Outlook

Exhaustion,
disruption and
regulations:

2016

JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2016 PHILLY AD NEWS

COLUMN | BY CHRISTOPHER LUKACH, APR

THREE CHALLENGES FOR COMMUNICATORS IN 2016

2016. The sun will rise. The world will spin. The rest
is anyones guess.
Here are my guesses:

SOCIAL MEDIA:
THE YEAR OF THE UNFRIEND
Were full-steaming toward another presidential
election, and the closer we get to November 2016
the more I begin to ache for the once-tiresome
photos of what my friends are having for dinner.
Thats because election season brings unmatched
social media exhaustiona time during which
you form new opinions of people with whom you
may have had long-established relationships. Its a
season of unfollowing, if not altogether unfriending.
While an election season is a perfect time to
celebrate our constitutional right to free speech,
its also a perfect time to be reminded that political
speech may be protected, but it is not without
professional or interpersonal consequence.
With the social media landscape littered with
political landmines, now may be just the right time
to blow a decade of dust off your organizations
social media policy and remind employees
executives and spokespersons especiallythat the
ubiquitous disclaimer, my tweets are my own,
never truly insulates a company from an employees
poor judgement.
Post smart. Post slow. Post sober.

CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS:
WIDESPREAD DISRUPTION,
EASIER THAN EVER

security presences and alert-system activations.

Just a few weeks after that, the University of Chicago came to a halt, canceling classes and
shutting down the campus, all in response to a comment buried on an obscure page in the rapculture website WorldStarHipHop.
Mass disruption can happen at the click of a mouse, and in our current climate, organizations
of all shapes and sizes risk exposure to and will be demanded to have adequate responses to
terroristic threats. If your company isnt prepared to respond quickly, compassionately, and
articulately to even the vaguest of threats, get going.

WORKPLACE CULTURE:
A NEW PARADIGM FOR ENTRY- AND JUNIOR-LEVEL EMPLOYEES
In 2016, new federal overtime regulations are set to take effect, mandating overtime pay for
anything beyond a 40-hour week for employees who make an annual base salary of less than
$50,400. Since President Obama announced the plan last July, industry leaders have opined
on the impact of the ruling on our industryan industry reliant on junior-level talent and not
exactly known for its 9-to-5 work day. For example, the PR Council, a trade group representing
U.S. PR agencies, cautions that the new overtime regulations will limit the ability of business
owners to offer flexibility in scheduling and creative nonmonetary benefits. But, to me, theres
more to it.
While each employer will adapt differently to the ruling, the new regulationat least in
its immediate wakecould have a dramatic effect on team dynamics. Imagine more senior
practitioners salaried and over the income threshold suddenly and regularly logging 10, 15,
20 more hours per week than their entry-level compatriots. Or junior employees netting more
in salary than their more senior colleagues, thanks to a busy week with overtime. Imagine our
industrys newest employees being conditioned, sometimes across a period of several years, to an
ultimately untenable 9-to-5 work week.
In perhaps the worst scenario, imagine employers abandoning professional development in
favor of jam-packed 40-hour all-work-all-the-time week. Young practitioners can stagnate, tire
of the repetition, and become tightly tethered in their professional growth. Its conceivable, and it
could be the biggest shame of it all.
2016 will tell.

2015 saw a steady drumbeat of tragedies, near

tragedies, and disruptive false alarms. Following a
year during which the United States experienced
more mass shootings than it did days on the
calendar, according to the Washington Post, we
cannot fault organizations for acting out of an
abundance of caution, no matter how disruptive the
result.
After it was found that the Umpqua Community
College shooter revealed his intentions on the
message board 4chan before carrying out his attack,
every unattributed threat against anyone, anywhere,
was assigned a heightened level of credibility. Just a
few days later, colleges and universities throughout
the Philadelphia area were put on notice of a vague
4chan threat, and they responded with beefed-up

CHRISTOPHER
LUKACH
IS PRESIDENT OF ANNE KLEIN
COMMUNICATIONS GROUP, LLC.
AKCG IS THE PHILADELPHIA
OFFICE OF IPREX GLOBAL
PUBLIC RELATIONS AND
COMMUNICATION

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