For Australian Public Relations and Communication Managers the Christmas/New Year ‘quiet’ period provides a great opportunity to take stock on departmental progress.
If I were running a PR or Communications Department I would be assessing my performance under these three broad headings:
1) PR Department Management.
Overall I would be asking myself how my management of PR or Communication has measured up with what I set to achieve this financial year. Specifically I would be asking myself that at this time of the year:
• Have I done enough to improve my standing with the CEO and the other members of the Executive team?
• What criteria do I think my colleagues are applying to assess my performance and contribution to the team? And how do I rate my own standing and performance against these criteria?
• What are the areas or actions which I think have strengthened my standing? Conversely where might I have not done so well?
• How do I think my performance compares with the best of my peers – those I know have the eye of the CEO?
2) Communication Delivery
Overall I would be asking myself as to whether the projects my Department undertook, or the initiatives I introduced, delivered the outcomes that I honestly had hoped for at the beginning of the year. Specifically I would be asking:
• Which projects/initiatives were successful? What contributed to these successes? Were there common factors in those that were successful?
• Which projects/initiatives were not as successful as I had hoped? Why was that? Again, were there common factors that impacted on these projects?
• Are there structural or organisational matters that it is apparent are central to the way the Department is running? If they are good and positive how do I ensure these continue? If there are problems how do I best address them?
3) Agency Relationship
If, as most organizations do, I also employ a PR agency I would be asking myself whether I am getting the best out of my agency. Specifically I would be asking:
• Am I setting an environment which encourages my agency to produce the best results and outcomes for me?
• What did the agency do in the first part of the year that was particularly good? What has the agency done that was not the best? And what factors contributed to each?
• Do I have in place mechanisms such as a formal review of the agency that will enable us to review, and if necessary, strengthen the relationship?
Having gone through this self analysis I would be setting myself goals and objectives for the second half of the year and for those areas that I think I (or others) need to improve I would putting in place forms of measurement that I can refer to six months from now.
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