Alumni from the Taylor Bennett Foundation

In spring 2012 the Taylor Bennett Foundation is running its award-winning PR training programme in association with MHP Communications.

This programme has been designed to address the lack of ethnic minorities in the PR industry. The deadline for applying to the next Taylor Bennett Foundation Programme is Monday 27 February 2012.

Those selected for the programme will get:

• 10 weeks of paid training
• £210 per week (you will not be liable to pay tax and NI on your training allowance)
• All your travel expenses
• The opportunity to meet industry professionals and visit really interesting organisations (previous field trips have included Channel 4 News, Grazia Magazine, London Fashion Week, P&G, Adidas, Elle Magazine, BP, Save the Children, The Observer, The Financial Times, PR Week, the PRCA, the CIPR, the Home Office, Standard Chartered Bank, Edelman, Unity PR, Fishburn Hedges, Thomson Reuters, ITN, Fremantle Media, Whizz Kidz, The Times and Speed Communications)
• Top media training from journalists and PR professionals
• Weekly career advice sessions from the industry’s best headhunters

Previous interns are now in their first jobs in PR at firms which include Topshop, Brunswick, Cantos, Racepoint Group, Talk PR, Chatsworth Communications, Cable & Wireless, Pepsico, Mumsnet and Macbeth Media Relations and others have gone on to gain work experience at Ketchum, The Observer and Save the Children.

There are only eight places available on this prestigious scheme, so make yourself stand out from the crowd.

In order to apply you must:

• Be aware that this scheme is designed to directly address the greater need for ethnic diversity in the PR and communications industry
• Be a graduate in ANY degree subject.
• Have indefinite leave to stay in the UK.  Post study work visas and student visa holders are NOT eligible for this programme.
• Have an interest in embarking on a career in public relations
• Have strong writing skills

Some current interns

Whitney Brown is an Events Management and Public Relations graduate from London Metropolitan University. She has since worked in the US but says ‘knowing a trade and being confident at that trade are completely different. Overall doing this internship I want my confidence in writing to grow. Plus I want to learn more about the other writing tools such as communications plans and campaigns.’

Cindy Yau was an avid charity campaigner at university the first time around when at Northumbria University studying BA English and Art History where she loved working in events management, fundraising, and writing about my experiences for Oxfam, Coco, and UNICEF.

Lekha Mohanlal is a Media Studies graduate from Sussex University:

“I adore fashion and have also interned in-house at Lipsy and Brighton Fashion Week. It was my vast interest in fashion PR that encouraged me to apply for the Taylor Bennett Foundation internship sponsored by Talk PR. Receiving training and advice from company experts was the main selling point of the programme for me as it is not offered on many other internships. Although I am a self-confessed fashion freak I want to explore the world of beauty PR as I am a product junkie and have a genuine interest in writing press releases and promoting beauty brands.”

Rebecca Smith is a 22 year-old Roehampton University graduate with a Jamaican and British heritage:

“The process of being successful for the internship programme was tough but fair, and being prepared was key. The assessment day was eye opening and I feel was a reflection of the level of commitment and intenseness required to complete the scheme. “

Candice Allen is a 30 year-old mother of two:

“I believe that with this year’s Olympic and Paralympic Games fasts approaching, the legacy of the games will bring opportunities for communications professionals.”

Northern Lights ran the second year of its paid PR internship for BAME graduates this July 2011. The Harrogate consultancy’s intense three week training programme, which included masterclasses, real life client projects and networking sessions, is based on the flagship Taylor Bennett Foundation internship in London. It was delivered in partnership with client Bradford University School of Management with the help of Northern Lights’ PR and business contacts.

Victoria Tomlinson, chief executive of Northern Lights PR, said: “There is a lot of talk about the lack of diversity in communications, but very little action.  Taylor Bennett were the first to create an outstanding paid internship in London – and with their help we have run a smaller scale programme for the last two years.

“We’ve had tremendous support from individuals in our region but there is only so much we can do. We now need a major partner to deliver the London model in the North – this could be a large employer with a strong communications team or a large PR or media company.”

Heather McGregor, who conceived and set up the Taylor Bennett Foundation’s internship, said: “Our ambition is to change the face of the communications industry, to make it a more representative and meritocratic profession.  We are proud that the work of the Foundation has been replicated by Northern Lights PR in the North of England.  In time, and with the support of our many partners, we hope to expand our programme across the country.”

