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15 Carmel O'Toole: Diversity and social mobility
Shownotes:
For the 15th Episode of The Elephant in the Room podcast, my guest is Carmel O’Toole. Carmel is the daughter of Irish migrants, left school at 18 to work as a journalist, was a part of the world’s first televised regeneration project at Channel 4, and now works as a lecturer in PR with Sheffield Halam University. Her research interests are local & regional media and crisis communications. She has also co-authored a book with Adrian Roxan - Local Democracy, Journalism and Public Relations. In this episode we discuss diversity in higher education; social mobility; skills for the future; impact of austerity on public sector communications and local communities; inclusive communications etc.
Listen to the full episode here 👇🏾
https://thepurposeroom.org/podcast/
Subscribe to the show on any of your favourite platforms iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts
Memorable passages from the podcast:
👉🏾 Thank you so much for inviting me to be part of this. So I'm the daughter of a migrant worker. I mention that because it's relevant to the wider diversity discussion. So I'm the daughter of an Irish person who came to live in Trafford, in Manchester, who fought with the RAF in the second world war, and then trained as a psychiatric nurse and worked in the NHS. And my mom worked as an auxiliary in the NHS. So both of them came to this country and contributed, robustly to the fortunes and well-being of this country. Sorry, I don't mean to labour the point, but I think it is relevant to the wider discussion we have about, diversity within our society.
So I was brought up in a household with five kids, not lots of money, so working-class initially, but, by virtue of my dad's progression through the ranks in the NHS, I would say, probably landed somewhere in middle classdom in my teens. And that's part of the story. I actually left school at 18 going into 19 to work on a local paper. So I worked on the wonderful Belper news in mid-Derbyshire and began to learn my craft as a journalist. So covering all the local stories from parish council meetings, to church jumble sales, the greyhound racing, pigeon results, the rugby match reports, so everything and anything which typifies life in a local paper.
👉🏾 I started on local newspapers and moved to other local newspapers. So mostly Derbyshire and North Nottinghamshire for about eight years. I was working in the North Notts coalfield area on the works of the Guardian series of newspapers during the miner’s strike of 1984/85. But having driven to work through police roadblocks, and I saw firsthand on the picket line how, working people who were campaigning and fighting to save their jobs were treated by an agency of the state. It wasn't a time to sit on the fence and I've carried that with me ever since. That was a really significant turning point for me to fight for what is fair, to champion what is fair, which brings us again to the relevancy of this story, to arc our conversation here, which is about social mobility and diversity in society more generally. Then had a year out to have my son, my first child. And after a year I got a job at Derbyshire County council in their press office, which was a wonderful place to work.
👉🏾 I became joint head of communications at Rotherham borough council with a wonderful colleague, Eileen Brooks, who was an award-winning Yorkshire post journalist. So the two of us ultimately job shared that role, which was quite unusual at the time. At that point yes, I saw an opportunity to work for Channel Four, as a communications manager for what was dubbed the world's first televised community regeneration project. The idea was that a film crew led by the wonderful Kevin McCloud, who we're more familiar with, on Grand Designs, would chart and track and they would chronicle the progress of a series of community regeneration projects, which would very much be community-led. So it was a very unusual role actually, it was only supposed to last a year, but I ended up working for Channel Four for about four years as I moved on to other projects working for them. For me to get a foothold was quite unusual at the time I was their person in the North, I was sometimes dubbed. Certainly wasn't typical of those they recruited. So finished up there and ended up doing consultancy work, and was invited in to start developing a PR course at Sheffield Hallam University, which is fantastic. They invited me on the basis of my practitioner experience and 10, nearly 11 years later, I'm still there and absolutely loving it. It's the most amazing place to work, being in higher education is such a privilege. Having access to teaching and supporting young people who are going to go out there and be ambassadors for their craft. So I think that in a nutshell is where I got from The Belper News where I am now.
