The PR industry is currently facing a significant talent crunch, exacerbated by the evolving demands of the communications landscape. As the need for innovative strategies, digital integration, and agility rises, the challenge of finding and retaining the right talent becomes even more pressing. Adding to this complexity is the post-pandemic shift, where professionals have reconsidered their priorities, mental health has come to the forefront, and the traditional agency model faces scrutiny.The Talent Shortage and Mental Health StrainThe pandemic has left an ingrained mark on how the PR industry operates, particularly in terms of workload and mental health. The toll of non-stop work, endless syncs and Zoom meetings, along with the isolation and difficulty in expressing its impact is real. This constant pressure, especially in an industry where professionals juggle multiple clients, projects, and personal responsibilities, has led to significant burnout.The situation isn?ÇÖt just about overwork ?Çô there?ÇÖs a deeper issue regarding how mental health is addressed in the PR sector. Professionals are often expected to maintain high levels of productivity and creativity while meeting client demands, which has caused many to question the sustainability of this pace.Key Challenges in Attracting TalentThe first step in addressing the talent crunch is understanding the root causes behind why PR agencies struggle to attract talent. Vikram Kharvi, CEO, Bloomingdale PR, points out that the startups have been a major factor. He says, ?Ç£Startups often attract talent with the promise of innovation, flexibility, and the excitement of building something new from the ground up. They offer a sense of ownership and direct impact that can be incredibly appealing, especially to younger professionals.?Ç¥This highlights a major issue within traditional PR agencies ?Çô the perceived rigidity in structure and lack of flexibility. Startups and in-house PR roles often offer more flexible working conditions, including work-from-home options and adaptable hours. In contrast, PR agencies, bound by tight client deadlines, are often viewed as being less accommodating in terms of work-life balance. As a result, talented professionals are drawn to roles that promise a better balance between personal and professional life.Sonali Sokhal, CEO and Founder, Intelliquo, adds to this by emphasizing on the gap in proper training within the industry. ?Ç£Young people join the workforce without adequate training and then find the work overwhelming, leading them to leave. We need to empower young professionals with skill development and proper processes,?Ç¥ she says. The absence of structured training and mentorship has resulted in a high turnover rate, as young professionals often feel overwhelmed by the demands placed on them without the right guidance.Retaining Talent: The Bigger ChallengeOnce talent is attracted to the industry, retaining them presents its own challenges. Tarunjeet Rattan, Managing Partner, Nucleus PR, explains that the constant barrage of unrealistic demands can quickly lead to burnout. ?Ç£When insane demands and unrealistic expectations across brands and partners fly across your desk every single day at an intense pace, it can become overwhelming very quickly,?Ç¥ she adds. The relentless pressure, coupled with the often misunderstood role of PR within the broader communications ecosystem, makes it difficult for professionals to feel motivated and valued.Additionally, Rattan points out that the limited ability to showcase the true impact of PR due to client confidentiality adds to the problem. ?Ç£We are limited by client confidentiality, which allows us to talk in generalities and rarely give a true picture of what we actually do. This is limiting. Smaller groups and closed-door discussions work in attracting the right minds to the profession, but it is a slow, arduous task where demand is way higher than supply,?Ç¥ she adds.The gender gap in PR leadership further complicates the retention issue. Many women in the industry find themselves at a crossroads, often stepping back or taking career breaks to manage family responsibilities. The lack of sufficient support systems, such as flexible work arrangements and childcare solutions, within agencies leads to the loss of highly experienced professionals.Bloomingdale PR?ÇÖs Kharvi highlights how this is particularly challenging for women leaders in PR, stating, ?Ç£The lack of sufficient support systems within agencies to accommodate these needs can result in losing highly experienced and talented professionals.?Ç¥Government Initiatives and Skill DevelopmentWith the Indian government?ÇÖs Budget 2024 focusing on upskilling the workforce to make people more employable, there is an opportunity for the PR industry to align itself with these initiatives. Skill development and training programs, particularly in digital and social media, can help address the growing gap in talent.Abhishek Puri, Corporate & Marketing Communications NIIT Limited, emphasizes on the need for continuous learning within the PR sector. He says, ?Ç£The rapid pace of change in digital and social media demands continuous learning and adaptation. PR firms must offer training and development programs focused on these emerging trends to retain top talent.?