Given the extensive use of social media and the institutionalization of a 24/7 news cycle in our industry, public relations practitioners work increasingly longer and more intensive hours. To understand how practitioners negotiate the boundary between work and life on a daily basis, how their work-life experiences influence both career development and life satisfaction, and how practitioners can seek for individual and organizational resources to deal with their work-life issues, PRSA’s Work, Life, and Gender (WLG) Committee conducts a PRSA membership survey every five years.
The theme of our 2015 survey is Conflict & Enrichment. We intend to investigate practitioners’ experiences when facing competing obligations from work and life and when realizing work and life can potentially enrich each other in certain ways. In particular, the survey examines how public relations practitioners balance their work and non-work lives and how these experiences are related to many other issues in our profession, such as practitioners’ perceptions of relationships with their employers, gender issues, salary and promotion opportunities, and practitioners’ specializations in public relations. To accomplish a successful study, we need your support.
[Editor’s note: If you have not received an email but would still like to take the survey, please click here]
We have sent to a random sample of PRSA members an email invitation with a link to our online survey. The survey should take about 15-20 minutes to complete. Your responses are strictly confidential. No personal identifying information will be collected or revealed as a consequence of participating in the survey. To encourage participation, a random drawing for three $100 Amazon gift cards will be sponsored by the School of Journalism & Media Studies at San Diego State University and the Department of Public Relations at Syracuse University.
PRSA’s Work, Life, and Gender (WLG) committee will share the findings of the study with PRSA members upon completion of the study. Based on data collected from the survey, members of the WLG committee will submit papers to academic and professional conferences and journals for presentation and publication. The committee will also share with all participants a summary of the key findings. If you have additional questions about the study, please do not hesitate to contact me at hjiang07@syr.edu.
Thank you in advance for supporting our 2015 WLG survey administered by PRSA’s Work, Life, & Gender Committee.
Sources:
Jiang, H., & Shen, H. (2013). Toward a theory of public relations practitioners’ own conflict: Work vs. life. Journal of Public Relations Research, 25, 259-279.
Shen, H., & Jiang, H. (2013). Profiling public relations practitioners’ work-life conflict: From a diversity lens. Public Relations Journal, 7(2), 71-95.
Jiang, H., & Men, R. L. (in press). Creating an engaged workforce: The impact of authentic leadership, transparent communication, and work-life enrichment. Communication Research.
Dr. Hua Jiang is an assistant professor in the Department of Public Relations, S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. Her research focuses on relationship management, work-life issues, organizational communication, social media, and public relations leadership. She has published more than two dozens of peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. Her work has appeared in flagship communication and public relations journals such as Communication Research, Journal of Applied Communication Research, Journal of Health Communication, Journal of Public Relations Research, Public Relations Review, and Public Relations Journal. She is Chair of PRSA’s Work, Life, and Gender Committee. Follow Dr. Jiang on Twitter @HuaJiangSU.
