Acquisition of talents and its daunting challenge in PR Industry
By Seun Johnson
Just like any other profession, the issue of talents acquisition and retention has remained a major challenge in the Public Relations(PR) industry. Undoubtedly, the PR industry has always been at the receiving end when it comes to retention of its many talented staff.
Almost too often, many young professionals in the PR sector leave the industry in search of better opportunities while the greenhorns who are expected to fill the gap are unwilling to take a shot at the practice.
Like every other career in the Media and Communication sector, PR is one profession that entails intellectual engagement, intensive reasoning and critical thinking to stand taller among peers. It is an industry where writing is a passion. To be a successful PR practitioner, it is either you are there or you are somewhere else.
To say that the industry is currently groaning under the burden of acquiring talents is an understatement. As a matter of fact, PR veterans are sadly worried and gravely disturbed with the constant exit of talents from the profession.
According to research, the rough path to talents acquisition in PR industry actually began at the higher institution where many students of Mass Communication will rather look forward to being television or radio presenters than to practice PR where they will need to engage in brief writing and stretch their professional skills.
Equally, many Nigerian institutions do not have the requisite facilities to train, equip and motivate students to develop and build a career in the field at the end of their academic years, regardless of having PR and Communication as one of core courses in the universities or polytechnics.
In other words, the creation of awareness and sensitization of Mass Communication students about the offerings of PR profession is at a low ebb.
This has really created a big setback for the profession in talents hunting and acquisition.
While the haunt for talents acquisition has become endless, retaining the already acquired ones has also constituted a major clog for many PR firms in Nigeria.
With the high cost of doing business in the country, most PR firms struggle to meet the standard renumeration that will retain the good hands in the industry, which ,consequently, leads to their exit for better opportunities.
Deeply concerned by this development, Laura Oloyede, General Manager and Chief Operating Officer, Mediacraft Associates, attributed the cause to perceived value from two stakeholders- Client and Internal audience.
“From an angle of what I call perceived value from two stakeholders- Clients and Internal Audience (Staff) “Client- if you look at the entire integrated marketing communication, you have advertising, media buying and the rest. The perceived value is out there and that is why you will see a client allocates 70% of their budget on this other aspects of integrated marketing communication. And they struggle to inject 30% on PR. Why? -Perceived Value.
“Gradually, this knowledge seeps from the client to the agency, from the agency to the client and it is affecting retention of talents. In my 25 years experience in Integrated Marketing Communication, I have always seen the younger ones on agency side running to the client side. Why? Perceived Value. This has ultimately affected talents retention. There is a lot of work to do. Yes, it’s general but in this industry, we have a lot of work to do to attract and retain the talents required.” Oloyede added.
Corroborating Oloyede’s views, Martha Okpeke, an Account Manager with Mediacraft, identified Japa syndrome and unwillingness of most students to practise PR because of the discipline it entails.
In her words:”Talents acquisition and retention has become an issue globally. In Nigeria, we have this Japa syndrome and that has affected the PR industry too. So we are faced with this situation. What are we doing to manage the situation?
“We have even students who are not ready to practice PR because it requires a lot of discipline. I wasn’t trained as a PR person and l like PR. PR is a vocation that gives me the leverage to know something about everything. If people run away from that, it baffles me.
“You meet students these days who are studying Mass communication and they tell you they are not interested in PR. They want to do broadcasting and appear on TV. They say PR needs you to write. That is not all PR is about . Writing is a skill that makes you get more than what you get from PR.
“PR empowers you to grow everywhere. It becomes worrisome when people run away from it.”
If the above submission is anything to go by, it is certain there is more to do by both the Nigeria’s institutions of higher learning and PR firms in talents acquisition and retention.
While the institutions need to do more in creating more awareness for students of Mass Communication about the profitability of PR as a vocation, organizations should do all within their power to motivate, incentivise and reward their employees appropriately to stand a chance of retaining them and save the industry from the looming dearth of talents.
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