When we think of Human Resources and Marketing, we usually think of two distinct departments within a company, one focused on external matters, one focused on internal matters.
But more and more these two departments are working together, commonly known as HR Marketing.
So, for what does marketing depend on the Human Resources department?
Let’s find out!
Key Takeaways
- HR Marketing Integrates HR and Marketing: HR marketing blends marketing principles with HR practices to attract, engage, and retain talent, emphasizing the importance of a unified brand message across internal and external audiences.
- Focuses on Employer Branding and Recruitment Marketing: It involves creating a positive image of the company as an employer through employer branding and recruitment marketing, aiming to attract diverse and skilled applicants.
- Enhances Employee Engagement and Retention: Through strategies like employee development programs and a positive work environment, HR marketing aims to make employees feel valued and motivated to stay with the company.
- Leverages Data-Driven Strategies: Utilizes data and analytics for market trend insights, effectiveness measurement, and informed decision-making regarding HR practices.
What is HR Marketing?
HR marketing, or Human Resources marketing, refers to the strategies and tactics used by a company’s HR department to attract, engage, and retain talented employees.
It’s an approach that combines marketing principles with HR practices to enhance the company’s employer brand and create a positive image in the job market.
Here are the key components of HR marketing:
- Employer Branding: This involves creating a strong, positive image of the company as an employer. It’s about communicating the company’s values, culture, and the benefits of working there. A strong employer brand attracts potential employees and also helps in retaining current staff.
- Recruitment Marketing: This focuses on attracting candidates to the company. It includes strategies like job advertisements, social media campaigns, and participation in job fairs. Recruitment marketing aims to reach a wide audience and attract diverse and talented applicants.
- Employee Engagement and Retention: HR marketing also involves internal strategies to keep current employees satisfied and engaged. This could include employee development programs, recognition schemes, and a positive work environment. The goal is to make employees feel valued and motivate them to stay with the company.
- Communication and Outreach: Effective communication channels, both internal and external, are vital. This could involve social media, company websites, and internal communication platforms. The aim is to keep both potential and current employees informed and engaged with the company’s activities and culture.
- Data-Driven Strategies: Like any other form of marketing, HR marketing often relies on data and analytics to understand market trends, measure the effectiveness of strategies, and make informed decisions about future HR practices.
In summary, HR marketing is a multifaceted approach that combines traditional HR functions with marketing techniques to attract, hire, and retain the best talent while promoting the company as a great place to work.
For What Does Marketing Depend on the Human Resources Department?
Marketing depends on the Human Resources (HR) department in several key ways:
- Recruitment and Retention: HR recruits and retains skilled marketing professionals.
- Training and Development: HR provides training to keep the marketing team’s skills up-to-date.
- Company Culture: HR shapes the company culture, influencing how the brand is perceived.
- Internal Communication: HR ensures effective communication within the company, essential for coherent marketing messages.
- Performance Management: HR manages performance evaluations, aligning marketing goals with company objectives.
- Compliance and Ethics: HR ensures that marketing practices adhere to legal and ethical standards.
- Collaborative Initiatives: HR collaborates with marketing on cross-departmental projects like employer branding.
Overall, HR supports marketing through talent management, training, culture shaping, communication, performance management, compliance, and collaboration.
The Consumerization of HR
Many call HR marketing the consumerization of HR. Human Resources is no longer a more behind-the-scenes force in the workplace focused on recruitment, engagement, or development.
HR and marketing are working together to create the brand of the organization.
While the marketing department communicates the brand of the company to consumers, the collaboration of HR and marketing communicates the brand of the company to employees. Using social and technology-based tools, companies are creating a universal brand message, one that applies to employees, applicants, and consumers.
Working together, HR finds the best people to promote and build the brand, while marketing creates and delivers the brand message to employees. This process works so well that 67% of Best-In-Class companies have a clear brand message that integrates HR and marketing processes.
Companies are learning that a brand is just not for consumers, but that all employees need to live the brand. Businesses are seeing great results with this type of collaboration.
The Benefits of Consumerization
When marketing and HR work together they both benefit from the collaboration. These benefits translate into benefits for employees, consumers, and potential employees.
