PR people need seat at boardroom table

BoardroomTalk
Ropa Gwanetsa

Reputation is vital to the overall health of any business. Gone are the days when trust and credibility came with age, today reputation is earned and demands a 24/7 attention. It begins with brand experience, which is just one aspect of the reputation mix. Many professionals in the industry are doing a world class job with campaigns and communication enhancing the business, engaging critical stakeholders that help in ensuring a conducive environment for driving sales and services and in the same vain “market share”. So with all this, why do we don’t have a seat at the board room table

Organisations need to start being more responsive to addressing risks that have a potential reputational impact as the speed of these risks has materially accelerated thanks to social media.

This should not lull corporates into believing that traditional media has lost any grip on reporting. Senior public relations and communications professionals often have a ringside view on issues likely to impact the business and can help manage the risks but this ability is only rarely used to full effect.

We often see most board members being chartered accountants, lawyers and human resources personnel, mainly focusing on business performance and returns to shareholders. In the era we are in, communication has become pivotal in ensuring the potential risks the business is in or might be facing on the consumer front, internal and external stakeholders are known and mitigation risks in place. Improving communications is always building pride and trust. But how do we get a seat at the boardroom table and make organisations realise the power of communication.

1. ROI is key. Time and time again PR practioners have demonstrated their worth and value to the business, but often regarded as a nice to have until a crisis occurs.
2. The responsibility of the business reputation lies with PR and communicators not just with the media, but with all key audiences including politicians, regulators, employees and the local community.

This is exactly why public relations and communications experts should have a seat at the boardroom table. With PR sitting at the centre of a company’s communications activities, it can offer an unsanitised view of how an issue can manifest itself.

There are a few things that we have noted that are critical in ensuring experts to sit on the board: executive and non-executive buy-in PR and communicators are often referred to as “The Fixers”.

Once a problem is fixed it is done, but often oblivious of the fact that we are living in a very fast evolving world.

If the executive and non-executive team does not fully support the communication expert and the role they play in managing wolves, the board room is a tit bit far.

Resource allocation

An expert PR and communications persons needs the proper resources that allow them to advise the board accordingly.

In our research, we noted that resources for PR and communicators is minimal, but the resources required to ensure that the board is adequately informed of the internal and external environment consequences that can affect the performance of the business are huge.

Most boards are focusing on the hard issues, profits, market share, without considering the soft issues.

For companies to be listed in most stock exchanges, even here in Zimbabwe, one of the requirements is the sustainability reporting which focuses on ESG (Environment, Social and Governance), which all fall under Communicators and PR experts.

Effective face-to-face

We all know the power of great face-to-face events, whether large or small. In crisis management, PR, communicators or corporate affairs experts are not hesitant to take matters into their own hands and fix things.

However, the big question out of all this is, “why do we not have PR, communicators or corporate affairs experts sitting at the table, They take the heat and all the intel in making the organisational brand reputable and prove value and move mountains. It is time to break that barrier and challenge boards to have PR, communications or corporate affairs at the table.

Ropa Gwanetsa is a certified professional Director®-Pro.Dir specialising upon governance and strategy, governance and risk, governance and people, governance and board effectiveness, governance and resources, governance culture and behaviour.