👉🏾 That’s a good question. I find still sadly and universities who have worked very hard to make themselves more equitable and to balance in terms of recruitment, gender and diversity issues more broadly. You still, find yourselves in meetings where by virtue of your gender where you have to shout louder and you have to be better than your male colleagues,. And I'm sure there are other diversity sectors that would find that to be the case. So that you'll find yourself next to a male colleague who said precisely what you said five minutes earlier. And they're the ones that get, "Oh yes great idea, Barry. Great idea!" You think what's the difference? Yeah, that happens all the time they are working on it and it is slow progress, painfully slow. So I supposed the Elephant in the Room is sometimes though we don't speak about that enough and perhaps we don't call it out enough. But It's exhausting to do it all the time, you know to have to say that every time a male colleague is championed against a female colleague or a colleague from a BAME community. So you try and do it by example. But I do think you have to be better and you have to shout louder. Which is not something I like, I don't like loud voices. I don't think they're the most interesting. I think quieter voices those who are introspective and very often the people who've gotten the most interesting things to say. Unfortunately, those prejudices mitigate against them being heard as well and as effectively as they should be.
👉🏾 No, I don't. I think there's always more that they can do. I think it is down to us. Universities are time poor and they're very understaffed and that situation is getting worse. There's far too much emphasis from my perspective on income generation, not enough emphasis on supporting research into new areas. I think the PR industry is beginning to acknowledge and, doing some good work actually to try to acknowledge that there are gaps that need addressing. I noticed the CIPR's state of the profession report this time included a question for the first time on social mobility and it doesn't make for happy reading. It's basically social mobility is going backwards, in terms of ethnic representation in the industry. If you're Irish, there are probably about 3% of you in the industry. If you're Indian, I think it's about 2%, Caribbean 1% and it's woeful. And apart from it being the right thing to do, if you're in a diverse society, it makes sense for your industry to represent that diversity. It also makes good business sense. Not that that should be the driving force for anything but it makes good business sense because then you have insider experience to draw upon to make the work and the creative campaigns that you do more relevant and more compelling and more insightful and better informed. So it's a no brainer, but it doesn't seem to have attracted the support that it should have done and if anything things are getting worse. One of the most dismal parts of that report, the state of the profession report was around, recruitments of those surveyed, you've got about a quarter of them come from private education, of those around, over 40% from families where their parents have both been to university. So it's kind of privilege begets privilege, and it's very very hard to break down those barriers. So I don't think the university sector is investing enough in that. And I think it's up to us as academics to champion that in the ways that we see we are doing, but we could do more. And the industry needs to do more. And I think it's beginning to acknowledge that. And I think that that's to its credit, but it needs to happen more quickly. We're all tired of waiting.
👉🏾 I mean, there are different routes and you don't have to do a university degree. It's not a profession to the extent that you have to have a degree or qualification specific, to enter the profession. So, no, strictly, it's not a profession by virtue of that definition. So there's all sorts of routes in, I mean, I would say, cause I work in higher education and for me, the beauty in public relations is that, it's not about information stuffing, although there is a certain amount of factual information giving the old WB Yeats thing about, "it's not the filling of the pail, it's the lighting of the fire". And it's about inspiring. It's about encouraging. Inform young people who will challenge, who will change and be ambassadors and take on those issues themselves.
👉🏾 Just as a story of a very smart student of mine a couple of years ago, he's now successfully working in a leading agency in London. Really bright student came from a very ordinary background but you could just tell supremely talented. Went for an interview at, but a leading London agency, a global PR agency for a chance to do an internship, actually. And as he walked into reception, there was a Damien Hirst artwork in reception. And he said there were nine candidates I think for this internship, so he'd done very well to get to that point. And he said I haven't a clue who Damien Hirst is not a clue. He said, but all the rest of them, there were talking about a) skiing holidays and this Damien Hirst artwork. He said I just didn't know anything about it. So I felt a complete fish out of water. But, the moral of the story is actually, he was so bright and so engaging that he really won them over. And he actually got the internship over the kind of what you consider might be the preferred candidate. So he did really really well. When he started at the agency again. And he struggled because of that, that fitting in that kind of social currency that makes people feel comfortable, you know, that this kind of common background issues. But he's doing fine now, but needed a lot of mentoring. A lot of support, a lot of reassurance to say, you are as good as any of those people. You're better, probably. So stick with it. Don't let those barriers put you off.
