HR Marketing Basic Principles

A successful HR department never forgets to properly promote its results. It does not forget that it is necessary to communicate the results of major projects correctly and to promote changes in the company through good communication. And that’s what HR Marketing is all about.

The HR Marketing needs several basic principles to be followed by the HRM Function. The function of the HR Marketing needs:

Consistency
Simplicity
Attractiveness
Segmentation

HR Marketing Consistency

The consistency in the HR Marketing is very similar to the promotion of the organization on the general market. The HRM Function must be consistent in the messages sent to the external and internal world. The customers need to hear the same things all the time and the anchors have to stay the same.

No one will trust to the HRM Function, which changes its priorities quickly and the explanation is not sent to the audience. In case of the change of the priorities, the changes have to be always explained and the expectations of the customers can be raised. There is one rule. Do not communicate, when I am not sure what to communicate.

The consistency of the HR Marketing is also about its connection to the other HR Processes, HR Strategy and corporate culture. This makes the job of the HR Marketing staff more difficult, but the customers will take the message more quickly.

Simplicity in HR Marketing

The messages sent by the HR Marketing and HRM Function has to be simple. The customer does not have time enough to go through long documents. The customer looks for the basic principles and the details are not attractive enough to understand to them. There is the HRM Function to help in case of troubles and the HR Marketing has to communicate this way.

The simplification is not about hiding issues from the managers and employees as they will discover potential issues quickly. It is about communication the basic and most important principles and to explain potential benefits from the solution. And the issues have to be communicated as well.

HR Marketing Attractiveness

The attractiveness of the HR Marketing is the main role of the HR Marketing staff. They have to find the interesting points, procedures and policies to communicate. The normal processing stuff is not a message to promote as everyone expects the main procedures and policies work smoothly. There is no interest to hear about the number of salaries processed every month. On the other hand the result of the Performance Appraisals on the high level are a message very attractive to the management of the organization.

HR Marketing Segmentation

The attractiveness is not just about popular messages. It is also about a cute and attractive way of the communication to the target groups. The HR Marketing has to recognize several target groups of the communication and promotion. Generally, the three main target groups for the HR Marketing are:

Top Management
Management
Employees
Candidates

Each of the target groups have a different communication needs and they have to be met by the HR Marketing. Also, the segmentation of the target groups help to filter confidential and sensitive information, which have to be distributed just to the very limited group of employees in the organization.

The segmentation of the audience is the task for the HR Management and the HR Marketing has to strictly follow the defined target groups and to monitor potential changes and needs by different groups. The HR Marketing has to send the information about the need to extend the information access by one target group, when there is a need to do so. By the final decision has to be taken by the HRM Function and HR Management.

The HR Marketing is an evolving part of the HR Processes, but the importance and have an impact on to the results of the HRM Function is really high and the HRM Function should invest its employees to the promotion of the results, procedures and policies.

HR Reports and HR Marketing - How to market results of Human Resources

The HR Reports can have a strategic impact on the organization. But, they have to act as the HR Marketing tool to sell the services and results of the HRM Function. The HR Reports provide the organization with the numbers and trends around its main capital – the human capital of the organization.

The HR Reports can be divided into 3 separate groups:

Ad hoc reports
Regular reports
Strategic Reports

The ad hoc and regular reports are the HRM reports, which are usually getting digitalized as they are standardized and made several times a month usually. Their value added for the organization is not huge; they just show the current status of the organization.

The strategic HR Reports are more important as a tool for the HRM Marketing. The strategic HR Reports are not that common, but they provide the organization with in-depth information about several topic. They are not issued that often and the topic changes in each of the reports. Sometimes, the CEO can ask for making the refresh of the particular HRM Strategic Report.

The Strategic HRM Report is the best place to show the real results of the HRM Function in the HR Processes with the value added. The HRM Reporting Specialist has to collect all the data and make the first analysis of the data to show the drivers in the organization. The HR Reporting Specialist should cooperate with the specialized expert area in the HRM Function to identify the basic causes for the development in human capital.

When the basic data are gathered and identified, the common team of the HR Reporting Specialist, expert area member and the HRM Marketing guy should start the search for the number, which can be sold to the organization as the number to be promoted.

The HRM Marketing guy is usually able to find the most important number, which is better than the numbers at the competitors (compared with the external competition and reported in benchmark surveys). But, the HRM Marketing can also sell the positive development in some key measures from the last report and find the correct drivers for such a change. When there is no possibility to find a driver behind, then it is better not promote the number as employees will not understand the logics behind.

The role of the HRM Marketing is not to drive and manage the HR Reporting, but the results of the HR Reporting have to be used as the main source for the selling effort of the HRM Marketing to make employees believe in the uniqueness of the organization.

HR Marketing in Internal Communication

HR Marketing has one big advantage. It can use the channels of the internal communication and it is not limited just to the internal communication, it can work as a public relation moreover as a promotion agency on the external market.

The HR Marketing has to be focused more internally as the real success of the HRM Function is measured internally and the external success is taken a nice extra in the final evaluation. HR Marketing has many communication tools to use, but the most important internal ones are:

Workshops
HR Reports
Meetings
Black Boards
Presentations
Emails

The HRM Function is about emails. HR Marketing should avoid using the emails whenever it is possible to do so. The HR Marketing should use managerial and employee workshops to announce the most important messages from Human Resources. The HR Marketing is not making an announcement of long reports, the HR Marketing reports one big number and provides the “right” explanation to it.

The HR Reports are a great communication channel. The HRM Function tends to present reports as just facts and figures. The HR Marketing way is to make one more sheet with highlights and sell the results achieved. It works excellent.

The worst communication channel to use is the email. The email is quick, but no one reads the messages sent. The people tend to avoid email as much as possible. The real HR Marketing uses the email as a supplementary tool for its activities, but it is not the main channel to be used.

HR Marketing and Job Career Fairs

The job career fairs are the best tools to improve the position of the organization on the job market. The main purpose of the job career fairs is to attract the young and fresh university graduates. The organizations try to show the full potential of the career with the organization and the graduates? They usually do not know exactly, what they should ask for.

The Job Career Fair Target Group

The job career fairs are an excellent HR Marketing tools as the graduates are asked to vote for the best employer and they usually tend to select the company with the most sexy presentation during the job career fair.

As they have no exact idea about the best employer, they are a very nice target for the HR Marketing guys. The organization, which invests most time to the preparation of the presentation and selects excellent presenters, takes all. The graduates like to have fun and they are bored by very detailed numbers generally.

The HR Marketing has to follow the promotion trends on the market. The admired companies and their product promotion for youngsters is a good example to be inspired. The graduates are used to these communication styles and they will be quickly very familiar with them.

How to raise the attention at the Job Career Fair

The young and fresh university graduates love quick things, which are colorful, but still with a simple message inside. The message of being the best employer will work better than the explanation of the economic background and the stability of the organization.

The young graduates are not interested in detailed information. The world is about the speed, the presentation has to be quick as well. It is the role of the HR Marketing to find the most important aspect, which are attractive for the graduates and the presenters have to repeat them for several times.

HR Marketing Section Contents

HR Marketing:

Basic HR Marketing Principles

Social Media:

Gamification of Human Resources:

Gamification