Northern Lights won the Corporate Social Responsibility category at the Chartered Institute of Public Relations’ Yorkshire & Lincolnshire Pride Awards for last year’s internship. All of those who completed last year’s internship went on to work in PR, communications, marketing and related roles, including Nafisa Shafiq, who has just landed a job in the digital team at Edelman, the world’s largest independent PR consultancy.

During a packed three weeks, this year’s four Northern Lights’ interns attended masterclasses led by industry experts on team building, social media campaign planning, business blogging, media relations, writing for different audiences, crisis communications, in-house PR, CV writing and interview skills.  Guest speakers included Claire Morley-Jones of HR180, Ian Briggs of thebusinessdesk.com, Justin McKeown of Mission Agency, Gary Taylor of Metro, Karyn Fleeting of Tinderbox, Anne Gregory of Leeds Metropolitan University, Charlotte Renwick of Bradford University and independent consultants Nigel Keenlyside and Jane Hustwit.

Northern Lights PR interns 2011 - Ahmed Riaz, Farrah Khan, Kulbir Sandhu, Naimah Sheikh

The interns also went behind the scenes at BBC Look North and Northern Ballet and were set real life project briefs by Bradford University School of Management on its undergraduate recruitment strategy, the UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology on its involvement in the British Science Festival and UK General on farm diversification for the Rural Insurance arm of its business.

The four interns were pharmaceutical management student Farrah Khan, business management graduate Ahmed Riaz, communications officer Kulbir Sandhu and ICT with business graduate Naimah Sheik. They all now hope to go on to work in public relations or a related field.

Commenting on the internship experience, Ahmed Riaz said: “I would never have considered a career in public relations and communications before the Northern Lights internship. Now I really understand its value to business, Government, organisations, communities and life. Being given the opportunity to meet and learn from so many successful people has been invaluable and I’ll use all the skills I’ve developed in whatever I decide to do.”

The Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) has a strategy that aims to tackle the lack of diversity in the profession by raising awareness of PR to people from different backgrounds and addressing recruitment methods.

Led by Cornelius Alexander, a Fellow of the institute, the group will identify existing evidence of diversity, raise awareness of the value of a diverse profession and work alongside other key bodies to drive this work forward.

The group will also make recommendations and feed into the resources developed by the institute, such as advisory guidelines for employers and how to communicate with a multicultural audience.

Cornelius Alexander, Chair of the Diversity Working Group, said:

“Improving diversity within PR is an important issue for our profession.  We can no longer continue to recruit practitioners solely from a small sector of our society and believe that we are able to understand or appreciate the cultural differences that hamper truly inclusive communication. A number of communities within our society are unaware of many public services because traditional means of raising awareness bypass them.  A more diverse profession should change this.”

CIPR President Elect Paul Mylrea commented: “Tackling diversity is not optional, it lies at the heart of building a PR profession that is open to all and represents the society it serves. Our latest State of the Profession Report shows there is much more to do and we will be working with the whole of the PR industry to achieve real progress.”

The working group consists of: Cornelius Alexander, Helen Ashley,  Jon Bennett (deputising for Ashnoor Pardhan), Colin Douglas, Joy Francis, Chris Genasi, Emma Hamilton, Siobhan Kenny, Alex Louis, Marcia McKnight, Paul Mylrea, Richard Rose and Stephen Webb.

You can read more about the CIPR’s diversity strategy and join the CIPR Diversity Group’s Facebook group.

Northern Lights interns: Gabriel St Aimee, Nafisa Shafiq, Mohammed Waheed and Liane Clarke

The Harrogate consultancy is working in partnership with Bradford University School of Management, industry experts and businesses to give black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) graduates hands on experience of working in corporate communications and public relations – a sector where people from these communities have historically been underrepresented.

Hallmark’s Communications and PR manager Alex Glen said:

“As part of Hallmark’s commitment to the local community, the Northern Lights PR internship gave us a fantastic opportunity to work with a creative group of young people and to strengthen our understanding of the many ways different cultures celebrate key occasions.

“The interns have also been able to gain firsthand experience of the day to day workings of our business so it has been a very positive and worthwhile experience for all of us.”

