A recent survey of people working in PR and communication in the Nordics provides the startling finding that the majority are thinking of quitting.The fragmentation of our workday has reached a level that is not sustainable.

According to scientists, humankind is at an "epidemic" level of inattention fueled by digital distractions and the way modern life is structured. The explanation can be found in our environment, not neurology. In other words, it’s a self-inflicted crisis.

In the PR and communications industry, it can look like we have perfected the very act of creating environments and roles that foster inattention. That is, we create and recreate environments and structures that reduce our ability to delve deeply. Being able to focus deeply is a prerequisite for making a difference. We are just skimming the surface, that is, we are skimming so many surfaces at the same time, that the result is superficiality. And it wears us out.

Complexity and value

The 2024 State of Nordic PR & Communication report summarizes how these mechanisms now play out in the Nordic communications industry. The report is based on responses from over 450 professionals in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, and shows that a significant portion of the workforce in our industry is struggling with their work lives and consider significant career moves.

• 52% say the current development of their role has put them in a professional identity crisis.
• 51% say their role has changed so much they are considering quitting their job or leaving the industry.

Two tasks are paramount for us who shall create rewarding work environments for communication professionals: Reduce complexity and increase the recognition of our contributions. We need to give people the tools and conditions to delve deeply. If we manage that, we will increase both job satisfaction, our collective and individual impact, and economic conditions.

Throughout my tenure in this industry, the conversation has consistently centered on how public relations professionals can effectively showcase our worth and capitalize on higher recognition of our contributions – irrespective of our roles being internal or within an agency setting.

There is reason to fear that we have not come any closer to either the boardroom or a general recognition on par with areas such as law and finance.

A broken model?

I have worked in media and communication for more than 20 years, first as a young journalist before moving to in-house PR roles and then the agency world in London, before we founded our own agency. I have been part of building a PR agency that serves both large international and Nordic customers. Along the way we have supported Google, Meta, and Netflix for a total of 26 retainer years. In the same period, we have been a very active participant in the international agency network PROI. My experience is therefore based on a broad spectrum both in time and geography.

During my two decades in the industry, the complexity of our workday has increased dramatically, to a point where there is reason to ask if the basic model we rely on is broken. The direct consequence is that we as employers in this industry no longer offer our employees a sustainable everyday life – a trend that has been accelerated in the post-pandemic period.

It is a tough realization.

Early in our journey, we as agency leaders realized that for most people an increasing fragmentation of the workday is a greater challenge than the total workload. I see two fundamental reasons for this development: An increasing span in tasks and responsibilities (a fact also confirmed in the above-mentioned survey). And an agency world where each employee simply deals with too many clients.

This leads to a work situation where we juggle multiple different, unrelated tasks. We skim surfaces. We struggle with the lack of ability to concentrate on a single task or coherent set of tasks. This leads to inefficiency and stress, as we constantly switch between tasks, potentially not giving enough attention to any single one.

Variety versus fragmentation

Yes, we work long hours in this industry, but not longer than lawyers and management consultants, and not in tougher everyday situations than nurses and teachers. We must, however, recognize that we often work with worse (if any) tools and structures than knowledge workers with whom we can compare ourselves. It has to do with our domain not being as developed as law and economics.

But it also has to do with our nature as creative workers dealing with a world with ever fewer certainties.

Tools and models often give way to intuition and inspiration. Those of us who work creatively love variety and may be inclined to think that a day with little repetition is a good thing.

However, fragmentation is something entirely different from variation. Fragmentation is the enemy of creative productivity. One of the great paradoxes is that our job is often to assist our clients or colleagues in seeing and conveying clear images. Yet, everyday life as a communications person can feel like assembling several 1000-piece puzzles at the same time – without the necessary time, focus, and insight required to bring out the clear picture we know is there.

Undervalued

We live in a world that demands as much professionally from us as lawyers, management consultants, and business leaders. Yet, our contributions are not recognized at the same level as these three categories of professionals. And there lies one of our fundamental problems:

The recognition of and willingness to pay for the value of our services has not kept pace with the increased complexity of our everyday life. We are relatively underpaid for deliveries that require more from us. The reason is that even in a world where companies live and die by their reputation, PR still does not have the same recognition as finance or law among the buyers of our services.

A comparison of the economic realities of the 10 largest law firms and PR agencies in Norway (except pure Public Affairs agencies) for 2022, illustrates the picture perfectly:

• The 10 largest law firms have a turnover 14 times higher than the 10 largest PR agencies.
• PR agencies have an average operating margin of 8%, while law firms have a margin of 45%.
• The operating profit of PR agencies is only 8% of that of law firms.

The PR industry is, in all respects, a minnow compared to the legal profession. And minnows are easily overlooked.

A recipe for growth

To gain the necessary gravitas and become a bigger fish, we must grow. The goal must be for communication as a discipline to be considered important enough to be integrated into the very core of organizations' work: when developing strategy.

Here is a three-part recipe: defragmentation, narrowing and deepening of focus, and adopting the language of strategy (numbers).

Defragmenting the workday is about tools (especially AI), discipline, and structure. This also implies sacrificing some of the variety we tend to favor on the altar of simplification. We must tolerate repetition to improve rather than begin each task and delivery from scratch.

Narrowing our focus means serving fewer stakeholders to be able to work more in depth, where the source of higher influence lies. As communicators, we have heightened risk of collaboration overload, and what the organizational psychologist Adam Grant calls” diminishing returns on collaboration”. Grant discusses how too much collaboration can lead to burnout, reduced productivity, and a decline in job satisfaction. We do not need to involve ourselves in all aspects of the organization's activities. We need a more selective approach, limiting our contributions to the areas where they are seen as crucial. The result will be deeper understanding of the issues and a more strategic role.

Finally, we need to bring more data and less intuition and guesstimating into discussions. Our language needs to shift from "I believe" to "our data shows". With our expertise, we can play a critical role in understanding how various strategies and initiatives unfold, by rigorously experimenting and testing communication.

By doing all of this, we will simplify the day-to-day life of those who work in communication, thereby taking the first step towards becoming more meaningful and valued in our professional practice.

This, in turn, will lead to our value creation providing us with better conditions and the opportunity to delve deeper and further develop our potential as the organization's most important resources.

We must create a sustainable future for our industry and the people within it. When surveys show that a majority of our colleagues in the Nordics are considering changing fields, we have been thoroughly warned: A future where our industry play a crucial role in society begins with a genuine transformation of people's workday.