PR Execs Combat Stress: Improve Teamwork, Improve Happiness
By Roxanne Leone, Director, Marketing & Communications
Per CBS News article, The 10 most and least stressful jobs in America, a Public Relations executive earning a 6-figure salary ranked as the 8th most stressful job. That’s just a few spots above firefighter and police officer. Thinking more broadly, the American Institute of Stress documented that 80% of American workers feel stress on the job with almost half saying they need to learn how to manage stress.
I’m confident that just about every employee regardless of profession can relate to stress at work. However, if you’re part of an organization that favors intrapreneurship and innovation – you’re in an excellent position to combat stress physically and emotionally.
Encourage Open Dialogue
As agency PR professionals we are in the business of relationships. We are taught to dive into our work with clients as if we were part of their in-house communications team. To do that we must feel ‘safe’ with the individuals with whom we engage. Psychological safety, in a work setting is a belief that team members can share ideas, questions, apprehensions or slip-ups without punishment or humiliation from those around them.
For PR execs to successfully manage stress within our teams, we must collaborate, brainstorm and plan campaigns openly and honestly without judgement in order to develop strategies that are going to move the needle. We cannot allow stress to prohibit us from meeting our clients’ goals and expectations. In our office, we’ve embraced psychological safety and I didn’t even know it had a name!
Improve Personal Wellness
People are accustomed to managing challenge or conflict at work differently. Some rely on daily exercise, others eat healthy, and a handful practice meditation and happiness skills – yes that’s a thing.
With the introduction of Headspace, Calm, Ten Percent Happier and countless other apps over the last decade, we’ve seen meditation go mainstream. By exploring these apps, people have become more knowledgeable about meditation and understand it is less about changing the mind, and more about changing our perspective. Which is a necessary skill if you’re in the PR biz.
Other organizations such as Happier, Inc. are on a mission to help people thrive in work and life by improving their emotional health with science-backed skills and practices. Happier trademarked the “Happier Method” and offers a variety of ways to practice happiness from online courses, to its mobile app, blog, workshops, and books. Nataly Kogan, company founder and author of Happier Now, offers a realistic path to living genuinely happier and believes that it is a skill you can learn and improve through practice – just like meditation.
Select the Right Clients
Having a work culture that encourages a consistent flow of ideas internally is critical to the success of our business but its equally important to have synergy with clients we onboard.
With a background in consumer electronics, I imagined that making the transition to telecommunications would create unnecessary anxiety and stress for me. But I quickly realized that our cable clients, The Cable Center, and Corning shared similar views on innovation, professional development, diversity in the workplace, and more!
We cannot control all the stresses that life throws our way but PR execs can play a key role in ensuring that their team has the tools and support they need to flourish.
