QUICK PR READS YOU CAN TACKLE BETWEEN BITES
Welcome back and Happy New Year, Lunch Breakers!
This week, we’re looking at the influencer pay gap and what we as PR pros can do to help alleviate it, how PR can support nonprofits in their journey to making an impact, and how bosses and managers can support their employees to counter burnout. We’re starting this year with Omicron in full-swing and the pressures of the past two years boiling over, so let’s talk about solutions!
Influencing Your Way to Equal Pay
Even in 2022, women are still making $0.76 to the dollar that men earn, and the same goes for black workers compared to their white counterparts. This, as well as the fact that Native American people earn $0.77- and Hispanic people earn $0.73 to the dollar that white people earn, comes from the Earnings Disparities data provided by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs at the U.S. Department of Labor. Despite “influencers” only recently becoming a household term and legitimate career path, they are already facing one of the most significant racial pay gaps in the nation.
In a survey released by MSL U.S. and The Influencer League, data showed the racial pay gap between white and Black, Indigenous, & People of Color (BIPOC) influencers is 29%, with focusing on the 35% gap between white and black influencers. Despite the shift we’ve seen over the past few years with Diversity, Equity & Inclusion efforts becoming a key topic of conversation in businesses across all industries, a primary tool that we as communicators rely on, known as influencers, is now experiencing a surging race-based injustice of their own.
But what can we, as public relations professionals, do about this? As catalysts for the growth of the influencer industry, we can push our clients and our own agencies to collaborate with BIPOC influencers more frequently and ensure that we offer contracts that pay these influencers a competitive rate based on current standards. Further, by keeping diversity top of mind when developing influencer relations campaigns, we can do our part to close this pay gap.
The Nonprofit Journey to Impact
All nonprofits have one thing in common – they are working to make an impact or change. Whether this impact supports education, poverty, hunger, or any other worldly cause, the effort to achieve impact remains the same. When we sign a nonprofit client as a PR pro, we join their team and act as an extension of their staff of dedicated humanitarians. Therefore, we must do everything in our power to help them further their cause. Whether this comes from raising funds, spreading awareness, or lobbying for a change, our work must align with pushing them closer to achieving their mission.
When providing PR support for a client, it is a general rule of thumb to incorporate human interest stories whenever possible, as this is what most often resonates with the media and the general public. PR Daily, shared five tips for storytelling tricks to help nonprofits make an impact, the same strategy can be applied for charitable organizations.
While PR Daily goes into exorbitant detail about why storytelling is so important for nonprofits, the key takeaways are this: make their story visual; crowdsource content; grab attention quickly; add the human-interest angle; and empower staff, volunteers, and donors to become storytellers.
Countering The Great Burnout
We’ve all heard of ‘The Great Resignation,’ but what was its true cause? It is likely that burnout had something to do with the mass exodus of employees who chose to leave the workplace in 2021. The Bureau of Labor & Statistics reported that 4.5 million workers chose to leave their jobs in November 2021 alone – a staggering number that shines a light on the dire state of the workplace. The pandemic has had far reaching effects in ways we could never have imagined, but as we enter the third year of COVID-19, with new variants running rampant, it is crucial to find ways to counter this negative impact.
For those leading a PR agency or team, Gallup has provided four tips for leaders to implement to counter burnout and increase employee engagement:
– Provide employees with the tools needed for success
– Ensure clear and consistent communication with all employees from the top-down
– Support team leaders, so they can support their teams
– Engage with your workers holistically, to support their overall wellbeing
2022 has already presented its fair share of challenges, but as PR pros, we have the power to control the message. By keeping up with the current state of work and life, we can equip our communications strategies with the most relevant tools and tricks to ensure the best results.
