Top

hr bartender

WORK RESPONSIBLY

You are here: Home / Strategy and Planning / If Your Marketing Director Ran HR . . .

0 |

If Your Marketing Director Ran HR . . .

I recently read a post from ‘8 hours & a lunch’ about the best and worst jobs.  Philosopher was #12 on the list and Deb asked how many people actually know a philosopher.  It was cool to comment because I’ve met Tom Morris, who is a real-life philosopher and author of books like “If Harry Potter Ran General Electric“.

So I wanted to write this post today in a format similar to Tom’s books.  As a human resources professional, I’ve always viewed my role as being the marketing department for internal customers.  I must say that it’s surprising when HR Pros say they dislike marketing activities or they don’t know how to market…because a part of me wonders if there is something more behind their comment.

So to illustrate my point, let’s examine what HR would look like if a marketing director were in charge:

  1. First and foremost, they would know how the organization makes money and where they spend it.  No bones about it.  A marketing director knows how the money comes in and what it’s spent on.  They have a say in financial decisions.
  2. They would always be looking for talent.  Every marketing director I’ve known was looking for the next great sales person, even when the department had no openings.  When they found them, they figured out how to get them into the organization.  As a HR person, are you continuously looking for talent?  Or just waiting for the next requisition?
  3. They know what their customers want and are constantly developing products to fit their needs.  Good marketers make sure the company’s products and services fill a customer’s need (regardless of the economy).  Are HR Pros out there right now making sure benefits and employee programs fill an employee need?
  4. HR wouldn’t be about policies and procedures; it would be about doing things to benefit the organization.  I’m not saying that marketing departments don’t follow the rules…but they do look first at the needs of the company.  Consequently, there are moments HR should examine the situation first then possibly amend/revise/throw away the policy and procedure manual for the good of the company.  We’re not talking about illegal and immoral stuff.  It’s about being creative and effectively operating in the gray zone.  Let’s face it – HR does get criticized for trying to make things black/white (when they really aren’t).

Hopefully this outline will help HR to understand that they really are doing marketing work, even if they didn’t realize it.  And, perhaps, the next time the marketing director comes to visit, HR Pros will use it as an opportunity to ask a few questions and maybe learn something new.

Related Posts:

wall sign hello humans HR professionals friendly

HR Professionals Can Be Friendly Without Being Friends

wall art HR for Human Resources question everything

Is Human Resources the Right Name – Ask #hr bartender

street art painted on sidewalk never not working like Human Resources HR

Human Resources Pros: Activities to Stay Current and Bring Value

wall art showing be dynamic on the side of an HR building

HR Departments Need to Prepare for Delivering Value

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Steve Boese says

    I really like this post, it is a theme I have also thought about quite a bit. I think we will see more ‘marketing’ in HR over time, particularly in the space I am interested in, technology. The marketers and the HR folks (now mostly recruiters) will cross paths in the same sets of tools and technologies (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) and likely the marketing approaches will start reaching into the ‘internal’ HR space.

  2. Gretchen Sunderland says

    Great post!
    Since I come from the world of sales and marketing, and sold HR outsourcing, I can understand both worlds.
    Every company would benefit from exchanging the mindsets of both HR and sales so that they could learn from each other. Too often these departments are so segregated that they know nothing about each other.

  4. Sarah (sarahsez on Twitter) says

    Interesting post – I can definitely see similarities and where marketing practices can benefit HR. One thing I think HR as a profession could benefit from is some marketing what we do. Afterall, there’s more to HR than recruitment 😉

  5. Wally Bock says

    I had another thought on this last night. Peter Drucker described marketing as “the company seen from the customer’s perspective.” HR is the company seen through whose perspective? Is it the perspective we want?

  6. Deb Owen says

    Great post! Having spent part of my career in marketing, I always saw the marketing in HR. So I couldn’t agree more. Here’s something else to think about:

    Recruitment advertising

    It’s an ad. It represents your company. It’s out there ‘in the world.’ It should be branded. Done right, it could even cut down on the number of people who “aren’t a good fit” who apply.

    All the best!
    deb

    P.S. Thanks for the link!
    😉

  8. Dan McCarthy says

    Sharlyn –
    Nice post!
    Many of the marketing people I’ve worked with are bright, creative, strategic, inspiring, and incredibly savvy about their business and industry. Not at all like the Dilbert portrayal.
    Sure, we could use a bit more of that in HR.
    BTW, have I told you how much I like your writing? Keep at it, you’re GOOD.

  9. hr bartender says

    Love all the conversation…all I can say is keep it coming!

    Interesting thought from Wally about HR’s customers. As a practitioner, I’ve always felt the need to create balance with my customers. I’m considered to be an employee advocate while at the same time a member of management. While I’ve joked that HR should be called Switzerland for this reason, the truth is that HR Pros have to take a stand on issues…and that’s how customer perceptions are formed.

  10. RutgersFan says

    Thanks for the interesting post. Although I have been in Human Resources for seven years, my degree is in Communication (with a heavy tilt towards PR and Org Communication). I always find it surprising when people don’t understand the link in my PR education and my work in HR. So much of what we do and manage within the course of our practice is about the messages we send (as a company to our employees, as managers to our team, etc). I do wish more people would take a marketing or public relations tilt, at least in their thinking. Think of all the benefits that could come.

    Of course, there are plenty out there that would say we’ve already got “spin” down.

  11. Jennie Stone says

    I too have a background in both functions – 10 years in each. While I do agree with Sharlyn’s post, I also think it wouldn’t hurt the Marketing folk to have an HR perspective too. That doesn’t mean just having a shallow understanding of HR as being ‘mroe than just recruiting’, but a real in-depth grasp of how their organisation’s HR strategies, policies and practices – formal and otherwise – can make or break the delivery of the marketing strategy, or can enhance or shatter customers’ experiences. The gap between customer expectation and customer experience is often a reflection of the gap between the Marketing and HR departments. I think we may see more organisations combining the two functions. In the UK, Sainsbury has just done that, under its new “Customer and Colleague Director” and a few other organisations have already done so. The Sainsbury’s person has a Marketing background. HR will really have made it to the top when, somewhere, the two functions are combined under an HR person.

  12. Sharlyn Lauby says

    Thanks for the comment Jennie. I have several colleagues who are responsible for both HR and Marketing. Hadn’t heard the “Customer and Colleague” before…but I like it.