👉🏾 I think it can be quite exclusive. I confess that very often. I don't see myself represented in kind of some of the more high profile representatives of PR. I find the language, and some of that network a bit exclusive. It's about being a bit more informed and acknowledging that those unseen barriers are still very much there. And, you know, trying to address that head-on.
👉🏾 There was a wonderful documentary by the BBC's media editor Amol Rajan, called Breaking into the Elite. It was a year and a half ago, and dismally, it looked at some of the stats from think it was, the London School of economics. Looking at basically when the top companies are recruiting, and if you've got a Russell group, so these sort of elite group of universities, a Russell group university, ended up with a 2:2, and maybe someone from, I don't know, Sheffield Hallam University with their 2:1 or a first, the Russell group candidate is more likely to get it, or the Oxbridge candidates is more likely. But, it also talks about, the social capital that, what's your background? What do your parents do? Are you a mirror image of me in that they want to appoint those that reflect their own image.
👉🏾 I suppose I look to my own role. I think through our industry organisations, which are beginning to take up that cudgel and that's brilliant. I think by our own conduct in not pulling up the drawbridge behind us. I've spoken to many colleagues at Chartered Institute and PRCA events where they talk about their own interests. And they don't think about championing the interest of those who are coming behind. So, you know, there's some lovely people in both organsations, but there are also those who don't see it as their responsibility to champion and encourage that next generation in the right way and to acknowledge the barriers that are there. My view
is it's about identifying the talent and championing that and supporting and challenging those students who rule themselves out on the basis of their background, their confidence, the ones who are frightened to come out from behind their email. But, you know, they're brilliant. They just need encouraging. The industry should take greater collective responsibility and there are signs of movement. It isn't happening quickly enough. And it is pretty depressing that we are in 2020 and social mobility is going backwards.
👉🏾 It is a very difficult time, but I do think somewhere in the midst of the gloom, there's an opportunity. We, my colleagues and I had to learn very quickly from March onwards, the first lockdown, how to teach online. So recording our lectures, learning about new software. So interactive seminars online, it's a completely different way of working. I'm teaching a final year group of students. That are going to graduate in sort of may June next year. Our assignment which is about a client proposal and pitch from a choice of different scenarios would be set in the time of COVID. So that they had to then address head-on the barriers that presented themselves to commercial organisations, seeking to have high profile campaigns and high-profile media coverage at a time when it's very difficult to cut through on their own. They needed to address that in order to equip them to go out into the world where COVID probably still be with us next, next May, June. I know things are moving in the right direction, but to make them as marketable and as current and as relevant and as savvy as possible. So trying to encourage them to address issues around COVID: How do we work within it, learn from what industry is telling us they're having to do. I do think there is going to be more online and remote work in going forward. One because I think there's an appetite for that within the workforce and also it's about resourcing. And it's also in a potentially a smarter way of working.
Whilst there is a downturn in recruitment, we're also beginning to see adverts for jobs, which talk about working agilely. More employers are treating their employees as grownups and trusting us to actually get on with the job and recognising that, we do more work when we're not constantly interrupted. So I think that in the midst of all the gloom and the downturn, its’ probably an optimistic sign for the future, that things will pick up and they might well be done differently. And I can't help, but think that when you talk quite rightly, London centric and London agency recruitments, those opportunities, those changes in practice and changes in employment might well pave the way for breaking down some of those recruitment barriers sort of North-South.
