, stating that PR involved more than just talking.

She said PR was about understanding what stakeholder’s needed and were interested in, what the issues were and how to address them as well as understanding the organisation's operational structure and objectives.

“It’s not just about addressing the issues in a vacuum. It should come with an informed opinion and message,” she said.
Mrs Sam Kwami also advised PR practitioners not to make big business decisions when emotional, happy, sad or angry.
She said this was because the individual was not stable when in any of these moods, hence any decision he/she takes will not be stable as well.

“In PR, however, whatever decision you take must be enduring because if you make one commitment and you do not achieve it, you undermine your own credibility and after some time, nobody will take you seriously again,” she explained.

Is PR the same as corporate communications?

Commenting on whether or not PR was the same as corporate communications, Mrs Sam Kwami explained to avoid confusion, organisations must define their communication roles and name them appropriately.

“Public relations is a management function, which evaluates public attitudes and identifies the policies of an organisation with the public interest and it plans and executes a programme of action to earn public acceptance,” she stated.

Mrs Ofeibea Ayitevie on the other hand saw PR as the umbrella title but said if the practitioner was operating from a corporate point of view, people would prefer to call it corporate communications.

She said both PR and corporate communications played the same roles as they were both management functions that aimed at building beneficial relationships between the organisation and its stakeholders.

PR practitioners as spin doctors

Mrs Sam Kwami said spin-doctoring had no place in PR, stating that if the truth was compromised, then there would not be PR at all.
“Spin doctors will always remain spin doctors but not PR practitioners,” she emphasised.

Mrs Ofeibea Ayitevie also shared the same opinion, explaining that PR was a strategic function and if there was an issue, the PR practitioner needed to understand what caused it and tell the stakeholders the truth.

“Your stakeholders out there want you to accept there has been an error so you have to admit and tell them the measures you have put in place to solve the problem,” she said.

“You can’t hide the truth. You can polish it but after a while, it will come out and it will rather damage your reputation,” she added.

Predicting public reaction

Mrs Ofeibea Ayitevie said a good PR practitioner should be able to predict public reaction by trying to find out the people who would be affected by the decision the organisation was about to take.

She said the practitioner must put himself/herself in the shoes of the affected public and see how he/she would have reacted.
“Stakeholders will either be affected or interested in your decision, so it is critical you identify all of them and go through the issues with them, and also take their opinions,” she explained.

Using the recent Ebola clinical testing and the increase in insurance premiums as examples, Mrs Sam Kwami said the respective organisations responsible for the two endeavours failed to do good PR work and that resulted in the public outcry.

She said in coming out with decisions, organisations must always resort to the RACE formula, which she defined as Researching the issue, preparing an Action plan, Communicating to the various stakeholders to get their inputs and Evaluating the outcomes.

Relationship between CEO and the PR person

Mrs Ofeibea Ayitevie said it was important for a PR manager or corporate communicator to have a good relationship with his/her Chief Executive Officer (CEO), President or flag bearer.

“It is your role as a PR practitioner to help the company or organisation build a good relationship with its stakeholders. The CEO, President, or flag bearer is the leader of the organisation and your role is to help them, hence it’s necessary to have a good relationship with them,” she said.

“If you don’t get on well with someone, how can the two of you communicate effectively?” she asked.

Impact of social media on corporate communication

Mrs Ofeibea Ayitevie said social media had changed the way people communicated as lots of people go online to check happenings around them using their smartphones.

She pointed out that the way people consumed information had changed and was, therefore, critical for a PR practitioner to know how social media works and use it as a tool.

Mrs Sam Kwami, , urged organisations to offer total communication. She said communication, from planning stage to execution, must be made on a constant basis in order to avoid crisis.

“Shelve the information and it will come back to hunt you,” she added. –GB