During a packed three weeks, five interns attended a range of master classes led by industry experts covering media relations, press photography, social media in business and blogging.

Guest speakers included Saeeda Ahmed from social enterprise Trescom, who led a Jobskills workshop, Karyn Fleeting from Tinderbox, who ran a session on social media and Charlotte Renwick from Bradford University who spoke to the group about working as part of an in-house PR team.

The five were also tasked by marketing and communications professionals to come up with creative ideas to encourage more use of the railways and a new range of greetings cards celebrating special occasions for different cultures.

Commenting on the internship experience, Gabriel St Aimee said: “The public require companies to communicate effectively with them and I hadn’t realised what a skill that is.

“Meeting so many people, from all walks of life and professional backgrounds, willing to share their expertise, has really opened my eyes to the possibilities for my own future.”

The five interns are, Gabriel St Aimee, Nafisa Shafiq, Shaeeb Tanwir, Liane Clarke and Mohammed Waheed.  With degrees in a variety of subjects, including History and IT the extra skills and business experience offered by the internship has increased their career options.

Northern Lights plans to offer a similar internship for BAME graduates in 2011.

You can read more from the interns on the Northern Lights blog.

The issue of diversity in public relations has plagued the business and has been the subject of several academic studies. It’s also a subject that’s close to home for me, especially after I blogged about regional accents and their place in the world of PR.

I decided to delve deeper into the subject and find out the views of those in the field on regional accents and the other controversial diversity issues such as sexism and ethnicity.

PR is known to be dominated by white, middle class females – but with the top positions being held my white, middle class men.

Lack of diversity

The lack of diversity has not gone unnoticed, with much research going into the subject. I’ve had my own experience with the issue when I began doing work experience at PR firms. I noted how some colleagues would put on southern accents when dealing with clients and I asked why they used this phone voice. The reason given was that clients preferred this to listening to our Yorkshire accents, which they found hard to understand. While I agree some accents are harder to comprehend then others, I’d never found the Leeds accent particularly perplexing.

I’ll never forget the first time I spoke to a client on the phone in an office of particularly well spoken individuals. I felt all heads turn towards me and felt incredibly embarrassed at not sounding as articulate as my colleagues.

Clare Siobhan Callery

But soon putting on a ‘phone voice’ became the norm, although it was evident I would need more practice to perfect the southern-friendly northern accent.

My experiences made me read more into the issue and I found some news articles that revealed the discrimination against some regional accents. A Guardian newspaper article stated that 46% of company directors believe a strong regional accent will be a disadvantage to those seeking success in business – not good news for those of us going into PR, where public speaking and presenting go with the territory.

The article featured a lawyer from Yorkshire (my home turf) who felt she needed to take speech classes to change her accent in order to be taken seriously and that her decision has already helped her career. She is quoted as saying: “Every accent has a stigma attached to it. I don’t want people to think about my accent. I want them to focus on what I am actually saying.”

A social psychologist, Albert Mehrabian, is quoted in the article saying “38% of a first impression is based on the way we sound, compared to just 7% on what we say” – another scary fact for the regional PR practitioner. Surely, if so much focus goes on how we speak we should improve our accents to make sure our message doesn’t get lost in the “yeas and ‘nays” of a regional twang.

Going native

To further my research I contacted Anne Gregory, currently a Pro-Vice Chancellor of Leeds Metropolitan University and Director of The Centre for Public Relations Studies.

Anne Gregory

I was expecting Anne’s Yorkshire accent to be incredibly thick, so I was a little surprised when the voice on the other end of the phone was no broader then my own. I learned that Anne originally came from Huddersfield and studied at Leeds University. Before becoming an academic, she had a range of PR related jobs from the BBC to Bradford and Bingley. She explained that there is little stigma attached to accents in the academic world, but it was sometimes an issue during her PR career.

Anne was a director at Weber Shandwick. The PR firm has a Leeds office but the headquarters were in London. She said that people expected the London workers to be better PR practitioners, but from her experience those in the north were just as competent.

Anne thought it sad that the majority of PR jobs are still London-based, when regional cities like Leeds have developed such vibrant PR scenes. She believes that at some stage people may have to move to London to further their career as that’s were the best jobs, biggest consultancies and biggest clients  are situated, but that places like Leeds are beginning to catch up. However, certain sectors like political and financial PR still have very little presence outside the capital.