👉🏾 So we have undergraduate PR courses and a masters, and they're quite small numbers you're looking at, in any year group about 30, 35 students. So you get to know them, which for me is lovely because what a privilege it is to work closely and try and encourage and support young people going out into the world that's fantastic. It's difficult, you know, online teaching is no replacement for face-to-face, but somewhere in the middle, we've come up with a compromise that does seem to work for the moment. So recorded lectures, they have found far more accessible and useful to work with than they perhaps thought. And also they've had to get their heads around just as I have. It was about talking and listening to them. But also this was happening before COVID, levels of anxiety amongst young people, anxiety and mental health issues more generally. It's on the increase, has been for some time, but COVID has accelerated and exacerbated that just as it has the move to online and digital. So I have quite a few conversations in any given week with students who need signposting to professional support around mental health issues. And I think myself and colleagues have to be quite, nimble and flexible about how we support those students. It’s complex territory and, you know, I'm not a mental health professional, so I can only signpost and offer support. What do you believe are the key skills for PR and communications professionals of the future?
👉🏾 More listening is top of my list, actually. Listening to what people are talking about. Listening to what are the themes out there, there's political, economic, social, technological themes. Listening and doing your homework before you pitch in with your ideas and your script and your narrative. So actually having a proper, respectful two-way dialogue with those people that you're trying to reach. People don't want to be preached at anymore. I think it's taken us a while to learn that actually the smart way to be is to actually listen to your audiences first and then consider what might be a very creative and compelling way to reach them. In terms of skills, writing skills are still top of the list. They've got to be able to write really well around any subject. It's about being an instant expert for whatever the period of the campaign is on any given subject. And that actually journalism plays well into that. And it's about being great at verbal communications, but written and verbal communications top of the list still. And I know when the PRCA, the industries have done their surveys. For clients, it's, it's still very much about, copywriting and writing skills. And devising strategies, social media doesn't come top of the list. Some of my students think being able to operate on social media is the first and last skill they would ever have to have. It's fine, but it's not the full story. It's part of that bag of skills, which are essential. So I'd say writing and listening, incredibly important. And we teach a module around crisis communication, crisis management, given the 24 seven sort of nature of the media world that we're in, having good crisis management skills are increasingly a part of the currency of a successful graduate. Being able to think on their feet and anticipate, and plan and recover and, and manage a crisis.
👉🏾...
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By Sudha Singh
5
22 ratings
Shownotes:
For the 15th Episode of The Elephant in the Room podcast, my guest is Carmel O’Toole. Carmel is the daughter of Irish migrants, left school at 18 to work as a journalist, was a part of the world’s first televised regeneration project at Channel 4, and now works as a lecturer in PR with Sheffield Halam University. Her research interests are local & regional media and crisis communications. She has also co-authored a book with Adrian Roxan - Local Democracy, Journalism and Public Relations. In this episode we discuss diversity in higher education; social mobility; skills for the future; impact of austerity on public sector communications and local communities; inclusive communications etc.
Listen to the full episode here 👇🏾
https://thepurposeroom.org/podcast/
Subscribe to the show on any of your favourite platforms iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts
Memorable passages from the podcast:
👉🏾 Thank you so much for inviting me to be part of this. So I'm the daughter of a migrant worker. I mention that because it's relevant to the wider diversity discussion. So I'm the daughter of an Irish person who came to live in Trafford, in Manchester, who fought with the RAF in the second world war, and then trained as a psychiatric nurse and worked in the NHS. And my mom worked as an auxiliary in the NHS. So both of them came to this country and contributed, robustly to the fortunes and well-being of this country. Sorry, I don't mean to labour the point, but I think it is relevant to the wider discussion we have about, diversity within our society.
So I was brought up in a household with five kids, not lots of money, so working-class initially, but, by virtue of my dad's progression through the ranks in the NHS, I would say, probably landed somewhere in middle classdom in my teens. And that's part of the story. I actually left school at 18 going into 19 to work on a local paper. So I worked on the wonderful Belper news in mid-Derbyshire and began to learn my craft as a journalist. So covering all the local stories from parish council meetings, to church jumble sales, the greyhound racing, pigeon results, the rugby match reports, so everything and anything which typifies life in a local paper.
