Managing the Corporate Public Relations Department

To manage a corporate public relations department, a senior practitioner must be able to build what amounts to a business-to-business relationship between the department and senior management of the company. The manager of this department must serve not only the professionals who work in the department, but also his or her peers within the company's dominant coalition as well as the key business heads. The manager must use knowledge of public relations and management skills to deliver value to the business. At the same time, the person must guide, coach, and foster the professionals in the department. Managing the department puts this individual into a counseling role—even a marketing role—with others in senior management. Not only does this person have to at times educate and reeducate others in management regarding what public relations is, but he or she must also assert how public relations can add value to the bottom line and build brand and reputation with key audiences. The person in this role is expected to foresee potential “image” problems and manage issues, as well as offer ethical advice for positioning the company to build, repair, or maintain relationships.

As long ago as the 1880s, major companies in the United States began forming budget and staff public relations departments. Originally these were often called publicity departments, a name that implies that their original objective was merely to publicize and promote the company and its business activities. Public relations activities were limited to press agentry, the use of one-way communication to tell the company's story.

Today, major and even small companies routinely have some variation on the theme of what we think of as a public relations department. As with managing agencies and building agency-client relationships, the principles underpinning the successful corporate department are knowable, but the size and style of a public relations department may vary. One size or template does not fit all. Several issues surround the ways in which the public relations department is positioned, structured, and managed within an organization.

At various times in the history of corporate America, public relations or public affairs departments became quite large, with big ones employing 100 members. Huge ones grew to have as many as 200 professionals who brought to service a wide array of talents and performed very specialized services such as editing or speechwriting. Large size assumes that the organization is willing to commit to and budget for a full-service in-house operation. Business downturns and changes of philosophy about what public relations is and can do for the organization often lead to reductions in the size of public relations departments. Senior practitioners often moan that the size of the department is cut at just the time volume is most needed.

At the very least, management entails budgeting to achieve definable outcomes. It requires the application of best practices to develop public [Page 502]relations functions and to implement them through strategies and tactics. In the broadest of terms, public relations as a professional practice is justified as part of the management cadre to the extent that it contributes to the net income of the business. It can help increase income and cut costs. Stressing this theme, Holly Hutchins (2001) prophesied that “today's public relations organization will not survive as an expense or overhead cost in the new corporate business model. The new business model demands that public relations be accountable” (p. 445). The management of public relations requires that the department be positioned, budgeted, and staffed to achieve definable outcomes that are in the interest of the business.

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