Ç¥Beyond digital skills, there is also a need for a clear career progression path within the industry. Without a defined trajectory for growth, professionals may feel stagnant, leading them to explore opportunities in other industries. Puri also highlights the importance of creating dynamic work environments that foster creativity and innovation to keep top talent engaged.Strategies to Combat the Talent CrunchTo address the talent crunch, PR firms must adopt a comprehensive, multi- faceted strategy. This involves not only attracting talent but also ensuring their long-term growth and engagement within the industry.Evangelize the PR Industry: Tarunjeet Rattan suggests that the industry needs to take a more proactive approach in promoting PR as a career choice. ?Ç£We need to do more on evangelizing PR at an individual, apex body, and community group level.?Ç¥ Showcasing the diversity and dynamism of PR through career fairs, college workshops, and industry events can attract fresh talent.Partnerships with Educational Institutions: According to Rattan, establishing collaborations with colleges can ensure that students are equipped with the right skills and knowledge about the PR profession. ?Ç£Colleges need to offer the right counseling for students, helping them understand the profession and their aptitude for it. The right courses and sessions with industry professionals along with internships can go a long way toward helping talent understand the profession.?Ç¥Provide Flexible Work Environments: Vikram Kharvi points out that flexibility is one of the key drivers in attracting talent. Offering options for remote work, flexible hours, and better work-life balance is crucial. Agencies need to adapt to the demands of today?ÇÖs workforce, which prioritizes flexibility and a supportive work environment.Upskill and Mentor Employees: Both Sonali Sukhal and Tarunjeet Rattan agree that continuous learning and mentorship are essential to retaining talent. Sukhal explains, ?Ç£PR firms need to showcase best practices to attract talent. The younger generation today is concerned about the impact of their work, as much as they are on career growth.?Ç¥ Providing employees with training programs, access to mentors, and opportunities to work across different verticals can help them grow holistically within the profession.Address Mental Health: The relentless pace and pressure of PR work have led to widespread burnout. Agencies need to make mental health a priority by creating supportive work cultures, offering counseling services, and ensuring that workloads are manageable. Rattan?ÇÖs observation about the overwhelming pace of PR work speaks to the urgent need for agencies to implement better mental health initiatives to retain talent.Create Clear Career Progression Paths: PR professionals often leave the industry due to a lack of clarity around career growth. Abhishek Puri emphasizes on the importance of establishing clear pathways for advancement within the industry to keep talent motivated and engaged.

We are in a new era of Public Relations. In the last few years, the importance of reputation management has undergone a sea change. More brands and clients, especially from the leadership teams, are viewing Public Relations from a close range. The industry has undergone a radical change with the advent of social media, which has to a large extent changed the approach to Public Relations. We have a relatively new and young audience that we need to face in the coming years so there are bigger challenges for brands and PR practitioners, who have to be more agile and proactive in their thinking to draw up business solutions for clients.In our exclusive weekly column ?Çô PR Conversation ?Çô Adgully interacts with leading business leaders and obtains their exclusive views and insights on the various trends in the PR and communications industry.In conversation with Adgully, Sonali Sokhal, CEO and Founder, Intelliquo, delves into the inspiration behind starting the company. She discusses how Intelliquo balances the perspectives of both ?Ç£old-school traditionalists?Ç¥ and ?Ç£digital natives?Ç¥ to create integrated communication strategies that resonate across various platforms.Sokhal also shares a success story where Intelliquo significantly impacted a client?ÇÖs brand or reputation. Additionally, she speaks about Intelliquo?ÇÖs approach to reputation management in today?ÇÖs fast-paced digital age, the key challenges the PR industry faces in attracting and retaining top talent, and more.What inspired you to start Intelliquo Integrated Communication? What gap in the market did you aim to fill with your agency?I started Intelliquo in 2012, because I had begun to feel a need to change the way PR operates overall. I felt that PR now has to move beyond the traditional media approach and devise a holistic and innovative story-telling approach. This was the reason for me to start my own agency as I felt smaller agencies are more agile.Your team includes both ?Çÿold-school traditionalists?ÇÖ and ?Çÿdigital natives?ÇÖ. How do you balance these different perspectives to create integrated communication strategies that resonate across different platforms?I think we have to start building multi-disciplinary teams that can work in tandem to create a holistic brand narrative. Old school and traditional media will always bring the maximum credibility for a brand, but today social and digital mediums, the power of community and immersive experiences are equally important and we need to be able to harness each to create a narrative for brands. In our case, we always identify the underlying objective and messaging and then break it up across different mediums.You have worked with a range of clients ?Çô from big names to small businesses. Could you share a success story where Intelliquo made a significant impact on a client?