👉🏾 I started on local newspapers and moved to other local newspapers. So mostly Derbyshire and North Nottinghamshire for about eight years. I was working in the North Notts coalfield area on the works of the Guardian series of newspapers during the miner’s strike of 1984/85. But having driven to work through police roadblocks, and I saw firsthand on the picket line how, working people who were campaigning and fighting to save their jobs were treated by an agency of the state. It wasn't a time to sit on the fence and I've carried that with me ever since. That was a really significant turning point for me to fight for what is fair, to champion what is fair, which brings us again to the relevancy of this story, to arc our conversation here, which is about social mobility and diversity in society more generally. Then had a year out to have my son, my first child. And after a year I got a job at Derbyshire County council in their press office, which was a wonderful place to work.
👉🏾 I became joint head of communications at Rotherham borough council with a wonderful colleague, Eileen Brooks, who was an award-winning Yorkshire post journalist. So the two of us ultimately job shared that role, which was quite unusual at the time. At that point yes, I saw an opportunity to work for Channel Four, as a communications manager for what was dubbed the world's first televised community regeneration project. The idea was that a film crew led by the wonderful Kevin McCloud, who we're more familiar with, on Grand Designs, would chart and track and they would chronicle the progress of a series of community regeneration projects, which would very much be community-led. So it was a very unusual role actually, it was only supposed to last a year, but I ended up working for Channel Four for about four years as I moved on to other projects working for them. For me to get a foothold was quite unusual at the time I was their person in the North, I was sometimes dubbed. Certainly wasn't typical of those they recruited. So finished up there and ended up doing consultancy work, and was invited in to start developing a PR course at Sheffield Hallam University, which is fantastic. They invited me on the basis of my practitioner experience and 10, nearly 11 years later, I'm still there and absolutely loving it. It's the most amazing place to work, being in higher education is such a privilege. Having access to teaching and supporting young people who are going to go out there and be ambassadors for their craft. So I think that in a nutshell is where I got from The Belper News where I am now.
👉🏾 That’s a good question. I find still sadly and universities who have worked very hard to make themselves more equitable and to balance in terms of recruitment, gender and diversity issues more broadly. You still, find yourselves in meetings where by virtue of your gender where you have to shout louder and you have to be better than your male colleagues,. And I'm sure there are other diversity sectors that would find that to be the case. So that you'll find yourself next to a male colleague who said precisely what you said five minutes earlier. And they're the ones that get, "Oh yes great idea, Barry. Great idea!" You think what's the difference? Yeah, that happens all the time they are working on it and it is slow progress, painfully slow. So I supposed the Elephant in the Room is sometimes though we don't speak about that enough and perhaps we don't call it out enough. But It's exhausting to do it all the time, you know to have to say that every time a male colleague is championed against a female colleague or a colleague from a BAME community. So you try and do it by example. But I do think you have to be better and you have to shout louder. Which is not something I like, I don't like loud voices. I don't think they're the most interesting. I think quieter voices those who are introspective and very often the people who've gotten the most interesting things to say. Unfortunately, those prejudices mitigate against them being heard as well and as effectively as they should be.
👉🏾 No, I don't. I think there's always more that they can do. I think it is down to us. Universities are time poor and they're very understaffed and that situation is getting worse. There's far too much emphasis from my perspective on income generation, not enough emphasis on supporting research into new areas. I think the PR industry is beginning to acknowledge and, doing some good work actually to try to acknowledge that there are gaps that need addressing. I noticed the CIPR's state of the profession report this time included a question for the first time on social mobility and it doesn't make for happy reading. It's basically social mobility is going backwards, in terms of ethnic representation in the industry. If you're Irish, there are probably about 3% of you in the industry. If you're Indian, I think it's about 2%, Caribbean 1% and it's woeful. And apart from it being the right thing to do, if you're in a diverse society, it makes sense for your industry to represent that diversity. It also makes good business sense. Not that that should be the driving force for anything but it makes good business sense because then you have insider experience to draw upon to make the work and the creative campaigns that you do more relevant and more compelling and more insightful and better informed. So it's a no brainer, but it doesn't seem to have attracted the support that it should have done and if anything things are getting worse. One of the most dismal parts of that report, the state of the profession report was around, recruitments of those surveyed, you've got about a quarter of them come from private education, of those around, over 40% from families where their parents have both been to university. So it's kind of privilege begets privilege, and it's very very hard to break down those barriers. So I don't think the university sector is investing enough in that. And I think it's up to us as academics to champion that in the ways that we see we are doing, but we could do more. And the industry needs to do more. And I think it's beginning to acknowledge that. And I think that that's to its credit, but it needs to happen more quickly. We're all tired of waiting.
