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Friday 1 November 2013

Employer Branding or why HR & Marketing should be friends

Once upon a time the Marketing department were in complete charge of a companies brand.  They designed, produced and communicated it, jumping on those who used the wrong colour combo, logo size or typeface and all was well with the world.

The HR team incorporated what they needed into job descriptions and internal policy documents, occasionally visiting the branding gurus for promotional products and event invites.  Everyone was happy.  Companies told us what we should think of them and we, in the main, believed it.

Skip forward a decade and social media has changed the game.  Now the fight is on not just to attract customers, but to engage the best talent in the market and this means that employers are having to work hard to prove themselves different and desirable through employer branding.

Proctor and Gamble are doing a great job here with their dedicated site experiencepg.com and consistent brand messaging on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.

You see, future employees can now use social media to test company and recruiter claims, checking that the vision they're being sold, matches the reality of current employees.  What people think, feel and share about your company as a place to work, is now a fundamental part of HR and Marketing strategy, so it's about time these teams started sitting together at lunch.

Of course, for employer branding to work it needs to truly differentiate a company from its competitors and be measurable. Without the Marketing team this won't be possible, but without HR, there will be no-one in the marketing team ......


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