Marketing skills for HR Professionals
Branding, value proposition, internal marketing plans; these words do not commonly roll off the tongues of HR professionals. This is the kind of language one hears in a first year marketing class not in the HR department. According to HRM Canada and the Harvard Business Review (HBR) HR professionals better listen and read up on the importance of employee branding in recruitment success.
HRM Canada provides a short video clip on the benefits of employment branding.
Click here to watch the video clip.
According to HRM Canada employment branding gives your company:
- A competitive advantage
- A recruitment marketing plan
- An employee value proposition
Employment Branding has the goal of becoming a magnet to the potential employee. Isn’t branding just fancy jargon for recruitment? The research is saying no.
Where is the HR Department for all of this activity? Well, the research is showing it is not leading the charge. According to HBR 60% of CEO’s state that developing an employee value proposition belongs to C-suite, not HR. Also, since social media is now becoming a strong influence over recruitment, organization’s marketing departments are taking more and more responsibility for employee branding.
Click here to read an article on employment branding.
HR Departments have been fighting the image of being a transactional department and are striving to become a strategic business partner. Employee branding and recruitment are fundamental activities and HR should be front and centre leading these activities. Perhaps it is time for HR Departments to step up and dust of those first year marketing textbooks.
Discussion Questions
- Research what the core elements of an employment branding program are.
- In a large organization, who do you think should be responsible for employee branding? How do you support your opinion?
- Research a company that is a leader in employee branding. What did they do to get that kind of recognition?