👉🏾 I mean, there are different routes and you don't have to do a university degree. It's not a profession to the extent that you have to have a degree or qualification specific, to enter the profession. So, no, strictly, it's not a profession by virtue of that definition. So there's all sorts of routes in, I mean, I would say, cause I work in higher education and for me, the beauty in public relations is that, it's not about information stuffing, although there is a certain amount of factual information giving the old WB Yeats thing about, "it's not the filling of the pail, it's the lighting of the fire". And it's about inspiring. It's about encouraging. Inform young people who will challenge, who will change and be ambassadors and take on those issues themselves.
👉🏾 Just as a story of a very smart student of mine a couple of years ago, he's now successfully working in a leading agency in London. Really bright student came from a very ordinary background but you could just tell supremely talented. Went for an interview at, but a leading London agency, a global PR agency for a chance to do an internship, actually. And as he walked into reception, there was a Damien Hirst artwork in reception. And he said there were nine candidates I think for this internship, so he'd done very well to get to that point. And he said I haven't a clue who Damien Hirst is not a clue. He said, but all the rest of them, there were talking about a) skiing holidays and this Damien Hirst artwork. He said I just didn't know anything about it. So I felt a complete fish out of water. But, the moral of the story is actually, he was so bright and so engaging that he really won them over. And he actually got the internship over the kind of what you consider might be the preferred candidate. So he did really really well. When he started at the agency again. And he struggled because of that, that fitting in that kind of social currency that makes people feel comfortable, you know, that this kind of common background issues. But he's doing fine now, but needed a lot of mentoring. A lot of support, a lot of reassurance to say, you are as good as any of those people. You're better, probably. So stick with it. Don't let those barriers put you off.
👉🏾 I think it can be quite exclusive. I confess that very often. I don't see myself represented in kind of some of the more high profile representatives of PR. I find the language, and some of that network a bit exclusive. It's about being a bit more informed and acknowledging that those unseen barriers are still very much there. And, you know, trying to address that head-on.
👉🏾 There was a wonderful documentary by the BBC's media editor Amol Rajan, called Breaking into the Elite. It was a year and a half ago, and dismally, it looked at some of the stats from think it was, the London School of economics. Looking at basically when the top companies are recruiting, and if you've got a Russell group, so these sort of elite group of universities, a Russell group university, ended up with a 2:2, and maybe someone from, I don't know, Sheffield Hallam University with their 2:1 or a first, the Russell group candidate is more likely to get it, or the Oxbridge candidates is more likely. But, it also talks about, the social capital that, what's your background? What do your parents do? Are you a mirror image of me in that they want to appoint those that reflect their own image.
👉🏾 I suppose I look to my own role. I think through our industry organisations, which are beginning to take up that cudgel and that's brilliant. I think by our own conduct in not pulling up the drawbridge behind us. I've spoken to many colleagues at Chartered Institute and PRCA events where they talk about their own interests. And they don't think about championing the interest of those who are coming behind. So, you know, there's some lovely people in both organsations, but there are also those who don't see it as their responsibility to champion and encourage that next generation in the right way and to acknowledge the barriers that are there. My view
is it's about identifying the talent and championing that and supporting and challenging those students who rule themselves out on the basis of their background, their confidence, the ones who are frightened to come out from behind their email. But, you know, they're brilliant. They just need encouraging. The industry should take greater collective responsibility and there are signs of movement. It isn't happening quickly enough. And it is pretty depressing that we are in 2020 and social mobility is going backwards.