For marketing
The HR department primarily serves the company’s employees. Due to the connection with employees, the department can share the brand messaging created in marketing with employees through training sessions, evaluations, and employee orientations.
Through the collaboration with HR, brand messaging can spread throughout the company through internal communication. Employees can become brand ambassadors which then strengthens the marketing department’s mission of spreading the brand message to consumers.
For HR
Due to the marketing team’s connections with consumers, they can help promote the values and mission if the company.
Through this promotion, they can help attract potential employees. Marketing can also help the HR department and other employees adapt communication methods and styles as marketing employees have experience in communicating with consumers.
If you do not already have a structure of collaboration in place, it might take some work at the start, but it can become more streamlined as time goes on.
There are a few things that companies need to start doing to benefit from the consumerization of HR.
How to Achieve Consumerization in 7 Steps
Here are the best ways for HR marketing to reach consumerization:
1. Building the team
To start the process, senior leaders need to invest time and energy into bringing everyone together.
Both the HR and marketing departments need to have meetings with leaders in which objectives and strategies are discussed.
If there are any struggles or any confusing moments during the collaboration they need to resolve them in a respectful manner during ongoing meetings.
2. Using social media
Creating a strong and active social media presence can help both internal and external communication of the brand.
Members of both the marketing and HR teams can post inspiring stories, company accomplishments, and personal anecdotes about the company and the brand to communicate with customers and potential employees.
Internally, the two departments can work together to recognize employee performance and to share information about the company and the brand.
GE used this strategy to attract new employees.
The marketing department created a funny ad about being a programmer at GE. When the ad was posted on YouTube, they added a link to GE’s career website. Due to the collaboration between marketing and HR, visits to the recruitment page increased by 66% compared with the previous month.
3. Provide more training
In many companies, employees have meetings and training sessions with HR staff when they are hired, but not much after that. An internal training plan is a great way to help employees develop skills and keep them engaged.
While the HR team may be responsible for training employees, the marketing team can help by promoting the training sessions and marketing the company as a great place to work.
The team can also create sessions of their own focusing on using social media marketing and brand messaging in order to help turn employees into brand ambassadors.
In order to do this, many companies are turning to MOOCs (Massive, Open, Online Courses) and cloud learning management systems. Employees can take an incredible number of classes on a variety of topics or even create personalized learning plans.
4. Create company events
Company events that allow leadership to communicate directly with employees and build that relationship is a great way to create trust and openness.
HR can arrange the events while marketing can promote them both externally and internally.
When HR and marketing work together to create moments where employees can interact with leaders, employees feel more appreciated.
5. Share data
In order to create a solid brand message, both internal and external aspect of the brand need to be working together.
To make this happen departments need to share data and findings with each other.
In the case of HR and marketing, HR can share information gathered from exit and stay interviews, while marketing can share information gathered from customer satisfaction surveys.
6. Continue to build relationships
Turnover is something that all companies struggle with at times.
With the efforts of HR and marketing, leaders can use turnover to expand the brand message to a wider audience.
When employees feel appreciated they are more likely to become brand ambassadors.
They can help promote the business to potential consumers and employees.
Working together, HR and marketing can create events and promote ways of staying in touch with former employees, or can even try to recruit former employees that may boomerang back to the company.
Employee advocacy programs, as they are sometimes called, have grown by about 190% since 2013.
Efforts to engage with former employees seems to pay off for many companies.
Hootsuite CEO, Ryan Holmes, found that employee posts about a company are shared 25 times more often and interacted with 8 times more often than posts created by the company.
7. Monitor social media
HR and marketing can both monitor social media in order to get insights about how consumers feel about the brand as well as how current or former employees feel about the company.
With this data, the departments can work together to make internal and external changes to communication and brand messaging.
It may seem unnatural or awkward at first, but the consumerization of HR can cause a powerful and long-lasting positive impact.
The job of the marketing department is more difficult when HR has difficulty managing and developing employee talents, while HR has difficulty hiring and recruiting top candidates when marketing has difficulty connecting with consumers.
When they work together, their success can create better-recruiting results, a stronger culture, and overall business success.
