As a Public Affairs practitioner, I am frequently asked to define what the difference is between my role in the public policy arena verses other Corporate Affairs disciplines.
It’s an interesting topic.
The primary reason is because there are a wide range of murky definitions that are used by different companies to describe the same function(s):
- Corporate Affairs
- External Affairs
- Public Affairs
- External Relations
- Public Relations, and
- Government Relations.
Some companies do this, to a certain extent, to camouflage the way they want to be perceived from a transparency standpoint in their interactions in the policy arena.
Some companies simply have a historically established title for their overall public policy function that goes back to the origins of the company (and probably should be changed to reflect current circumstances and avoid confusion).
As someone who has been a member of the Public Affairs Council and the Issues Management Council for many years, I think it’s important to distinguish the characteristics of an effective Public Affairs function. I believe that Public Affairs can be an operational nexus between all of the other functions that are typically considered to be part of a Corporate Affairs Department.
Most Public Affairs practitioners agree that a Public Affairs function should have most of the following attributes:
- The capacity to work with senior management (C-Level), business functions and other Corporate Affairs functions to comprehensively determine company positions on public policy issues, both proactive and reactive;
- The ability to track and assess the impact of legislative proposals on a company’s operations (Sales, Marketing, Finance, Manufacturing, etc.);
- The ability to track major policy trends of importance to a company, as well as the external stakeholders that are advancing them;
- The ability to develop argumentation and identify internal and external experts to support a company’s position;
- The ability to conduct policy related opinion research including quantitative and qualitative research;
- Resources to participate in, or coordinate, the activities of trade associations, business groups and other organizations that are supportive of a company;
- The capacity to lead project teams or task forces addressing national or multi-national issues; and
- In some corporate structures, the ability to develop, lead and manage Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives.
By no means are my comments meant to disparage other functions within the Corporate Affairs community.
Government Affairs, Regulatory Affairs, External Affairs, Communications, Investor Relations, each have their own distinct responsibilities and priorities and carry their own emphasis or importance depending on the policy issues that are of importance to a company.
A comprehensive planning process within a Corporate Affairs function should clearly identify priorities, responsibilities, accountabilities and budgets for each of these functions. Moreover, as issues come up, there should be a clear decision-making process within Corporate Affairs (and with C-level executives) to determine which CA function should be the driver.
For example, if an issue is purely legislative in nature (federal, state or local), then Government Affairs should be the driver and Public Affairs should play a supporting role, along with the other Corporate Affairs functions that are necessary to address the issue.
Similarly, if there is a brand or product launch, then Communications would work directly with Marketing and other appropriate functions and Public Affairs would most likely have no role at all.
The critical element here is to ensure that all policy issues that proactively or reactively affect a company are being managed.
In my experience, Public Affairs practitioners have the broadest base of experience in the policy arena to ensure that this is the case. The worst things that can happen to a company is to be blind-sided by an issue, to fail to act on a policy opportunity (whether driving the initiative or participating with others), or to lack the appropriate internal processes for analyzing, prioritizing and assessing the impact of policy issues.
Public Affairs practitioners can have the greatest positive affect on a company by ensuring that these three areas are addressed on an ongoing basis.
