PR staff across the board enjoyed a hike in their percentage
pay rises last year as, with recession memories fading fast,
companies scrambled to catch and keep talented people.
The increases - averaging 11.9 per cent in agencies and 7.5 per
cent in-house - are clearly in step with the wishes of
consultancy staff who, in this year’s PR Week/Media Appointments
Salary Survey, highlighted money as their key work-place
motivation.
Yet, with 12 hour days and stress-overload the norm for many PR
people, there are growing signs that cash could soon take second
place to demands for a better quality of life.
The consultancy rise of 11.9 per cent, up more than three per
cent on last year, meant all but one band - solo-practitioners
and freelances - saw increases of more than 10 per cent. With the
industry continuing to pay dearly for its lack of account
handlers, account managers again got the biggest hike, with
salaries going up 13.9 per cent.
Although solo practitioners only won a 6.4 per cent rise, the
survey - based on responses from 1,400 PR professionals - quashes
the myth of the solo operator as ’one man and his typewriter’.
The top 10 per cent of lone practitioners - separated this year
from the managing director/chairman category - raked in an
average of pounds 77,583. This figure can only increase as
high-flyers like Alison Canning, ex-Burson-Marsteller chief
executive, go it alone as strategic consultants.
Although less striking, the average in-house rise of 7.5 per cent
shows the sector emerging from the doldrums of last year when it
won a mere 5.1 per cent. As last year, the PR officer did least
well, with a 6.8 per cent increase, while PR managers and PR
directors clocked rises of about 7.8 per cent.
Media Appointments director Benedicte Martin says the rising
salaries reflect the industry’s fight to find, and retain, PR
talent. ’Good people are very, very hard to find,’ she says.
’Those in charge of PR budgets are demanding more value for
money. Agencies are therefore shopping around for the best people
and leaving vacancies unfilled rather than taking on ’average’
people.’
Whereas account handlers have been the gold-dust of recent years,
Martin says fresh gaps are opening up. ’While, at entry level, PR
is as seductive as ever to green graduates, more experienced PR
professionals are becoming increasingly disaffected with the
industry.’ Such disaffection, she says, is encouraging many more
senior people to go in-house or to leave public relations
altogether.
Such burn-out may explain the industry’s prevailing youth. This
year, the ages of all ranks remained static or fell, with, for
example, the average in-house PR director now aged 39, not 41 and
the average account director now 33, not 34 years old.
The increasing demand has not restored full confidence: only 46.2
per cent of respondents felt their company was in a healthy or
very healthy position, while 11.6 per cent of consultancy staff
and 23.9 per cent of in-house people are afraid of losing their
jobs. Yet, of the 22.2 per cent who changed jobs last year, more
than one third went to more senior jobs while less than nine per
cent were made redundant.
The actual ease of job movement is also reflected by the fact
that almost one in five staff have been with their firm for less
than two years.
Despite the overall rises, the actual level of salaries for top
operators has withered. This year an agency managing
director/chairman, in the top ten per cent earnings bracket, gets
pounds 91,667 not pounds 95,000, while the top in-house PR
director’s wage has fallen from pounds 91,375 to pounds
86,167.
Although such figures could mean simply that last year’s high
earners were just too busy making money to participate in the
1997 review, they do indicate a scarcity of fat cats in the
public relations industry.
Benedicte Martin affirms: ’In these days of tight margins, fat
cat salaries are not as prevalent as the press would have us
believe.
’Consultancy managing directors would rather pay themselves a
realistic base salary with a generous bonus, dependent on the
agency’s performance.
Senior in-house roles do sometimes come with awesome packages but
these are invariably reserved for board level appointments.’
The survey shows women reaping a higher percentage increase than
their male colleagues - a healthy 8.2 per cent compared with 6.2
per cent for men.
However, there are still relatively few women at the top.
In-house, women make up 71 per cent of PR officers but only 43.3
per cent of PR directors and, in agencies, the 81.7 per cent
female domination of the account executive ranks translates into
just 35.5 per cent at chairman or managing director level.
’I am not aware of any specific discrimination with salaries, in
regard to women or, indeed, their being chosen to fill top
positions,’ says Martin.
’However there is no doubt that the competition ratio does start
to decline as women face increasingly difficult decisions when
juggling home/children and the demands of, say, a board position
in an agency.’
Salaries vary across different regions and sectors. Central
London continues to lead the field, with its average salary of
pounds 32,792 being pounds 3,000 greater than the next contender
- Greater London - and over pounds 9,000 higher than in the
poorest-paying area, Yorkshire and Humberside.
The utilities and power arena offers the highest average
salaries, of the survey’s 12 defined sectors, with both in-house
and consultancy staff on pounds 37,000-plus - a reflection no
doubt of the rough media ride suffered by many former
nationalised industries.