ÇÖs brand or reputation?I think we can proudly take up names like Keventers and Nykaa Beauty, where we were able to build very strong credibility for those brands. We were able to work when Keventers was just a one-outlet brand and create a strong story of their legacy to bring out the differentiation with the brand. Similarly, with Nykaa Beauty we worked on a very strong messaging to bring about the product differentiation and aspiration for clients.How does Intelliquo approach reputation management, especially in today?ÇÖs digital age where information spreads rapidly?In fact, today with consumer brands, the digital age offers tremendous opportunity. The ability for brands to enrol the right set of advocates and influencers is much easier today in the digital age than before. It is also a great ?Çÿlistening in?ÇÖ tool, which allows brands to tap into real time data and steer their narratives as per consumer and public sentiment. Brands that invest in listening in, as well as strong content and story-telling will boom in today?ÇÖs digital age.PRPOI was established as a voluntary, free platform to upskill PR professionals. How do you see the importance of such communities in shaping the future of the PR industry in India?PR is a highly skilled and technical profession, which unfortunately, cannot be taught from a book. This means that we need real time professionals and case studies that younger professionals can learn from. It is a constantly changing and dynamic environment that needs to be decoded by skilled professionals so that future PR professionals can learn and understand practical and applied campaigns. Therefore, such communities play a vital role in putting together learning efforts across the industry.What are the key challenges that the PR industry faces in attracting and retaining top talent, especially in a rapidly evolving communications landscape?I think it becomes a chicken and egg situation. Young people join the workforce without adequate training and then find the work overwhelming and leave. Then we start all over again. For this churn to stop, we need to make younger people feel empowered in their skill development process and ensure they learn things in a proper way. I also feel systems and processes are sometimes missing in agency culture, because there is so much work, hence this can also be a deterrent for talent. PR needs PR for itself with younger people.What strategies should PR firms adopt to address the talent crunch and ensure they attract individuals with the right mix of skills and experience?PR firms need to showcase best practices to attract talent. The younger generation today is concerned about the impact of their work, as much as they are on career growth. They are also concerned about picking up skillsets that would help them grow in their careers overall. Too many times, I have seen young people either become siloed into one vertical or having very shallow knowledge as they have been bounced across several verticals, both of these are deterrents for career growth. Also, it?ÇÖs important for agencies to hire people with multiple skillsets so that they can be moulded and adapted across verticals.

On August 29, 2024, Adgully hosted the latest edition of #GullyChat, focusing on the topic ?ÇÿMapping the Future of PR: Globalization and Cultural Diversity?ÇÖ. The discussion explored how the PR industry is navigating the challenges and opportunities of a globalized world while embracing cultural diversity in its strategies and communications.The esteemed participants included:Sonali Sokhal, CEO and Founder, IntelliquoTarunjeet Rattan, Managing Partner, Nucleus PRSiddhartha Mukherjee, Founder, Brand BalanceVikram Kharvi, Chief Executive Officer, Bloomingdale Public RelationsAkanksha Jain, Head of Public Relations & Corporate Communications, BharatPeThe panellists discussed cultural competence and how PR professionals must understand diverse cultural nuances to effectively communicate with global audiences.Tarunjeet Rattan emphasized, ?Ç£Understanding how to communicate across geographies, age groups, and diverse cultural groups is a basic requirement for anyone in PR. If you aren?ÇÖt doing that, then you?ÇÖre in the wrong profession and will always be wondering how to get things done.?Ç¥Siddhartha Mukherjee added here, ?Ç£The future of PR will depend on its ability to take charge and showcase business outcomes. PR machinery will need to have full command and control of the Input-Output-Outcome framework. Building cultural competence is part of the input ERPs (efforts, resources, processes). CXOs of business brands rely on the PR machinery to ensure that all stakeholders in both local and global target markets build and sustain long-term relationships with the business. Data-wise, recall and admiration scores need to be the strongest. A lot of initiatives are being taken to understand the culture and extract the mood of the markets in terms of expectations, fears, and aspirations.?Ç¥Vikram Kharvi also shared his thoughts on the importance of cultural competence in PR, saying, ?Ç£Cultural competence is a vital skill for PR professionals, especially as they engage with diverse global audiences. This encompasses the ability to understand, communicate with, and effectively interact with people across various nations. Investing in training programs that enhance cultural competence among PR professionals is crucial. Workshops and seminars can help teams understand cultural differences and develop skills for effective cross-cultural communication.?