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Business & Tech

Bridgewater PR Firm Cited As a Great Place to Work

R&J Public Relations was selected as one of best places to work in public relations.

It was a combination of dedicated employees, company philosophy and pure talent that garnered local public relations firm R&J Public Relations recognition as one of the top places to work in the field by industry newsletter PR News.

"We were very surprised to receive the award, but very thrilled," said John Lonsdorf, company president, and Bridgewater resident. "It validates what we are and what we can be, and the work environment we want to provide."

PR News selects the top places to work in public relations annually, and selected 17 companies for the award this year, including larger corporations like Wells-Fargo and Company, the Walt Disney Company, and Southwest Airlines. Firms are nominated for the award through PR News' website, and a panel of public relations executives and the PR News editors evaluate the entries.

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At the end, the organization compiles basic information about the firms, including turnover rates and employee satisfaction, before selecting finalists.

The five-year-old Bridgewater company boasts a staff of 17 people, with many coming from local colleges, Lonsdorf said. The focus is on employing the right people for the job, namely those who are motivated, bright and smart.

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"That allows us to be a partner with our clients and to be a part of their successes, and a partner in their successes," Lonsdorf said. "Everybody on the team contributes."

"We don't want people who are going to just put in the hours," he added. "We want people who are going to put in the effort for our clients."

In addition, staff members have weekly training sessions in the business's client services protocol, and can have training sessions from outside the company too.

"We provide opportunities for people to learn and to grow professionally," Lonsdorf said. "We empower our employees. People at our agency are allowed to grow and thrive as quickly as their abilities allow."

Mobility within the company is another advantage to working at R&J Public Relations, since employees are not stuck in a single role for their tenure with the business, Lonsdorf said. Existing staff have the opportunity to move up within the company, such as one staff member who interned with the firm during college, was hired after graduation and is now a senior account executive, he said.

"In a lot of agencies, you can get pigeonholed, and stuck in a dead-end job," he said. "We don't want that to be the case here."

Located on Route 22 East, R&J Public Relations was once part of a larger firm—R&J Integrated Marketing and Communications, in Parsippany.  At the time, Lonsdorf said, the firm focused more on advertising and marketing than public relations.

Since Lonsdorf did not want to concentrate on advertising—and felt advertising was shifting from traditional TV, radio and printed ads to a more public relations-based ad model—he decide to start his own business, he said.

"I knew this was the place PR was going, and where I was going, and that's why I left the agency," he said. "I really look at advertising as a dead and increasingly outdated medium. I didn't want to work in advertising forever."

With clients including Samsung, St. Clare's Health Systems, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and others, the company environment and employees are the secrets to its success, Lonsdorf said.

"It allows us to succeed because we can be nimble and we can put top resources on different projects," he said.

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