Where Are the Diverse PR Practitioners?

 

 

 

 

 

 

During the last few months I have had occasions to speak to PR students at several Midwestern universities. The young people in these classes embody attributes we all hope are being espoused at the training grounds for PR’s next generation – awareness, focus, and positive direction.

 

Somewhat disturbingly, however, these future practitioners do not truly represent America in this new century. The PR students that I am seeing are almost all Caucasians. There are generally only a handful of African Americans in these classes, and even fewer Hispanics and Asians. Even more disturbing is the fact that the few minorities I have found tell me they likely won’t be joining the profession.

 

At a recent session at which I spoke, of the 100 students in attendance only two were African American. When I talked with them later, the pair admitted they were planning careers not in PR, but in sales – where they think the money is better. At another school, there were a few more African Americans in the audience. But where were these soon-to-be graduates heading? Not PR. The ones I met were planning to move back to their home areas to pursue jobs totally unrelated to their training in public relations.

 

Why aren’t minorities in PR’s classrooms? What careers are minorities choosing instead of PR? And how can the public relations profession lead, or even remain relevant, if its practitioners do not adequately represent a multicultural society that is a one-third minority in the U.S.? 

 

The industry has been asking these questions for about three decades now – an entire generation. But why has this questioning not led to significant change?

 

Corporate America has realized that diversity of thought serves the best interests of the organization and its people. As practitioners, we are expected to craft messages for broad, inclusive audiences. So while corporations have made some progress in this area, agencies continue to struggle with identifying and developing a future generation of diverse professionals. 

 

Just how difficult is it to bring minorities on board in this industry? At large companies, the recruiting department generally puts out the word and minorities apply. With PR agencies, it doesn’t work that way. Faced with pressures of performing their clients’ assignments as fast and efficiently as possible, agencies tend to hire staff on an as-needed basis. If a viable diversity candidate happens to be available when a new project lands in the agency, then he or she has a good shot at the job. Otherwise, unlike corporations, few agencies in today’s market have the ability or mandate to make investment hires. Necole Merritt, executive director of corporate communications for AT&T, suggests that diversity within agencies will improve when clients insist on it.

 

Since too few minorities seem to be giving serious thought to careers in PR, however, it is clear we need to begin our efforts earlier in the career-contemplation cycle. We must do some PR for PR in high school and in the first two years of college, especially at institutions with significant black and Hispanic enrollments. But we must go beyond those institutions. It’s our job to reach out to aspiring minority graduates at public universities and to help college PR programs better market themselves to incoming students. We need to do a better job of making minorities aware of opportunities in the profession. 

 

Dr. Donald K. Wright, professor of public relations at Boston University, says lack of minorities in PR is a “chicken and egg” sort of thing. “Since there are so few non-white people in public relations, understandably most of the senior-level jobs go to folks who look like ourselves,” Dr. Wright asserts. “In light of that, younger minorities don’t have many role models.”

 

As PR leaders, we need to do more to find, encourage and mentor a deeper pool of diverse practitioners. We can’t rely on human resources or diversity officers to do the job for us. Almost all agencies, including mine, recognize this problem. Some progress is being made. 

In an effort to expand our office’s diversity, we recently undertook a significant effort to hire an African American woman from another industry. We felt there is much in her experience and background to indicate she could be a PR star, so I spent more time trying to recruit this strong candidate than I have with all other new recruits so far this year. Fortunately, she just said yes.

 

But even when we do attract top minority talent, keeping these individuals on board is another issue. Surveys of black and Latino professionals show that job satisfaction is lower in these groups, often significantly lower, than with the general PR population. Minority practitioners cite a lack of diversity commitment, overt discrimination and a relegation to a slower advancement track. Perceived injustice or real, a definite sense exists among minority practitioners that the deck is stacked against them in this profession. 

 

The New York PRSA chapter in the past two years called attention to two trends that could have a large impact on increasing the numbers of minority PR practitioners we hire and retain. The first, a national survey of multicultural practitioners, detailed barriers to broadening diversity, but unfortunately it did not receive adequate attention in our PR community. The second is a program in which PR legends have pledged to kick-start efforts to for minority mentoring. 

 

Lynn Applebaum, chair of the Department of Media and Communications Arts at the City College of New York, and Rochelle Ford, assistant professor of Advertising and PR Sequence Coordinator at Howard University, conducted a nationwide survey last year about diversity in PR that revealed top barriers to attracting diverse PR practitioners. We in the industry have the ability to address all three barriers they have identified:

New York’s PRSA chapter also is trying to highlight the vital importance of mentoring by launching a program that has the buy-in of 30 significant leaders of the profession.

 

But we also need more mentors of color, and we should broaden our outreach beyond recent college grads to alumni, too. Diversity is necessary throughout any organization, not only at entry level. AT&T’s Merritt, an African American, offers further suggestions, including a melting-pot approach that includes mentors from PR and business and others who have attributes in common with the “mentee,” such as gender, ethnicity or goals. Mentors should be open-minded to learn from the mentee as well.

 

Agencies, she says, will find it is helpful to build alliances with established PR organizations such as the Black Public Relations Society and similar Hispanic and Asian groups. Our firm, in addition to building an aggressive networking program to identify potential minority hires, is increasing the numbers of job postings on sites that focus on minority recruitment, such as BPRS, Women Executives in Public Relations, Hispanic-jobs.com and Asian-jobs.com.  

 

If PR is to make the progress that is needed in a multicultural environment, we must grow minority practitioners individually, from the intern up. For our industry to be successful we must elevate our programs of specialized development, and take into account a broad range of multiculturalism. A one-size-fits-all “minority program” can no longer be expected to identify the talent required to address the diverse needs and challenges of our clients and companies.