The other sectors pay differing rates between in-house and
consultancy.
In-house, financial services ranks second in the money stakes, on
pounds 33, 404, with the industrial sector third on pounds
31,333. In agencies, the healthcare and pharmaceutical field is
runner-up with pounds 35,102, and the government and public
services sector third with pounds 32,205.
ADDED BENEFITS
With the supply and demand equation tipping in their favour,
employees are increasingly looking beyond the pay cheque when
changing jobs.
’The recent generations of PR professionals are definitely more
clued up when it comes to benefits and in turn have higher
expectations,’ says Benedicte Martin. ’It is not unusual for
graduate trainees to come armed with a battery of questions
relating to benefits.’
The survey reveals a picture where, in almost all sectors - apart
from pensions - in-house staff seem to have lost their
traditional ascendancy on perks.
Martin comments: ’To retain their staff, rather than for
altruistic reasons, agencies are perhaps realising they have to
be competitive and offer a better benefits package than they did
five years ago.’
In-house staff should do better on pensions with 76.7 per cent
covered against just 43.6 per cent of agency employees.
In all fields, the company car is becoming far less popular, with
just 44 per cent of agency staff and 26.9 per cent of in-house
staff at the wheel. ’Cars are decreasing in popularity as
employees have become more aware of the tax disadvantages,
preferring cash in lieu,’ says Martin.
Surprisingly, considering the continuing media fascination with
the state of the NHS, there is an across-the-board reduction in
private health benefits, with just 40 per cent of consultancy
staff and 33.9 per cent of in-house employees covered. Agency
board directors buck this downward trend by increasing take-up
from 61 per cent last year to 63.1 per cent.
This fall may reflect employees’ tendency to ’mix and match’
benefits, rather than employer parsimony. Martin says: ’Employers
are increasingly offering a set cash package when offering jobs.
These can then be broken down by the individual and allocated
according to preferred benefits spend.’
Performance-related bonus figures reveal a complex picture.
In-house, the average percentage of staff receiving such benefits
fell in all staff groups.
However, those in-house folk in receipt of PRBs saw them rise in
value with, for example, a PR manager’s average bonus rising from
6.9 to 9 per cent of their salary. In consultancies, some
sectors, such as account managers, became less likely to receive
PRBs, while others, including account executives, became more
likely recipients. As with in-house, the value of bonuses
increased.
Guaranteed bonuses remain far less common: at a prevalence of 7.4
per cent in consultancies, and 5.9 per cent in-house, they showed
basically no move on last year.
Stake-holding is becoming more politically fashionable than last
year.
Then in-house staff were far less likely to part-own their
company, with only one in eight in-house people holding shares,
compared to this year’s figure of almost one in four agency
employees.
Training is lauded by many as the great white hope of public
relations, yet the survey reveals a disturbing inconsistency
across the industry.
In-house, more than half of all staff had no structured training;
one quarter had no training days last year and 60 per cent had no
presentations from external experts. In consultancies, almost
two-thirds had no structured training, one-fifth had no training
days and more than half saw no expert presentations.
There were, however, some glowing trends, such as the 18 per cent
of consultancy and 15 per cent of in-house staff who had more
than five days training last year and the one-third of
consultancy people, and one-quarter of in-house employees, who
had personal mentors.
Benedicte Martin suggests the mega-agencies do not always offer
the best development opportunities. ’It seems to be the
middle-sized and fast expanding agencies which are increasingly
committed to training and quality accreditation.
Smaller agencies seem to offer more of the ’all hands on deck’-
type training which, although somewhat unstructured, can
undoubtedly be beneficial.’
It is not only rogue companies who put little stock on training.
In the league table of ten motivational factors, both in-house
and consultancy staff put training near the bottom of their
personal top tens.
LONGER WORKING DAYS
This year’s salary survey also trounces the Ab Fab myth of the PR
practitioner as a Bolly-swilling, long-lunching air-head.
Industry professionals are highly qualified: almost two-thirds
are graduates, nearly half speak two or more foreign languages
and 36.7 per cent are members of the IPR. They work immensely
long hours. In-house, on an average day, 13 per cent of staff
spend between 11 and 12 hours at work, with over one per cent
working for more than 12 hours. Consultancy staff clock up even
more hours, with 14.8 per cent of respondents spending between 11
and 12 hours at the office and over three per cent working even
longer.
Martin explains: ’In these days of tight margins, and in keeping
with the whole reshaping of work over the last five or six years,
it is a rare PR operator who will disappear off to lunch not to
be seen again until the next day!’
Lunches do, however, still figure. Around 50 per cent of staff,
slightly weighted on the agency side, have two or more business
meals each week.
At those lunches, mineral water must often be the favourite
tipple as a sobering 7.8 per cent of respondents are teetotal.
