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LEARNING
Thursday 25th November 2021

How Does Training Progress in 2022?

By James Knight.

This year has been very difficult for many of us, especially freelance personnel, young graduates, many of whom may have drifted away from the profession.

Even with years of experience I have found 2021 to be probably the hardest year of my professional career. I am fortunate to work worldwide with emphasis on the States, which does seem not to have gone into total lockdown.

How will things stand in 2022? Universities are not back into normal life, and I hear of problems recruiting students because of the dreaded Covid. So there's potentially a major shortfall in numbers.

To address this I feel that we need our training to be more adventurous. We need to teach more international PR, looking how PR is accepted abroad and acted upon, we need to train our young people in how boardrooms regard PR – far too many directors still think PR is spin.

I have found that PR is often not at the top table, it needs a higher profile, on strategy and planning.

I used to guest speak on Crisis in PR at Bournemouth, but universities can only do so much if they don't have the faculty trained in these areas, communication skills need to improve and Zoom and it's bed fellows has diluted good communications in many instances, with people often not polite online.

An area I have tried to do is get people who are not members of CIPR to join, it shows a commitment to professional standards with the institute often seen as the benchmark of PR professionalism.

Professor James Knight is an international businessman, public relations practitioners and academic. He was Fellow of Bournemouth University Public Relations School, guest speaker at Judge Cambridge, Surrey, Bath and Reading, International Mentor for Oxford Brookes on Hospitality. He is a Fellow of CIPR and the Society of Public Relations of America, as well as a fellow of the Institute of Directors.