Public Relations
Introduction
Public relations can be defined as the entire way organizations and individuals communicate with publics and media in general. In simple terms, it refers to the practice of managing and directing the spread of useful information between an individual or a company and the public. It may include an organization obtaining exposure to their customers using topics that are related to public interest and news items that does not need any form of direct payment. Normally, the aim or the focus of public relation of a company frequently is to convince the public, investors, employees, and other stakeholders to preserve a certain summit about it, its leadership, products, or political decisions that are made within the entire company. Common activities that are carried out include speaking at various conferences, working with the media and employee communication. Most often, a public relations specialist converse with his or her target audience directly through media with a focus of creating and maintaining a good reputation and strong relationship with entire audience. Public relations specialist normally uses newsletters, public appearances and they can utilize the World Wide Web. This paper will clearly address how human and labor rights are Public relations issues for an organization
Which aspects within the definitions of public relations support this statement?
There are certain aspects within the definition of public relations that shows that human and labor rights are not only industrial relations issues but also the Public relations issues for an organization (Botha, 2007). For instance, from public relations definitions, it can be seen that it sometimes deals with employees and leadership issues (Yaverbaum, Bly, Benun & Kirshenbaum, 2011). This means that all complaints that are brought by the entire employees will be challenges to public relations within an organization. In addition, Public relations concern different ways by which an organization gets exposed to its entire customers using topics that are related to public interest and news items that does not need any form of direct payment (Duhé, 2007). Therefore, public relation’s definition have various aspect that makes human and labor rights to be identified as the major problems of public relations within an organization.
Who would you identify as key publics with this topic? How would you classify these publics? Give reasons for your answer.
The key publics in this topic are the organizations. Organizations include employees, employers and the management boards. Labour rights in an organization should not be violated as both employees and employers should work in an organization where rights are respected. The rights include good salaries for employees, convenient working environments and benefits the employees get after working in that particular organization (Bowen et al 2010). Labour rights include employees being involved in decision making processes in that particular organization. Key publics should therefore respect the labour rights which should be enjoyed by different workers. There are different activists to fight for the rights of different workers in various organizations. Human and labour rights are mainly viewed as public relations rather than industrial relations since they enhance good relationship between various employees and employers in the organizations. Thus, those key publics like the employees and employers should perform their duties well as they enjoy their different rights in their places of work. The labour rights are classified according to the positions various people hold in the organizations. The rights of each individual depend on the union involved in making those rights (Clear, &Weidman, 2002). Various trade unions are formed in order to make sure that labour rights are not violated in the public relation department. Activists of the labour rights are more concerned with organizations where rights of the workers are violated. They urge such organization to respect the workers rights where they can charge them for violating such rights. It is evident that the key publics are different organizations where employees and employers work Collins, 2012).
Please assess the topic and its ethical implications. Who do you think would be most affected by ethical issues and why?
Labour and human rights are a concern to most industries and organizations. There are different working conditions and ethics which must be followed in various work places. There are also national policies regarding the way organizations should handle employees. The ethics suggest that employees should be subjected to work in stable conditions which are free from environmental pollution (Gilliland et al 2007). The various human and labour rights must not be violated and should be respected by all staffs in various organizations. Organizations and manufacturers according to labour and human rights must ensure that the products they produce maintain the standards required and are of high quality. Thus manufacturers are much subjected to the ethical issues as compared to employees and customers. Manufactures should ensure that they produce quality and standard products in line with the ethical policies in various countries. Employees should give quality pay to employees and should also provide pay during overtime hours as a way of promoting the required ethical guidelines (Morais, 2011).
Public relations ensure that communication flows easily from employers to employees. It also ensures that information reaches required destination who are consumers in the required time and feed back taken back to the producer. It is therefore true to say that labour rights are not just industrial issues but are public relations issues in various organizations. According to the public relations employers should enhance good communication and interaction strategy amongst the workers in that organization as away to enhance unity. Public relation department ensures that rights of employees are followed as way of enhancing motivation to the employees (Muhr, et al 2010). Thus the department of public relations ensures that the correct working ethics are followed and that labour rights are not violated in that organization. This enhances success in different organizations.
The most affected by ethical issues are mainly employees and employers. Employers must follow the guidelines of the labour rights. Employers must follow the required working standards and ethics as stated by the national laws however expensive they are. They must provide good working hours for employees as well as good salaries even if the economy declines. The public relation department makes sure that those rights are not violated and that information runs strategically in the whole organization. Manufacturers are forced to produce only those products which meet the required standard by the law (Muhr, et al 2010). They are only supposed to manufacture products that are friendly to the environment according to the environmental laws which is at times difficult. Environmental guidelines should be included and followed by manufacturers failure to which negative consequences may follow which will cause an impact to the organization. Employees are affected by the various working ethics. Employees must work together by putting their differences aside to enhance success of the organization. The public relation department ensures that employees work hard to contribute to success of the organization. Employees hold various responsibilities in the organizations which should flow well. The correct work ethics should be followed in a correct way in order to ensure success (Trevino & Weaver, 2003).
In your research, you will discover a range of public relations activities conducted by different organisations concerning the issue of human and labour rights. Summarise two examples of positive public relations activity and two examples of negative public relations activity involving the topic. How effective do you think these activities have been to influence target publics?
Various activities of public relations that are conducted sometimes tend to be beneficial to organizations. This is due to the fact that one of the major key points of public relations is to help in establishing credibility for a product, company image in the minds of targeted customer groups (Gregory, 2010). This is enhanced by capitalizing on the influence of a third-party which may be the press (Gregory, 2010). Many researches show that ranges of public relations that are conducted by various organizations are mainly concerned with the issue of human and labor rights. This is because there is an increased argument of violations of human rights and their wages for their effort. Additionally, employees claims that their payments are decreasing every day because of the failure of labour relations. This shows that public relation is playing a critical role of remedying these situations where an employee’s rights are violated. It is the policy of public relations to grant all employees freedom of association and rights to choose their own working hours (Watson& Noble, 2007). One of positive public relations activity that helps to solve the issue of human and labour rights that most of the organizations are facing is that it equips employees right to choose their working hours and wages that will please them. The second positive activity of public relations is that it increases employee responsiveness and understanding of the company’s goals, initiatives and policies (Gregory, 2010). It also develops an efficient employee-communications program that acts as useful business tool for enhancing organization’s image with the entire public (Kitchen, 1999). These activities help in solving and protecting human and labor rights of employees.
In case of negative public relation activities, public relation specialist always concentrate on the ruining the reputation of business conflicts (Du, 2000). One of the negative activities of public is their way of advertising. While they are advertising, they tend to give qualities that the entire products do not present. While trying to praise company’s profile they tend to talk of something that the company does not offer. For instance, they can exaggerate on the salary that the entire company is giving it workers. However, this may not be true as they are trying to advertise a certain company. This in advance can violate human and labor rights. These activities can influence the target public, as their negative activity will mislead them.
Conclusion
For a couple of years, there has been a debate abut how various issues that affect Public relations which are identified as one of the major issues that affect an organization from the above discussion. This means that Human and labor rights are not only the industrial relations issues but they are Public relations issues for an organization. Employees are affected by the various working ethics which are in public relation department. Employees must work together by putting their differences aside to enhance success of the organization. The public relation department ensures that employees work hard to contribute to success of the organization.
References
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