Critically important. Here’s why.
Every company has a brand. Every brand has value. Millions of marketing dollars are spent each year on establishing brand awareness in the minds of consumers. But it’s employees who have the greatest power to make or break a brand. Employees shift the message from a concept to a positive or negative customer experience. Employees generate the energy and ideas that produce business outcomes. The service profit chain from the Harvard Business review demonstrates that employee satisfaction are directly correlated to business growth. https://hbr.org/2008/07/putting-the-service-profit-chain-to-work .. Employer Branding is the process of hiring and engaging the right talent that’s aligned with and delivers to the business strategies.
Savvy CMOs/marketing leaders are starting to pay attention to this. The campaign dollars they spend are setting up the Brand Promise- an expectation that the consumer has of the type of experience they will receive. This is called the customer experience. Think Disney, Think SouthWest Airlines. In some cases, it’s woven into their marketing campaign. “Shop here because our knowledgable team of professionals will simplify the process of buying your car, your vitamins, or appliances for your new home.” Companies like Zappos have a harder task of trying to create an exceptional experience virtually. But in each of these examples, the success or failure lies in the hands of how well employees perform. And it begins with HR/Talent Acquisition hiring the right people.
What roles/s can the head of HR play in furthering marketing goals?
The first step is in HR understanding how the marketing efforts are furthering the business goals of the company. The next step is in understanding the brand drivers and how they it intersect with employee actions, either customer facing employees, or internal teams that are supporting the business. (Think customer service, billing etc.) The next step is making sure that employees know what is expected of them in terms of on-brand behavior and making sure they know they can personally make a difference.
In high performing companies there is a partnership between HR and the CMO. When we work with these types of clients, representatives of both functions attend the meetings. But in other companies, they view the CMO or marketing team as a group that’s typically too busy to assist with their needs, and is only called in to approve logos/colors/and fonts.
CMOs of large retail organizations understand that employees represent their largest customer population (think employee discounts) and they are instrumental in bringing the brand to life. Often, there’s a great desire to ask HR for input on the effort in advance of a new campaign launch through organizing focus groups to understand the customer through the lens of the employees. But I don’t think that it’s a 2-way street. Marketing budgets are far greater than Recruiting budgets and if there was more unity, there would be a tremendous opportunity to assist in the efforts to find and keep talent aligned with the core brand. The new GE commercials are proof that great companies recognize that a pipeline of talent is critical to their future.
http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/getting-hired-ge-impresses-absolutely-no-one-companys-amusing-new-ads-166760
The processes between HR and Marketing are more similar than either group might imagine. The steps in building consumer loyalty – awareness, preference, consideration, commitment, engagement are the same as the building employee loyalty. As unemployment percentages drop, recruiting employees is becoming much more like marketing. It would be great if marketing would assist in sharing some of their expertise and dollars into forming a relationship and truly building a brand fortress.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
“Jody Ordioni is the author of “The Talent Brand.” In her role as Founder and Chief Brand Officer of Brandemix, she leads the firm in creating brand-aligned talent communications that connect employees to cultures, companies, and business goals. She engages with HR professionals and corporate teams on how to build and promote talent brands, and implement best-practice talent acquisition and engagement strategies across all media and platforms. She has been named a "recruitment thought leader to follow" and her mission is to integrate marketing, human resources, internal communications, and social media to foster a seamless brand experience through the employee lifecycle.”
