I am sure in a former life I was a marketer. That’s why I am so delighted to see that HR and marketing finally go hand in hand in today’s organisations. We just have to take a look: Marketing is the company talking to the external customer and HR is the company talking to the internal customer. Marketing defines the Customer Experience model and HR does it with the Employee Experience model. Inbound Marketing attracts customers and Inbound Recruitment attracts candidates. Marketing designs the Customer Journey and HR designs the Employee Journey. Marketing’s traditional 4 Ps (Pricepoint, Placement, Promotion, Product) match with the 4 pillars of HR strategy (C&B, workplace, career path, HR portfolio). And this list goes on and on.
It is crystal clear that HR teams are no longer that bunch of boring people trapped in theories and sitting at their desks launching meaningless tools, written in a language that nobody understands (even if they come with a training session). Finally, HR specialists left the back office behind to work on operations, together with their customer, to find solutions for their needs (and, most times, to create those solutions together with the customer him/herself). No doubt this is a much more agile, sexy, customer focused approach. And much more rewarding.
I have just realised it is quite usual that, even if HR departments have changed their mindset, they need to redesign their image for the internal customer. Great. Marketing here can also be a big help.
Mireia Martin is an absolute knowmad and the alma mater of Iconista, the branding agency behind personal brands such as Cesc Fabregas or Alex Corretja. Iconista also works for international corporations such as Nike, Heineken or Danone. I’ve had the pleasure of working with her to construct my own brand in a deeply inspiring process.
A couple of weeks ago, Mireia and I got philosophical and came up with an idea: Why not create a quick, easy format where we could mix good branding methodology with some hints of open innovation to help HR experts redesign their own brand as a department?
So, what happens when you put a branding expert and a People & Organisation shaker together? They create a workshop which opens the marketing side of each HR specialist! If you find this idea interesting, stay tuned! We will keep you posted!