When Anne worked in Bradford, both at Bradford and Bingley and at the University of Bradford, she experienced the same disdain when it came to dealing with southern agencies. Over-confident PR consultancies believed they were dealing with less well trained and less able staff at Bradford University and were often patronising.

She believed there was a negative preconception of Bradford. However, once they had met Anne in person or read any of her papers their attitude soon changed.

Despite this, Anne doesn’t believe that her accent has held her back in here career progression, but admits that she hasn’t really worked outside Yorkshire. She has felt conscious of her accent at times when other people have picked up on it, but adds that she is still proud of being from Yorkshire.

In terms of advice for others, Anne says that it does depend on where you work, and if you do choose to work for a southern firm then you may end up failing victim to the ‘southernising’ tendency of the big London firms. If you are working for a company you represent them which means that your strong regional accent is also representing them and this may not be something the firm wants. If changing your accent is not something you want to do, then you may have to be more selective about where you choose to work.

Diversity and discrimination

Anne pointed out that in terms of a lack of a diversity and discrimination in PR and business, region and accent are not the biggest issue. Other factors do come into play, such as sexism and racism. As a high-flying female, has she experienced any sexism in her long and successful career? As the president of the CIPR in 2004, she felt that on a couple of a occasions she was treated differently and there were some situations where she felt things would have been different if she were a man. She didn’t feel there was prejudice, but felt that as a Yorkshire woman she was a rarity in the male-dominated business world.

One of the biggest issues in PR diversity is actually the background of the practitioner. Anne Gregory believes that coming from a working class background can actually have more of a detrimental affect then any of the usual forms of discrimination.

Many PR practitioners come from affluent backgrounds  and are less accepting of those from lower down the social scale. Coming from Huddersfield, class is an issue that Anne has had more problems with then sexism or her Yorkshire accent. But as a working class Yorkshire woman, she feels comfortable in her own skin. When it comes to issues of prejudice she takes them very seriously, but does not take herself too seriously and feels this is the best way to approach it.

For another perspective on diversity in PR, I decided to get in touch with one of my journalist-come-practitioner contacts, Paul Rayment. Hearing how journalists – the people we in PR will be dealing with most of the time – perceive different accents would give me a greater understanding and help me see the issue from another point of view.

Paul, originally from the south, worked in consumer journalism for six years on the northern lifestyle publication ‘The Leeds Guide’. There he liaised with PR practitioners up and down the country working on various sections of the magazine. He found that whilst dealing with southern practitioners in the entertainment sector, though efficient, they often came over as pushy and not very personable. Though Paul can’t say if this impression was solely from their accent, it is an impression that has stuck.

Most of Paul’s journalism work was in the property sector working with Yorkshire agencies. Here he said the Yorkshire accent was actually advantageous, as Paul felt he had more faith in the practitioners because they sounded local and had local knowledge. Though they were under the same pressure as their southern entertainment counterparts, they were not as forceful and were more pleasant to talk to.

Paul has since moved from journalism to PR, working in both the B2B and B2C sectors.  He says that professionals in the northern agencies do have watered-down accents. Whether this was intentional or just a by-product of working in the PR industry is unclear. However, the southern practitioners also shifted they way they spoke towards Received Pronunciation. Paul said it seems that northerners and southerners both try to upgrade their accents.

PR chameleons

Most PR practitioners will tend to mirror the accent of the person they are dealing with and in PR you will always be most comfortable when in conversation with those with a similar accent. Being  from Essex he felt he had more banter and more trust when talking to people from the same area.

When it comes to sexism, Paul has worked with women in positions of authority who have overcompensated for being female, while he knows of others that have used their sexuality to advance in their career. He also knows that some men, whether clients or journalists, prefer working with pretty, young blondes.

Paul’s words of wisdom were that race, gender and accent do differ from person to person, but from a PR point of view we should be looking at how to make the most of this rather then drawing negatives from it. As PR students we should adopt this way of thinking and we should seek ways in which to make our identity work in PR.

For those of us unwilling to change our accents, this could mean a successful regional career. For female students worried about how sexism could affect them in the workplace, we should try and follow Anne Gregory’s footsteps. We are fortunate to be entering a working environment more diverse then it ever has been.

Clare Siobhan Callery blogs at PR Student