However 14.7 per cent of staff confess to drinking more than 25
units of alcohol per week - four units above the Government’s
’sensible maximum’ - and more than a quarter of consultancy
staff, and just over one in six in-house people, had faced work
during the previous two weeks with a hangover.
Drugs, illegal or otherwise, were the pursuit of the minority -
although in-house staff proved more abstemious than consultancy
colleagues. In agencies, 27.4 per cent smoke - 0.4 per cent above
the national average - and 17.6 per cent had taken illegal drugs
in the previous six months.
In-house, 17.7 per cent smoke while eight per cent had tried
something harder.
A significant proportion - 9.5 per cent - of today’s PR talent is
made up of ex-journalists but, with 8.3 per cent now holding
degrees in public relations, the industry seems likely to become
the province of ’career PRs’.
This can have drawbacks. Benedicte Martin reports that graduates
in public relations are ’surprisingly picky and in some cases
unprepared to do the basic dogsbody hands-on work that the
average executive spends their time doing.’
Despite the recent climate of sleaze, the survey shows most PR
staff have a strong professional sense of how far they should go.
While 86 per cent would accept free drinks and 87 per cent would
take free lunch, only 14.4 per cent wouldn’t say no to a free
holiday and 12.4 per cent to a free car. Meanwhile, 22 per cent
of respondents had had affairs with colleagues and more than one
in 12 consultancy respondents said they had had liaisons with
clients.
Benedicte Martin also reports that money is no longer the prime
mover.
’Unlike in the 1980s, when candidates would come to me with a
non-negotiable figure to which they were aspiring, these days
staff are more inclined to move for the ’right’ job. Personal
happiness and job satisfaction are of ultimate importance.’
She adds that, due to the ’quality of life issue and a
disaffection with the intense pressures of London agency life’,
the last year has seen a definite trend of Londoners wanting to
move out of the capital.
However - despite popular cynicism, dogsbody work, long hours and
claims from almost one-third of respondents that they are
under-rewarded or even exploited - for many, public relations
retains its lustre. Given their career time again, almost
two-thirds of the people surveyed said they would still go into
the public relations industry.
IN-HOUSE
PR DIRECTOR PR MANAGER
Average salary Average salary
pounds 43,620 pounds 28,324
Average age Average age
39 37
Average salary increase Average salary increase
at last review at last review
7.8% 7.8%
Average holiday Average holiday
5 weeks 5 weeks
% RECEIVING THESE BENEFITS % RECEIVING THESE BENEFITS
Car Car
51% 40.8%
Health plan Health plan
59.6% 41.3%
Performance-related bonus Performance-related bonus
43.3% 31%
Pension Pension
88.5% 78.3%
PR OFFICER
Average salary
pounds 19,823
Average age
32
Average salary increase
at last review
6.8%
Average holiday
5 weeks
% RECEIVING THESE BENEFITS
Car
12.2%
Health plan
21.3%
Performance-related bonus
15.8%
Pension
76%
CONSULTANCY
CHAIRMAN/MANAGING DIRECTOR BOARD DIRECTOR
Average salary Average salary
pounds 47,280 pounds 45,654
Average age Average age
45 39
Average salary increase Average salary increase
at last review at last review
11.7% 12.5%
Average holiday Average holiday
4 weeks 5 weeks
% RECEIVING THESE BENEFITS % RECEIVING THESE BENEFITS
Car Car
68.8% 61.5%
Health plan Health plan
50.5% 63.1%
Performance-related bonus Performance-related bonus
33.3% 44.6%
Pension Pension
63.4% 61.5%
ACCOUNT DIRECTOR
Average salary
pounds 30,472
Average age
33
Average salary increase
at last review
13%
Average holiday
4 weeks
% RECEIVING THESE BENEFITS
Car
56.9%
Health plan
50.4%
Performance-related bonus
34.2%
Pension
41.5%
ACCOUNT MANAGER ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE
Average salary Average salary
pounds 23,039 pounds 17,043
Average age Average age
29 26
Average salary increase Average salary increase
at last review at last review
13.9% 10.4%
Average holiday Average holiday
4 weeks 4 weeks
% RECEIVING THESE BENEFITS % RECEIVING THESE BENEFITS
Car Car
26.8% 7.7%
Health plan Health Plan
47.7% 35.6%
Performance-related bonus Performance-related bonus
28.8% 29.8%
Pension Pension
31.4% 36.4%
TOP TEN MOTIVATING FACTORS AT WORK
Consultancy In-house
1 Financial reward 1 Challenging work
2 Challenging work 2 Responsibility
3 Responsibility 3 Financial reward
4 Friendly environment 4 Recognition
5 Recognition 5 Friendly environment
6 Career prospects 6 Career prospects
7 Job security 7 Job security
8 Location 8 Location
9 Training 9 Training
10 Fringe benefits 10 Fringe benefits
