Week 4

I think the key points to remember from this week’s readings were:

• The main purpose of internal communication is about influencing or changing the behaviour of employees to match the objectives of the organization. A good communicator must realise that “information can travel over wires (but) communication happens between the ears”. For this reason professional internal communicators should be involved in monitoring and managing factors that will influence peoples experiences and hence behaviour.
• For an organization to achieve its objectives it is important that employees be satisfied with there work environment. Employee satisfaction can result from communicating not only the requirements of the job and goals of the organization, but also providing feedback and recognition for their contributions. The communicating of this information has been found to be generally most effective when done face to face and by somebody of authority within the organization. However it is important to involve all members of the organization in the process of communicating.

The readings made me think more about public relations theory/practice in that:

It made me realise the importance of a variety of different communication mediums. Whilst the use of non-verbal communication mediums (such as email, SMS, and in the case of P.R students, blogs) is becoming ‘the norm’, communicating face to face may be the best means of conveying a message.

Furthermore, regarding P.R practice, I have become aware that a practitioner must have the ability to communicate with a wide variety of different people both inside and outside an organization. They must also communicate in a way that will maximise employee satisfaction, which ultimately leads to a better chance of achieving objectives.

From the Insider Info readings, I learnt that public relations practice is not a restricted profession. There are a wide variety of jobs available in the field and the career opportunities are ever changing.