When the Two Say “I Do”: Marketing Embraces HR

Posted by admin on Monday, February 15, 2010 · Leave a Comment

A little used power combination within any organization is a much needed marriage between marketing and HR.

There is no argument that HR must become more strategic in its approach to organizational development. Routine HR functions can be outsourced, freeing the HR practitioner to focus on managing people not paper. Marketing has always been a necessary component of business strategy. When the two functions become aligned and integrated; the result is a sustainable brand. One needs the other to ensure that the brand you build is authentic.

How do the two functions merge to produce a sustainable brand? The key is in authenticity.
Branding is a buzzword that is frequently misunderstood. Let’s begin with what a brand is not. It is not a tag line, nor a logo. A brand cannot be established by changing your letterhead or the appearance of a website. A brand that is sustainable is the essence of your organization – not something tangible. A brand is a promise that must be kept. A brand begins from the inside out. It is the invisible, unreachable heart of your organization that is hard to communicate in mere words. A brand is something that you live every day; not write about in a mission statement or create for an advertising campaign. Branding is emotional. A true functioning Brand is an experience not a thing. For HR to build employer of choice initiatives in order to retain and attract valuable human capital, a partnership with marketing just makes good sense. HR guides the internal experience and marketing guides the external experience. Employees are the link between internal and external – as they influence customer experience every day.
How do you tell if your brand is working?

One immediate measure is employee engagement. A sustainable brand that provides you with competitive advantage and unique positioning is a joint effort between HR and Marketing. A baseline measurement or an engagement survey tells you the most important information you need to know. What is the actual experience of your company? What does it feel like? What emotion does it create in your employees? What emotions are your employees then transmitting to your customers?

To jump-start your organization, here are a few suggestions that enhance both HR and Marketing in their ability to deliver synergistic results.

Strategy Steps

1.    Establish a baseline measurement like the Q12 from First, Break All the Rules. You need to create a qualitative and quantitative baseline to measure the results of your OD efforts (and enhance your credibility as a internal profit-centre).
2.    Ensure that the internal basics are in place before attempting external branding efforts. Do employees know what to do? Do they have the equipment they need to do their job?
3.    Compare your results from your baseline measurement against employee statistics (e.g. turnover, absenteeism, stress leave).

4. Examine your recent marketing efforts. Does your marketing reflect your internal reality, your actual corporate culture; or is it a fantasy produced to hopefully attract customers? (Such a fantasy alienates your employees and is a major source of disengagement).

5. Create an internal focus group from a cross-section of the organization. If you feel that your culture lacks trust, bring in someone to facilitate the discussion and compile the results.

6. Have the employees review the marketing campaign. Does it produce hysterical laughter? scorn? disbelief? agreement? empathy? commitment? passion?

7. Where are the disconnects? If your employees don’t believe in the marketing campaign – what do you think they will deliver to your customers?

8. Get a sense of your organizational experience. What do you stand for and why do you exist? What is your core ideology? What does your product or service mean to your employees? Do they care?

9. Start reading (yes, recommendations are coming) to get a sense of where a strategic approach to HR and marketing can take your organization.

Employees Must Believe
If you want your employees to fully engage in their work, give them something to believe in, an ongoing story that they are part of and one that results in feelings of pride and accomplishment. In order to retain valuable human capital, your first customers should be your employees. A sustainable brand starts within. That is why the function of HR is now more important than at any previous time in the history of organizations. The function of HR is to protect and support the heart and soul of the organization. Only then do you have something to give to your marketing department. Only then can you build a brand.

Each employee should be able to answer two questions with pride and commitment. What do we stand for? Why do we exist?

These questions form the foundation of your brand, the essence of your lifeblood as an organization. Without answers to these questions, you are leaking valuable human capital as well as bottom line profitability. Jim Collins calls it a hedgehog; we call it simply a Core Ideology. It is the foundation for creativity in business. When employees can answer these questions with a sense of pride, you have full engagement.

To create a brand experience requires the participation of employees.

To gain commitment to such participation, the employees must believe in the Brand. If you are looking for ‘buy-in’ from your employees, you have already missed the mark for what are you attempting to ‘sell?’ Your internal brand experience must produce authentic value for your first customer, the employee. If there is no value for the employee, you have much work to do before attempting an external marketing campaign.

It All Starts with a Story

How to create and sustain a brand experience? Look to the ancient art of storytelling. What stories do your employee’s tell about your organization? What is your corporate mythology?

First, just like in traditional storytelling, you need to set the stage, to define the current situation in an insightful, coherent and clear manner. You need to be able to honestly describe ‘what is.’ Your baseline measurement. The starting place for your journey.

Next, again just like storytelling, what challenges are being faced? What untapped resources and talents are available to meet these challenges? Engage your entire employee – not just the small part that fits a current job description. What creative employee gifts are hiding in your organization? This is the ordeal phase. Difficult but necessary. Talent management calls for finding hidden talent that is not being utilized.

Finally, how can you overcome these challenges by capitalizing on employee’s untapped strengths and hidden potential? What can they bring to the brand experience? What do your employees need in order to fully engage in this story? The power to change is fuelled by commitment—emotional engagement anchored in lived experience. This is what will make you an Employer of Choice.

When you have accomplished these three objectives, you will have something worthwhile to take to market. Every life—and every organization—is mythic territory. The realm of story is the realm of actual lived experience. That is why the gift of story has carried the human race since the beginning of time. The essence of that story is what marks you as an Employer of Choice and also carries your Brand Experience. To create a sustainable brand experience – start from the inside out.

Dr. Ginger Grant

For more from Dr. Ginger Grant visit her website