The Workplace Revolution: PR executive Kimberly Kane on the changing workplace

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Photo by Tom Jenz

Kimberly Kane

Kimberly Kane

In this world of chattering social media, businesses and organizations are on alert. Their leaders want to know what their customers want and how to communicate with them. They also want to know what their employees want. Buzz words include gender, equity, diversity, compensation, working conditions and motivation. We all are now driven by a swirl of social media connection including complaints and demands. Selling a product or service to satisfy customers can get complicated. 

Public relations has never been more important. In the last few generations, the business and government climate has changed drastically. Women now make up nearly half of employees, and people of color are climbing the organizational ladder. 

If you run a public relations firm, what are the challenges? For answers, I turned to Kimberly Kane, President of Kane Communications Group, one of the more successful PR firms in Milwaukee and Racine. Kimberly is a former television journalist for WTMJ, Channel 4. We met at Fiddleheads in the downtown BMO building. Through a low-key, sincere manner, Kimberly comes on friendly and disarming, and she is eager to discuss her work. My first question laid the subject on the line. 

What exactly is public relations?

It is a company’s relationship with the public or that company’s key customers, whether a corporation, government body, or nonprofit enterprise. 

What is the focus of Kane Communications Group? Seems like your capabilities include a wide range as stated on your website …. “research-based planning; brand development; marketing; content development; video production; internal communications; public, media and community relations.”

We do all those things as support. Our focus is to work with our clients to develop communication strategies that achieve measurable outcomes. We want to do more than just get our clients in the headlines or develop marketing collateral. We are solutions-driven.

OK, just so I understand. How do you measure solutions?

It starts by asking our clients two questions. One, what is the problem you need us to solve? Two, what does success look like for you? Our research then helps us put objectives in place to answer the questions. 

Let’s pretend I’m an executive who you work with. I tell you what success looks like for my company. What do you do to help me achieve that success?

We develop a strategy. As a journalist, I learned how to ask the right questions and develop a story. To get there, I had to do the research. It’s the same principle in public relations. Let’s say I have a Health Services client, and they know that suicide rates are going up, especially among young women. Their goal is to increase the number of calls coming into their crisis line so they can identify potential suicide victims before they act. In our research, we find out about the habits of these troubled young women - are they on social media, Instagram or TikTok, and so on. We find out who they are, what they value, their family connection, and what are their communication channels. Our approach is to reach the vulnerable young women so they will call if they feel in need. Then, we put together a public relations and marketing campaign to get the message out to those vulnerable girls who need help. Through digital means, we can also measure who is clicking on our ads, and then our client can measure if the suicide calls have increased. Which is the ultimate goal. 

Challenges for Working Women

You are a local leader of women’s rights and issues, particularly in the business world. Many of your staff are women. What are the challenges that career women presently face—and how are women of color doing?

Our team conducted research in 2021 into the state of working women in Wisconsin. Results revealed that the biggest challenge that career women of all colors face is that they don’t feel valued by their employers for the work they are doing. If you are woman employee, this then increases your stress level and lowers your productivity. Not feeling valued can increase stress levels for women. Our research also showed that higher levels of stress impact productivity.

I know Kane Communications Group has done valuable research on this subject. What do you do with the information? Share it with the bosses and top leaders?

I like to sit down with the leadership team, ask what are their goals for their employees? Do they want to increase retention rates? Do they want to be an employer of choice?  

I assume by “employer of choice,” you mean creating a good work environment, building an outstanding brand, and crafting a productive culture. Do I have that right?

Correct. Also, what are the employers doing to achieve the desired outcomes? Many companies do not have a research-backed strategy. They spend millions of dollars on programs that the leadership thinks are important for employees, but they often don’t do the research. Meaning they don’t find what’s actually important to employees.

That is what your PR firm does, the research.

Absolutely. There are some companies we work with that allow us to ask their employees tough questions about how they are feeling, about what they need to be motivated. We then present this research back to our client’s leadership team. Through surveys, interviews, or focus groups, we ask employees specific questions.

Let’s focus on women employees. Can you give some examples of questions that concern women?

If it’s about gender or race, we would ask them, “Do you feel valued in the workplace?” and “Do you feel your employer values diversity, supporting women and minorities?” “Do you feel your manager cares about your career?” or “Do you feel you have managers on your team you can trust?” or “Are you considering quitting your job, and if yes, what are the top three reasons?” In our general research on diversity for one of our clients, we found there had been a 400% increase in lack of diversity as the reason they consider quitting their jobs. One other question we’ve asked is “Do you feel that your employer values women equally to men?”

What do professional working women want in terms of a cultural and business climate?

