‘MINORITY’ PR PRACTITIONERS FACE HUGE CHALLENGES IN THE WORKPLACE

To get a true PICTURE of some of the day-to-day challenges faced by practitioners of ethnic origin in today's PR industry, I decided to ask some very basic questions to 4 ethnic practitioners to fully explore this issue of underrepresentation. Our encounter revealed the following challenges -

1) Job satisfaction - our interviews shows that job satisfaction is extremely low. All four are not in the PR sector of their choice.

2) Work related racism - all say they have experienced incidences of racism in their career. The most common problem is the notion of been more qualified for positions than their white counterparts. They also feel ethnic practitioners are put on slow moving career tracks and are often relegated to menial tasks.

3) Mentoring – there is a huge need for mentoring, although all agree that they have been mentored by one or more PR practitioners they would like to be mentored by another minority who has become successful in their own right.

Thank you to all that provided us with their information. Your participation is priceless.