Challenge for Emerging Leaders

2. Situation: The PR industry is currently falling behind in their diversity efforts
1. Men are underrepresented in assistant’s coordinator positions.
2. Women are underrepresented in higher management positions.
3. African American, Asian, Native American and Pacific Islander, and more are grossly
underrepresented in the industry.
Research:
Qualitative:
Glassdoor contains many reviews of current and former Ketchum employees who
provide perspectives of various positions in various cities. Our team filtered out all the reviews
that had anything to do with the topic at hand - diversity. The quotes included both negative and
positive quotes regarding diversity. The following are the negative quotes we found:
• “Lack of diversity in senior management, limited diversity in employee pool” -
current employee (Mar 23, 2011)
• “Diversity has and continues to be an issue” - current employee (Oct 16, 2015)
• “Not very diverse” - current manager/New York (Feb, 24, 2012)
• “Not much diversity in the office. Very hard to advance professionally” - former
account executive/Los Angeles (Mar 9, 2016)
• “Diversity is scarce” - former employee (Jul 5, 2017)
On the other hand, the following are the positive quotes we found:
• “Diverse and interesting clients” - current employee (Jan 26, 2016)
• “Diverse clients and learning opportunities” - former employee/San Francisco
(Jan 30, 2011)
Our team found that the negative comments on diversity highly outweighed the positive
ones in Ketchum. Also, diversity surrounding employees hired at Ketchum was regarded as
negative with lacking diversity. Whenever diversity was talked about as a positive it was mostly
on the client side or the projects that the employees were able to work on.

3. Quantitative:
In order to further research, the topic, our team put together a survey for the target audience.
43 responses were received. The following is a summary of our findings:
• Most of our respondents were 21 years old (30.2%)
• Most of our respondents were Caucasian (90.7%) including some Hispanic and Middle
Eastern
• Most of our respondents were female (83.7%)
• Diversity was ranked third in attractiveness for a job at a PR agency (37.2%)
Limitations: given the very short amount of time our team had to conduct research, put together a
survey, distribute it and gather results, we find that our results are limited as most of our
respondents were 21, Caucasian and female. We believe that the lack of overwhelming diversity
can account for the fact that diversity is listed as third in importance. However, this is still a great
insight as, despite these limitations, diversity was still a valued aspect of work life at a PR
agency.
Research from the Plank Center states that millennials look for for 5 things:
• Relationships
• Diversity

4. • Development,
• Technology
• Social Responsibility
Goal: Increase pool of talent with diverse backgrounds in public relations
Objectives, Strategies and Tactics:
v Objective: Increase the awareness of the public relations field to diverse groups of
students ages 15-18 by 10% within 1 year.
o Strategy: Work with high schools to create opportunities for students to
collaborate with PR professionals and engage in the industry.
§ Tactic: Partner with individuals and organization in various industries to
host an annual career fair nationwide
§ Work with school counselors to disseminate information about PR
industry opportunities and connect students with PR professionals.
Graphic:

5. v Objective: Increase diverse student engagement in the PR industry by 10% within 1 year.
o Strategy: Create immersive learning experiences limited specifically to
multicultural students to promote multicultural ideas
§ Tactic: Create and implement a 6-month internship program specifically
for diverse students:
This intern is able to learn and help the agency while gaining real world
experience. After a certain amount of time, if the internship goes well, the
intern will be offered an entry level position.
v Objective: Increase awareness of agency’s diversity efforts by 10% within 1 year.
o Strategy: Create social media campaign promoting emerging and pre-existing
multicultural programs and efforts.
§ Tactic: Post on the agency’s popular social media platforms such as
LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram about all diversity efforts.
Graphics:

6. o Strategy: Rebrand current diversity inclusion efforts in order to increase audience
visibility.
§ Tactic: Rename Ketchum University to Ketchum Global University.
Graphic:
Measurements:
• Record the number of high school career fair participants and follow up with guidance
counselors
• Record the number of applicants from across the nation for the fellowship program
• Implement Google and Twitter Analytics in order to track social media activity and
success
Wrap Up/Summary:
• Increase the awareness of the public relations field to diverse groups of students
• Provide hands on PR industry experience specifically to diverse college students.
• Increase awareness of agency’s current and emerging diversity efforts