Based on our Kane Insights research project into the State of Working Women of Wisconsin, the number one thing women want to make their workplace experience better is—pay equity. Salaries equal to the men employees in their same position. Their number two need is flexibility. Access to affordable childcare is also a significant need. Eighty-one percent of working women we surveyed don’t have access to affordable childcare and that includes women in manufacturing jobs. In the state of Wisconsin, we have more women in the workforce than in other states. Since we need working women, employers need to help with affordable childcare. I think that is a must-have.

What kind of responses do you get from your client leadership councils? Are they willing to change when they see the results of your research?

It’s a process. I get mixed reactions. Many of the leadership councils are led by men, and many have wives who don’t work. Therefore, not having access to affordable daycare is something they can’t relate to. But the research is there, and they have to evaluate what kind of risk they are taking for their business. I try to ask what are they going to do about the problem.

Do women executives have a different management style than men executives?

I think women are wired differently than men. That’s why diversity is important. Women tend to take more time to think before they make decisions. We tend to be more empathic toward employees, not only just the bottom-line results. We are more inclusive about making decisions. The majority of women executives at Kane Communications Group are extremely thoughtful and interested in the consequences of their decisions. Yet, we sometimes need to make fast decisions. Here is the difference between men and women. When a woman goes to lunch with a man, the man will take 30 seconds to make his order, but the woman will take much longer, even ask what everyone else is ordering at the table. 

I usually order the simplest thing on the menu. (laughing) But should women employees be treated differently than men?

I don’t think any employee should be treated differently because of gender or race, but I think all employees should be treated with respect.   

At Kane Communications Group, do you specialize in certain types of organizations for public relations?

Most of our clients are in healthcare, social services, and government. Our clients fall into three categories. Our biggest client base is local government, for instance, Kenosha and Milwaukee Counties, and Milwaukee Public Schools. The second is the nonprofit segment, and the third category is business—from manufacturing to construction to hospitality. In working with government clients, we find that there is still a big trust factor with the public, especially in the Black communities. I think that government can’t just create a new program or build a new facility and expect people will use the facility without follow up. Actions are as important as words or plans

The Journey to Public Relations Executive

Let’s backtrack. You are an accomplished individual. Tell me about your history, growing up in Los Angeles, your parents, neighborhoods, and schools you attended. I understand that at a young age, you got involved in diversity issues and housing projects for the disadvantaged.  

I am an identical twin. I grew up in Venice Beach, California, but my family moved to Mar Vista for a while and then to the Glendale area. My dad worked in marketing for the Los Angeles Forum Sports Arena, but his passion was basketball and helping underprivileged youth. Eventually, he left his career in the 1960s and started a nonprofit called Direction Sports, which combined sports with academics to increase the self-esteem and motivation to learn for young people. I was raised to be part of Direction Sports, which expanded into big cities throughout the country. I traveled with my dad and helped him at urban housing projects occupied by mostly Blacks. Despite a minority criminal element, I found that the majority of Black people I met were kind, family oriented and supportive of their neighbors. I worked with my dad in summers and even after school. 

This was a good background for how you ended up, doing public relations for nonprofits and government entities and also serving on nonprofit boards. But let me stay on your history. You went to the University of Southern California after high school, right?

Yes. At USC, I studied broadcast journalism and urban politics. My first job was as a television news reporter in Idaho Falls, Idaho. My focus has always been solutions-oriented journalism, covering stories about people who solve problems and make a difference like my dad.

Next, I moved to Bangor, Maine to be the primary TV news anchor, but I still did some reporting. In 1998, I moved to Milwaukee as a health reporter for Channel 4, WTMJ news. Health reporting was popular back then. My regular segment was called 4YourHealth. I worked there for eight years. I left Channel 4 because I had three children with one on the way, and I needed some balance. News reporting requires you to work at odd hours, late nights, and sometimes on weekends. So I went to work at a recruitment firm, Executive Search, for about six years. Executive Search was my first exposure to working in the business world.

What was that recruiting experience like for you?

I loved it because it was a little like reporting, except the questions you ask have real life consequences for that business. I learned how to ask the important questions, and that approach had a measurable impact because I was able to find good executives to help businesses. I’d be asking human resources workers why a business had many job positions open and why there was such a high turnover rate, or why don’t you have an established business brand. Human resources often did not have answers. I’d also be asking, “What are you doing to create an environment where your employees want to stay and thrive?”  One of my clients asked me to join his company, and so I worked in corporate communications for a while, and from there I created my own public relations company, Kane Communications Group, in 2013.

What advice can you give to young women seeking a business career, maybe just coming out of college?

Number one is “Don’t ever question yourself”—and don’t ever let anyone question you. Women have a great strength in being empathic, but that trait can also mean we internalize feedback and might let it get to us. Also, a young woman should set goals, one year goal, five-year goal. It is also a good idea to reach out to a mentor, someone you admire.