👉🏾 It is a very difficult time, but I do think somewhere in the midst of the gloom, there's an opportunity. We, my colleagues and I had to learn very quickly from March onwards, the first lockdown, how to teach online. So recording our lectures, learning about new software. So interactive seminars online, it's a completely different way of working. I'm teaching a final year group of students. That are going to graduate in sort of may June next year. Our assignment which is about a client proposal and pitch from a choice of different scenarios would be set in the time of COVID. So that they had to then address head-on the barriers that presented themselves to commercial organisations, seeking to have high profile campaigns and high-profile media coverage at a time when it's very difficult to cut through on their own. They needed to address that in order to equip them to go out into the world where COVID probably still be with us next, next May, June. I know things are moving in the right direction, but to make them as marketable and as current and as relevant and as savvy as possible. So trying to encourage them to address issues around COVID: How do we work within it, learn from what industry is telling us they're having to do. I do think there is going to be more online and remote work in going forward. One because I think there's an appetite for that within the workforce and also it's about resourcing. And it's also in a potentially a smarter way of working.
Whilst there is a downturn in recruitment, we're also beginning to see adverts for jobs, which talk about working agilely. More employers are treating their employees as grownups and trusting us to actually get on with the job and recognising that, we do more work when we're not constantly interrupted. So I think that in the midst of all the gloom and the downturn, its’ probably an optimistic sign for the future, that things will pick up and they might well be done differently. And I can't help, but think that when you talk quite rightly, London centric and London agency recruitments, those opportunities, those changes in practice and changes in employment might well pave the way for breaking down some of those recruitment barriers sort of North-South.
👉🏾 So we have undergraduate PR courses and a masters, and they're quite small numbers you're looking at, in any year group about 30, 35 students. So you get to know them, which for me is lovely because what a privilege it is to work closely and try and encourage and support young people going out into the world that's fantastic. It's difficult, you know, online teaching is no replacement for face-to-face, but somewhere in the middle, we've come up with a compromise that does seem to work for the moment. So recorded lectures, they have found far more accessible and useful to work with than they perhaps thought. And also they've had to get their heads around just as I have. It was about talking and listening to them. But also this was happening before COVID, levels of anxiety amongst young people, anxiety and mental health issues more generally. It's on the increase, has been for some time, but COVID has accelerated and exacerbated that just as it has the move to online and digital. So I have quite a few conversations in any given week with students who need signposting to professional support around mental health issues. And I think myself and colleagues have to be quite, nimble and flexible about how we support those students. It’s complex territory and, you know, I'm not a mental health professional, so I can only signpost and offer support. What do you believe are the key skills for PR and communications professionals of the future?
👉🏾 More listening is top of my list, actually. Listening to what people are talking about. Listening to what are the themes out there, there's political, economic, social, technological themes. Listening and doing your homework before you pitch in with your ideas and your script and your narrative. So actually having a proper, respectful two-way dialogue with those people that you're trying to reach. People don't want to be preached at anymore. I think it's taken us a while to learn that actually the smart way to be is to actually listen to your audiences first and then consider what might be a very creative and compelling way to reach them. In terms of skills, writing skills are still top of the list. They've got to be able to write really well around any subject. It's about being an instant expert for whatever the period of the campaign is on any given subject. And that actually journalism plays well into that. And it's about being great at verbal communications, but written and verbal communications top of the list still. And I know when the PRCA, the industries have done their surveys. For clients, it's, it's still very much about, copywriting and writing skills. And devising strategies, social media doesn't come top of the list. Some of my students think being able to operate on social media is the first and last skill they would ever have to have. It's fine, but it's not the full story. It's part of that bag of skills, which are essential. So I'd say writing and listening, incredibly important. And we teach a module around crisis communication, crisis management, given the 24 seven sort of nature of the media world that we're in, having good crisis management skills are increasingly a part of the currency of a successful graduate. Being able to think on their feet and anticipate, and plan and recover and, and manage a crisis.
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