Ç¥The chat further touched upon on digital literacy, highlighting how digital tools, data analytics, and social media platforms are crucial for successful PR campaigns.Akanksha Jain noted, ?Ç£In today?ÇÖs times, it is important to have a good understanding of digital tools to ensure better reach, more impact, and better assessment of results. Leveraging social media platforms for building brand reputation is key. It is important to follow an always-on strategy and listen to what the customer is saying on social media. Social sentiment is a great indicator of the reputation of brands. Data analytics plays an important role in understanding audience behavior and refining PR strategies.?Ç¥Sonali Sokhal added, ?Ç£Social media is also a vital ?Çÿlisten in?ÇÖ tool for brands, which is unfortunately not utilized as well as it should be. Digital literacy is vital for measurement. In today?ÇÖs fractal world, social and digital platforms allow us to get a tangible count of impact.?Ç¥Vikram Kharvi noted, ?Ç£PR professionals with a diverse digital toolkit, including media databases, news monitoring, and email automation, can deliver integrated campaigns that drive business outcomes. Digital literacy helps PR teams respond quickly and strategically to crises, using social listening to gauge sentiment and proactively manage brand reputation. Proficiency in SEO, influencer marketing, and link building sets digitally literate PR pros apart, enabling them to drive online visibility and engagement.?Ç¥The conversation also highlighted the importance of collaboration and effective teamwork in PR, essential for leveraging expertise and resources.Sonali Sokhal remarked, ?Ç£It takes a village to make a brand; it takes a team to win the game! Trust and respect are the foundation of good teamwork. Communications today is multidisciplinary and needs varying skill sets only a team can bring to the table. We are living in the era of collaborations for brands and organizations across verticals, so communications teams need to collaborate internally and externally.?Ç¥Akanksha Jain emphasized, ?Ç£Effective collaboration within PR involves working closely with cross-functional teams, including business, marketing, sales, product development, tech, and legal departments. By leveraging the expertise of these teams, PR professionals can ensure that messaging is consistent, accurate, and aligned with broader business objectives. PR professionals must cultivate and maintain strong relationships with external partners, such as media outlets, influencers, industry experts, KOLs, and community leaders. These partnerships provide valuable insights, amplify messaging, and extend the reach of PR campaigns.?Ç¥Tarunjeet Rattan observed, ?Ç£Acing how to work with different generations, nationalities, and genders across all internal departments and external partners will be the mark of your success as a ?Çÿcommunicator?ÇÖ. Be worthy of the designation you carry. A good ?ÇÿPR leader?ÇÖ has the ability to unite stakeholders and get behind a single strategy with empathy and camaraderie. Apart from all the jargon on tech, reports, analysis, etc., people management is your true self.?Ç¥Lastly, Siddhartha Mukherjee shared, ?Ç£The efficiency and efficacy of PR are founded on collaborations. The term can have different dimensions ?Çô with internal and external partners. Internal collaborations would be with CXOs, on-ground operation departments, an organization?ÇÖs central MiS, and intelligence and research desks. External collaborations could be with communications agencies, ERP management and advisory consultancies, pure play research services, audit and quality assurance services, measurement and data analytics, influencer groups, communities, etc. Both internal and external collaborations need to happen across markets and geographies. Collaborations will be effective only when the framework is visualized, designed, and implemented well, all supported by measurement and data-led ERPs (efforts, resources, and processes).?Ç¥

The world of Public Relations (PR) is undergoing a rapid transformation. While the core principles of building brand reputation and managing communication remain, the job description and skillset required for success are evolving at an even faster pace.The PR Crossroads: Specialization vs. DiversificationThis dynamic landscape presents PR professionals with a crucial question: Should they specialize in a specific niche or become a multi-skilled professional adept at juggling various PR disciplines?This upcoming panel discussion, titled "The Evolving PR Professional: Niche Expertise or Multi-Skilled Mastermind?", will delve into this critical topic. Join us for a thought-provoking conversation that explores:The rewards and risks of niche specialization vs. a diversified skillset.The impact of these choices on career growth and leadership opportunities.How the PR profession's trajectory will be shaped by the dominant approach.Industry leaders share insights.The discussion will be led by Mou Chakravorty, Associate Director, Marketing, Brand & Communications at Deloitte India, and feature a distinguished panel of PR experts:Minari Shah, Director, International (APAC, EU, LATAM) ?Çô Owned Content & Channels at AmazonPriya Bendre, Assistant General Manager - Corporate Communication at Fortis HealthcareSonali Sokhal, Founder of Intelliquo PRThe event provides an ideal platform to gain valuable insights into the future of PR.Date & Time: Saturday, April 27, 2024, 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM ISTIndustry Partner: CommsAddaContent Curators: Tarunjeet Rattan, Sonali Sokhal, Pooja Trehan