How Marketing and Human Resources benefit each other?

An organisation drives itself forward in the market because of the human resource talent within organisation. The various strategies in the marketing departments are made by the staff (human resources) in the department. We can say that the human resources are the core of an organisation. Starting from the entry level blue collar employees to the owner or board of directors of the company, we have people working and making decisions.

If we have the right people working at the right places in the organisation, the organisation grows leaps and bounds.

During my days working in Wipro Ltd., one of the Vice president shared an observation. He said that when an efficient leader leaves the organisation or even if he/ she goes on leaves, the performance of the team in majority of the cases comes down. Now, just imagine, if we have such efficient leaders at all levels in the organisation. This is where the Human Resource function comes in.

Human resource function deals with hiring the right talent for the right position, developing their skills (training them), motivating them and providing mechanisms to ensure that these employees maintain their productive commitment and loyalty towards the organisation.

The biggest mistake that the managers make in organisations is not working in coordination with different departments. The marketing team should share the details of the job openings, requirements and specifications with the Human Resources team regularly. It should also enthusiastically participate in the hiring process to ensure the right resource is hired in the organisation.

Management gurus have been telling this since long that the leaders in the organisation should not be working in silos but collaboratively.

With continuous updates sent to the Human Resource department, the HR team can design effective training sessions for the new hires and non-performing employees in the marketing department.

Marketing and HR both have a common function of influencing and motivating people. Marketers have the opportunity to better understand employee engagement, behaviours, beliefs and challenges when they work alongside the Human resources. This information is very important for the marketing managers when they align or give targets to the sales team members. Understanding the psychology of a tea member is important to understand that employees strengths and weaknesses which directly affects their performance at workplace.

An organisation has to be robust and strong internally before it can start performing externally in the market. The quality of the human resources in an organisation can determine the growth or fall of the organisation. Each organisation has a culture of its own. The expected culture which the leaders wish to cultivate, will be imbibed in the team members only if the information flows freely within the organisation. And this can happen when everyone works collaboratively. There should be transparency in flow of information on performance and behaviour of every employee in the marketing team with the HR team for proper appraisal, monetary benefits, growth, etc. of that employee. Favouritism should be kept aside and employees should be appraised correctly based on performance.

The leaders in both HR and marketing department should acknowledge that they have the same accountability and goals – success of the organisation.

The leaders should realise that there will be conflicts and these should be dealt with proper channel of communication and system. Conflicts should be managed keeping in mind the common goals.

One way of working seamlessly with fewer conflicts together is having clarity on the roles and responsibilities for efficient and effective performance. This way there is less interference and more accountable for the tasks. For any particular issue or information, the assigned employee can reached.

When proper data is shared with the HR team, they can predict when the organisation will need certain managers, executives, etc. with desired skill sets. For example, if the organisation is planning on expanding its operation in next two years, the human resource department should be aware of it. It can work on data to analyse the existing talent within the organisation, how many of them will leave the organisation (retirements, transfers, etc.) and how many need to be hired to suffice the new business needs. Along with the number, the marketing team should also share detailed job details and job specifications for hiring the right candidates.

The Marketers and HR managers should work in coordination for releasing the internal job postings and job openings in the market. Then the panel interviews should include HR a well as the marketing leaders.

Therefor making the internal system and functions of the organisation healthy should be the first priority of the Human Resources and Marketing teams.