Marketing’s newest internal alliance should be with HR. Alex Blyth reveals why, and how to achieve this partnership
When Wal-mart decided to increase its focus on environmental issues and products, the easy assumption would have been that this marketing initiative was aimed at the retailer’s customers. In fact, says Tore Haggren, SVP voice of the employee at Confirmit, it was equally aimed at the company’s employees.
“After releasing several eco-friendly product lines, investing in marketing campaigns to support this new strategy and hosting several ‘save the earth’ events, both employees and customers were able to come together, inspired by a common initiative,” he explains. “It is a good example of the growing trend for businesses to develop marketing initiatives with the express aim of energising the organisation around a common cause.”
Indeed, for many B2B marketers, it is not technology or even sales that is the department they now look to most instinctively; it is HR. They are discovering many benefits – both internal and external – to this approach, and it is providing food for thought for those B2B marketers who still think of HR as that department down the corridor that does interviews and sorts out the payroll.
The extent of the issue
So, to what extent is marriage of HR and marketing actually happening? John Fisher, MD of FMI Group and owner of apps developer Red C, offers some evidence: “Ninety per cent of CEOs in a 2013 survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers said that customer engagement is a top priority; 80 per cent said the same for employee engagement. There is even a Good Company Index in the USA through which investors can sift through those businesses that are good with employees and those that aren’t. Investments are then made on the basis of engagement scores.”
It is hardly news that the likes of Virgin, O2, and Apple are investing in employee engagement and marketing, but what is noticeable is the extent to which other organisations are following suit. It is rapidly becoming standard practice in the mainstream.
As Doug Hewett, managing partner at People Made, observes: “More and more businesses are waking up to the importance of engaging their people with the brand. Before it was only the innovators and leaders, but now we’re seeing all sectors investing in it.”
Strong employer brand
To some extent this shift in focus and budget, is driven by the obvious goals of attracting the best people. Organisations that operate in highly competitive labour markets need to become recognised as employers who care about their workers. The popularity in recent years of employee benefits and company social activities is testament to this, and increasingly marketers are finding themselves drafted in to communicate this strong employer brand not only to those the company would like to attract but also those who are already enjoying the benefits.
“Effective communication in the workplace is critical to the management of an engaged and effective workforce,” observes Neil Griffiths, global practice leader – talent communications and employer brand at Futurestep.
His firm conducted research in May 2013 among 800 recruitment and talent management professionals and more than 4000 employees across North America, Brazil, UK, France, Germany, India, Australia and Greater China, and found almost a third of employees in the UK believe that feeling involved in the business’ overall strategy makes them more engaged with their role.
Achieving this successful collaboration between marketing and HR also helps with staff retention. Richard George, corporate communications manager at LinkedIn EMEA, comments: “Maintaining a strong employer brand – what talent thinks and feels about your brand – is vital in today’s competition for the best people. In fact, our research shows that keeping employees updated and engaged with your brand can reduce employee turnover by up to 28 per cent. This requires a much more joined up approach from HR and marketing functions, which traditionally have worked in silos.”
Brand promise delivery
There are, though, just as many external as internal benefits to a closer alignment of HR and marketing. If nothing else, HR needs to recognise the impact it can have on the brand through the recruitment process. According to an August 2013 survey by Monster of 5300 jobseekers, 84 per cent of people said a brand lost their favour if a company had a poor communication process in place during the job application procedure.
Get it right however, and you can make brand ambassadors of applicants and employees. “Genuine, creative and relevant talent branding – which aligns with employees’ experiences – will help create enthusiastic brand ambassadors, who are hugely important in bringing external talent into the business,” explains George.
Ultimately this comes down to whether or not a firm is able to deliver on its brand promise. As Haggren at Confirmit puts it: “HR’s responsibility is to hire, train and keep a workforce engaged in the business activities that matter most to the organisation. And this – in a nutshell – is why marketing must care. If marketing initiatives aren’t aligned with HR, then no matter how brilliant, creative or in tune with market needs, a campaign may very well fall flat. You can only deliver on a brand promise if your frontline staff buy in to the message and make the promise a reality, one interaction at a time.”
Social amplification
It is worth noting too that in the age of social media this effect is significantly amplfiied and quickened. “The pace of marketing today moves at the speed of social,” says Hewett, at People Made. “One unethical business decision or bad service experience can become the next HMV Twitter scandal or Goldman Sachs letter. People are posting videos on YouTube to quit their job, or taking out sponsored tweets to urge others not to use certain brands – it’s getting pretty serious.”
Lucy Adams, founder of Disruptive HR and ex-HRD of the BBC agrees: “It is vital that employees’ ability to shape the reputation of the business is taken more seriously. While bosses worry about what the Daily Mail might be saying about them – who is worrying about what Glassdoor (a recruitment website that hosts company reviews) is saying about their company or other social media sites? Sites such as these will become increasingly powerful. In the same way you would look at Trip Advisor to get reviews before going to a hotel the best talent will have a look at Glassdoor before joining a company.”
Get it right and it can significantly affect the bottom line. Management consultants Towers Watson analysed high-employee engagement firms against average engagement firms on an earnings-per-share basis and found that highly-engaged organisations had a growth rate of 28 per cent, compared with averagely-engaged firms that showed a growth rate of just 11.2 per cent.
Getting it right
Most experts agree the first step towards an effective union of HR and marketing is for the organisation to develop a clear employer brand and then to reinforce that consistently across locations and departments. The leaders of an organisation play an important role here not only in setting direction but also visibly living that brand.
As well as creating a strong brand, organisations need to be creative about how they communicate that brand. “Marketers have spent decades refining their communication techniques with consumers to enable them to stand out in the crowd and captivate their audiences,” says Griffiths at Futurestep. “The time is ripe for this strategy to come into play in internal communications, as creativity will also lead to a better and more emotional response from an audience.”
An example of this is companies doing away with the traditional intranet system that employees rarely log into in favour of more engaging strategies like the creation of a company-wide social network using tools such as Yammer or Jam.
Equally, think about how you can use techniques from external marketing in your internal marketing. Why are you still grouping employees by business unit or geography? Tools exists to be much more granular with external marketing, so use them for internal marketing too.
Adams offers this advice on tone of voice: “Don’t try to engage with employees in a patronising ‘parent/child’ manner. The communication needs to be adult-to-adult and two-way. It is about building a relationship between many people and the organisation and its leaders.”
Finally, Julie Windsor, MD at Talentia Software UK, offers some practical steps to consider: “Employee expectations will also change with time, so brands have to adapt to keep up. Businesses should stay closely on top of trends, such as salary data, but also be aware of the top places to work within an industry and look at what competitors are offering in terms of benefits. Firms should look to advertise HR policies that cater to the types of people they ideally want to attract.”
Investment and innovation
None of this will take place without a closer working relationship between HR and marketing, and in some of the most forward looking organisations we are seeing the appointment of engagement directors to provide this bridge between the two departments.
It also requires investment, and a recognition from HR that its traditional focus on cost-saving is not always helpful to a marketing campaign. And, as Windsor at Talentia notes, successful internal marketing does not end with the efforts of HR and marketing. “For it to truly work, it must be cascaded throughout the organisation at all levels with the full support of an organisation’s senior management team,” she says.
It requires significant investment of time and money together with a smart strategy and an injection of creativity and innovation. Yet, as we have seen, it is an opportunity that few B2B marketers can afford to ignore. As Adams at Disruptive HR concludes: “There is still a huge divide between how employees are treated versus customers. This needs to change.”