Types of HR Marketing
Understanding the distinction between internal and external HR marketing is crucial for effective human resources management. Each targets a different audience and achieves different goals:
Internal HR Marketing
Focus: Internal HR marketing is aimed at the company’s existing employees. Its primary goal is to educate and engage them with the company’s objectives, products, and services.
Methods:
- Email Campaigns and Newsletters: Sharing updates, success stories, and organizational news to keep employees informed.
- Knowledge Hubs and Dashboards: Creating central repositories where employees can access important information and updates.
- Training and Development Programs: Offering sessions that not only improve skills but also reinforce the company’s values and goals.
- Department-Specific Communications: Tailoring messages to specific departments to align their goals with the overall company strategy.
Benefits:
- Enhances Employee Satisfaction: Employees feel more connected and valued when they are well-informed and involved.
- Clarifies Organizational Vision: Helps employees understand the direction in which the company is headed.
- Improves Customer Service: Informed and engaged employees are better equipped to represent the company to customers.
- Strengthens Employer Brand: A well-informed workforce can advocate for the company, attracting more talent.
Example: Sharing a detailed one-to-two-year plan with employees, making sure it’s relevant to each department, can significantly enhance alignment and engagement.
External HR Marketing
Focus: This type of HR marketing is directed towards potential employees and the general public. It’s about attracting talent and building a strong employer brand externally.
Methods:
- Social Media Campaigns: Using platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook to showcase the company culture and advertise job openings.
- Job Advertisements and Flyers: Traditional and digital ads that promote current job openings.
- Participation in Job Fairs: Engaging with potential candidates in person or virtually through job fairs.
- Collaborations with Educational Institutions: Partnering with universities and colleges for internships and graduate recruitment programs.
Benefits:
- Increases Company Engagement: Helps potential candidates and the public engage with and understand the company better.
- Reflects Brand Proposition: External HR marketing showcases the company’s values and culture to the outside world.
- Business Growth: Attracting top talent contributes to business development and innovation.
- Public Relations: Acts as a form of PR, improving the company’s overall image in the market.
To sum up: internal HR marketing is about nurturing and educating the existing workforce, enhancing their engagement and satisfaction, while external HR marketing is focused on attracting new talent and building a strong external employer brand. Both are essential for a holistic HR strategy.
HR Marketing Strategies
HR marketing strategies are essential for attracting, retaining, and engaging the right talent. Here’s a breakdown of effective strategies and platforms:
1. Careers Page on Company Website
- Purpose: Acts as the first impression for potential employees, showcasing the company’s culture, benefits, and opportunities.
- Execution: Incorporate engaging visuals, videos, and animations. Highlight employee testimonials and unique aspects of the company culture.
2. Talent Pool Management
- Purpose: A talent pool is a database of potential candidates who have shown interest in working with the organization.
- Execution: Regularly update the talent pool with details of potential employees and contractors. Engage with them through updates or newsletters to keep their interest alive.
3. Job Advertisement
- Purpose: Job ads are crucial in reaching a wider audience and presenting the company as an attractive employer.
- Execution: Ensure the ad covers the job description, requirements, and company offerings. Utilize platforms like LinkedIn for wider reach and engagement.
4. Social Media Engagement (Social Blast)
- Purpose: Leveraging social media for HR marketing, including employee branding and announcing hiring drives.
- Execution: Use platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to showcase the company’s culture, diversity, and ethos.
The Difference Between HR Marketing and Employer Branding
- Employer Branding: Focuses on promoting the organization to job seekers by highlighting cultural differentiators and employee experiences.
- HR Marketing: Covers employer branding and extends to areas like training and recruitment marketing, aiming to build trust and motivation among potential and current employees.
Final Thoughts
Now you know the answer to the question “For what does marketing depend on the Human Resources department?”
It’s clear that marketing depends on HR for key functions like recruiting and retaining skilled professionals, training and development, shaping company culture, internal and external communication, performance management, and upholding legal and ethical standards.
This collaboration, known as HR marketing, exemplifies the consumerization of HR, emphasizing the importance of integrating HR and marketing efforts to strengthen both internal and external brand perception.