Does PR have a class problem?

When Phoebe-Jane Boyd entered the PR world the first thing she did, she says, was try to change her accent, "so that people wouldn't pick up on it". The fact she stood out made her feel uncomfortable and less able to perform in an industry dominated by posh London accents, she adds.

Boyd, now a content marketing manager at Vuelio, says: "You can definitely feel a difference in the way people speak and interact with each other, if you come from a different class." 

Her thoughts bring into question whether the PR industry has a problem with class. In an age when society is looking to become more diverse and inclusive, the communications sector would appear to have some way to go to overcome a reputation for elitism.

For although PR may be moving away from a male, stale and pale image, it still seems very middle-class; you don't hear too many working-class voices across agencies or in-house. Why would that be the case in an industry based on communicating to the wider world?

Devyani Sharma, a sociolinguistics professor at Queen Mary University of London, says that in sectors where language is part of the product or commodity, such as PR, there has often been more focus on prestigious or highly valued ways of speaking: "This can, by definition, implicitly exclude people with working-class accents or dialects. " 

Sarah Waddington, a PR professional who founded Socially Mobile, a community interest company (CIC) that supports public relations practitioners from lower socio-economic backgrounds, believes the exclusion of working-class people from the industry is huge.

Research undertaken with her husband Stephen Waddington, who runs comms firm Wadds, found that the UK PR industry is under-represented by around 13,500 working-class employees. 

"If you correlate Sutton Trust data with the PRCA census and the PRCA State of the Profession reports, you see that 7% of the UK population attended fee paying schools versus 21% who work in PR," says Waddington. 

"We are highly indexed on people who are from independent schools, from well-to-do backgrounds, who have access to money and networks that give them an advantage in the workplace. I think what we are not doing very well within our industry is widening access," she says. 

And, she adds, the issue intersects with gender, race, disability: "If you're a female Asian professional, from a working-class background, you have more of a disadvantage."

This bias ultimately undermines the ability of PR firms to communicate effectively, say practitioners.

"If a PR company is too limited to middle-class employees and a narrow range of accents, it might struggle to connect with the actual diversity of experiences in its audience," says Professor Sharma.

"It might be harder to find the right turn of phrase, or tap into an authentic working-class or regional experience through language or voice in PR materials, and could even come across as stereotyping or inaccurate," she adds.

Most leaders in the PR sector would recognise the need for diversity of thought to understand the world in which their organisations operate in. "There is an enlightened self-interest in having people with different lived experiences, with different perspectives to you," says Neil Daugherty, senior managing director at Teneo.

Levelling up

So what urgent steps are being taken to address this challenge? The CIPR is working with the Social Mobility Foundation and has a reverse mentoring scheme with the Taylor Bennett Foundation.

Additionally, many PR firms are actively seeking to remove bias from the recruitment process.

Teneo has a policy of removing names and education from CVs, in order to screen out unconscious bias, says Daugherty. But he appreciates the issue starts with a lack of awareness of PR as a career option for many from working-class backgrounds.

"Comms has profited too much from recruitment through word of mouth and networks, depending on who you know, not what you know," he says. The firm works with an organisation called 10,000 Black Interns, to help bring in ethnic minority candidates.

But there is also the challenge around the relocating to a London-centric industry. "It's often in terms of how you afford accommodation," says Daugherty. 

Even for those who have entered the profession, the difficulty can be one of retention. "While we've taken some steps to make our industry easier to enter, for example with apprenticeships, we still don't cater very well for school leavers.

"What we don't address is the commercial investment that requires an absolute change in mindset. We have had to create our own education programme as it is not there yet," says Waddington.

Then there is the challenge of advancing up the corporate ladder. "Without effective training, people aren't being able to move up from a tactical role to strategic, high-earning positions," she adds.

Boyd says the PR industry's move to digital communication during the Covid pandemic had the effect of levelling up the industry, but a return to normality has meant London-centric networking once more dominates. "I think we've gone backwards in some ways," she says.

The answer, says Boyd, lies in PR firms and departments making sure people from different backgrounds feel comfortable within the team, so that they can thrive. "If people feel uncomfortable with each other at first that's a good thing, as that's inevitable if people are being curious about others from different backgrounds. Not opening yourself to that is limiting yourself - meaning you can't be doing your job as well as you could be doing it."

For useful resources on diversity go to 
https://cipr.co.uk/CIPR/Our_work/Policy/Diversity_resources.aspx