ON January 11, 2015 under this column, we discussed the role of Public Relations (PR) practitioner as a communication facilitator.
It was stated that PR officers, with the support of top management officials and the respective chief executive officer (CEO), are responsible for facilitating two-way effective communication process between an organisation and its stakeholders through various media. But are PROs also expert prescribers?
Pastor Emmanuel Mwansa in Lusaka says he enjoys reading PR Forum’s articles every Sunday in Sunday Times of Zambia.
Pastor Mwansa notes that such articles have helped him and many others to add more PR knowledge; and understand some technicalities and challenges relating to PR practice.
In addition to PROs being communication facilitators, Cutlip et al (2000) in ‘Effective Public Relations’ state that PROs are also expert prescribers.
While in practice in our society such statements can seem strange; make one fail to understand what it means; and therefore be surprised, PR practitioners are expert prescribers in PR related issues.
What is a challenge in PR practice in our society is the level of PR knowledge; and being given enough latitude to prescribe the best PR approach in a given situation; and in all situations.
As it was alluded to under PROs as communication facilitators, such practitioners are supposed to have good research and analytical skills. They are supposed to interact frequently with all primary and secondary stakeholders using various media including social media and face-to-face communication.
Such interaction helps a PR practitioner not only to know some of the stakeholders’ needs and expectations from an organisation but it also facilitates generating lessons of experiences; and learning possible solutions to respective stakeholders’ needs, expectations and challenges.
This is not to say that other heads of department (HoDs) and the CEO have no role in addressing stakeholders’ issues but to say that as far as PR related issues with stakeholders; including those which fall directly under other departments like in financial accounting such as paying creditors; in marketing such as customers’ concern on quality of product or a service, etc are concerned, a PR practitioners is an expert prescriber on the best way forward in maintaining mutual understanding  and mutually beneficial relationship between that organisation and the respective stakeholder (s).
For a PR practitioner to be an expert prescriber on PR related issues, one is supposed to have sound training in PR related field; and gain relevant experience in a specific sector of operation. This is because PR related functions can be challenging depending on the size of an organisation, nature of operations and the type and needs of stakeholders an organisation has.
Therefore, a PR practitioner keeps on learning and up-dating oneself on intricate PR related practices and issues; and those which affect organisational management in general to know how to relate with; and have an expert input to issues that affect other departments and an organisation as a whole.
Such qualities and functions of a good PR practitioner demand that a PRO should have sound formal training not only in PR but also in business related fields. In short, a PR practitioner is also supposed to be relatively multi-disciplinary professional.
Such kind, levels of training and acquired experience will help a PR practitioner to be well versed with PR related issues as they affect other disciplines at strategic top management related functions.
This is why in Zambia, most of the PR practitioners including Masuzyo Ndhlovu who is current Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation’s Corporate Affairs Manager; and Loyce Saili who is Road Development Agency Senior Manager: Public Relations have taken further studies in PR and other business related disciplines to facilitate their strategic PR role in top management related functions.
It is from such a background that PR practitioners in different organisations and operating in various PR related functions should make an effort to impress their peers and top management officials for such officials to establish and develop confidence in  PR practitioners as expert prescribers in PR related issues.
PROs should be so effective in their respective PR related duties that their peers and other top management officials; including the CEO should feel comfortable to seek PR related advice from a respective PR practitioner.
When top management officials and the CEO have confidence in a PRO as a expert prescriber in PR related functions, even PR programmes and their respective budgets which a PR practitioner presents to respective top management are easily supported and approved.
It must be mentioned here that PR is a management function like any other management field; and being a management function, it also has specific, measurable, attainable and realistic objectives which are time bound.
This means that PR related programmes, like any other management related programme such as marketing, accounting, procurement, human resource, etc is measurable.
It is how measurable through tangible and intangible results that PR related advice gives to an organisation that facilitates PR practitioners’ peers, other top management officials and the CEO to develop confidence and trust that a respective PR practitioner is an expert prescriber in PR related issues.
Therefore, while it has been argued in the past by most PR practitioners that they don’t receive adequate support from top management officials and some of their respective CEOs, it is also the duty of each PR practitioner in a respective organisation to prove that one is a expert prescriber in PR related functions depending on the situation at hand.
But top management officials; including the CEO should be careful with how to prove that a respective PR practitioner is an expert prescriber because one might advise on PR related issue; but because some or all top management officials including the CEO don’t feel that such advice is timely and beneficial to the issue at hand, such advice might be ignored; resulting into serious negative consequences on an organisation.
A good case study where PROs aren’t properly used as expert prescribers is in politics.
Most political parties have either ignored to employ professional PR practitioners or ignore professional PR advice from the PR experts they have employed. As a result, in most political parties, one finds many PR related issues which create critical challenges for most political parties; especially during election political campaigns.
One notes that if most political parties’ PROs were pro-active in prescribing what was supposed to be done earlier on, such political campaign challenges wouldn’t have been there in such political parties!
Therefore, employing relevant PR professionals and using them accordingly is one of the critical issues that most organisations in this country should consider.
This further implies that if organisations are to benefit from their PR practitioners as expert prescribers, organisations are supposed to invest in such officers through facilitating their PR practitioners in further studies in PR related studies; or facilitating further training in business administration related training for their respective PROs where one is already adequately trained in PR related field.
The more PROs are trained in respective fields; the more they sharpen their knowledge and skills; the more they become expert PR prescribers in their respective organisations to the benefit of their respective employers.
However, it should be noted that trust on whether a PR practitioner is an expert prescriber or not is an on-going process. One can start proving that he or she is a PR related expert prescriber on both relatively small and easy issues; and also on relatively challenging issues.
Therefore, there should be good rapport on how to handle PR related issues between PR practitioners and top management officials where interaction and consultation should be high. Such an approach to management builds confidence and trust to high levels.
Such a situation will make top management officials develop further confidence that where PR issues crop up, the respective PRO or PR team and the top management officials will quickly share ideas where PR practitioner  (s) as PR expert prescribers will recommend what PR related communication and action to take to avert a crisis or to remedy a given situation.
Therefore, PR practitioners should not only acquire PR knowledge and develop skills as communication facilitators but should also acquire high business related knowledge and experience to easily understand the business environment under which PR operates; and give timely and expert PR advice in given situations.
As a result, top management officials should also allow PR practitioners to demonstrate their PR knowledge and skills through giving such officials chances to contribute to strategic top management related issues.
In the process, such rapport between PR practitioners and top management officials facilitates both effective cross-pollination of professional knowledge and co-ordination among various departments to the benefits of the whole organisation; especially where a CEO concerned facilitates and engineers such processes.
The author is a Communication Skills and PR Trainer and Consultant. For comments and ideas, contact:
Cell: 0967/0977 450151.  E-mail:sycoraxtndhlovu@yahoo.co.uk