Public Affairs and adjacent functions: Friends or foes?
To be successful Public Affairs needs to be a lynchpin function that connects various other functions within a business. It needs to get information, understand and then ensure alignment and synergy across many different parts of an organization – meaning it needs to work with many parts of an organization. This is one of the best things about Public Affairs (you great to really know your business and have a horizontal view) but it is also one of the greatest challenges you will have. If you couple this with the fact that public affairs is often not entirely understood within an organization it means there are often difficulties engaging other functions and potentially overlaps with some of them. This can lead to great collaboration or (more frequently) internal frictions and politics. Let’s look at how Public Affairs intersects with a few other key functions:
Marketing: Public Affairs can collaborate with Marketing to ensure that any B2C (or even B2B) external messaging aligns broadly with the organization’s Public Affairs positions and messaging – and does not cross any political/regulatory/policy lines that would cause issues down the line. Marketing is the often the first line of sight that policymakers have of an industry or company so this relationship is key – but often challenging. Think compliance vs. political license to operate.
(Corporate) Communications: Public Affairs often overlaps with Corporate Communications in crafting and disseminating messages to internal and external stakeholders. Whether it’s managing crisis communications, announcing new initiatives, or promoting ESG efforts, Public Affairs and Corporate Communications need to be very clear on who does what. Done well this is a major boost for an organization. Done badly it wastes time, energy and resources.
Legal Affairs: Public Affairs nearly always works closely with (and sometimes reports into) Legal Affairs. There is a real two-way street here as Public Affairs often needs input and guidance on evolving policy from the legal teams to ensure that communications, position papers and other advocacy materials are aligned with what the company wants – and shaped in a way that the company can accept. This collaboration helps mitigate legal risks while advancing the organization’s objectives. At the same time heavy-handed legal oversight stifles Public Affairs work so a balance of trust and understanding is needed.
Business Development / Strategy: Public Affairs can offer great value to Business Development / Strategy teams by helping identify new opportunities, showcasing future policy horizons and in furnishing competitive information. This strategic eyes-wide open assessment of emerging policy threats and trends can be a real boost – on the proviso the strategy team understand the value of this information.
Human Resources: Public Affairs can support Human Resources in employer branding efforts, recruitment initiatives, and employee engagement activities. What the company says and does publicly is increasingly important for employees (past / present / future). As the active engineers and frontline troops in this public work they can really help in engaging employees.
These are just some examples of the relations that Public Affairs functions, to be successful, will have to work on. More often than not Public Affairs functions have overlaps with friction with some functions (Communications / Compliance / Regulatory / Legal) and are met with apathy at best by others (sales / marketing / manufacturing. The best way to work with both is by transparently sharing your WHAT and HOW and understanding any areas of overlap or mutual focus. To double down work hard to understand the expectations other functions have of you and also what you can do to make their lives better. Armed with all of this you are in a position to drive alignment and engagement which will in turn raise your visibility and gain recognition. A strong Public Affairs function is truly transversal in an organization with an almost unique helicopter view. This doesn’t happen on its own.
