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July 22, 2006
Blogswap Week Two: Bringing Branders and HR Professionals Together
The second blogswap posting comes courtesy of Beth N. Carvin of Nobscot Corporation.
Let me introduce myself. My name is Beth N. Carvin. I am president and CEO of Nobscot Corporation, the developer of WebExit, exit interview management system. My background is in Human Resources, Recruiting, Business Management and Entrepreneurship. I am not an expert in branding.
Today, thanks to experts like David Kippen, there is a lot of information available to HR professionals on employment branding. There is one problem though and that is that the HR people aren't listening. In this guest post I'd like to explore the top three reasons why HR isn't getting the message and see if we can help get the branding experts and those who can benefit from branding together.
Reason 1: Branding is a long term strategy; HR is short term focused
Employment branding is something that takes time to develop. You can't snap your fingers and have your employment brand in place in the minds of your potential recruits. HR professionals are generally stuck dealing with the here and now. Like the CEO who is forced by Wall Street to focus on short term results, HR professionals are forced by the demands of their constituency to focus on short term needs. To work in HR is to be constantly tugged in multiple directions. Just to keep up with the daily demands and urgent requests takes more hours in a day than are available. It's difficult to carve out extra time for projects and therefore this time is saved for projects that are most likely to produce immediate results.
Just as it takes a courageous CEO to buck the analysts and do what is best for the long term success of the company it takes an exceptional HR Director to fend off the tigers (demanding managers) to prioritize and balance the short and long term needs of the company.
Reason 2: Branding experts speak in Marketing-ese
Employment branding is a concept that was borrowed from the Marketing Department. Branding experts generally come from a marketing background. In Marketing, branding is defined as, "the sum total of a company's value proposition: products, services, people, advertising, positioning, and culture." While the concept has been adapted for HR, the language has not been. In HR, one learns to become a very practical communicator. Much like a journalist, the HR representative must speak and write clearly and simply. She must adapt her language so that it is comprehensible to the lowest common denominator. Marketers on the other hand are more like poets. They speak and write abstractly about concepts and ideas. For marketers it's about imagination and possibilities. Can you see the disconnect between these two communication styles?
For employment branding to really take off as it should, it is going to require a new, common language between marketing and human resources. One that shares the best of both communication methods.
Reason 3: Branders have not communicated the WIIFM to HR
Good sales people are trained to make sure that prospects can always answer the question - "What's in it for me?" In this case, the prospects are the HR professionals and as noted in Reason 1 above, they are already swamped with daily work and projects. For them to carve out the time necessary to realize, market and manage their employment brand, they need to be absolutely clear on what's in it for them. When I chatted recently with a group of HR people on an online forum, I asked them about employment branding. The overwhelming majority said that they could not see how having a strong employment brand would help them meet their goals. The consensus was that simply "selling the company" to applicants was easier and equally effective. Others saw employment branding as an ego booster for the CEO but of little help for them.
So where does all of this leave us? We have a concept and strategy that may help to revitalize HR departments and allow them to stay ahead of the pack in the war for talent but currently those who can utilize it are not listening. We need to get the HR folks and the Employment Branders together and help them understand each other a little better than they do right now. I'm betting that the experts like David Kippen and TMP can make this happen.
Posted by davidkippen at July 22, 2006 08:20 PM
Comments
One key part of this that I post on my blog is that the time has come to learn that HR cannot be everything to everyone. I agree with the Long term vs Short term and I firmly believe that you need to make a distinction between operational HR vs Strategic. Different skills are needed and in my last role I appointed an ex marketeer who had a passion for getting the best out of people. Her role was to think long term, understand the business and sell HR to the business. Coaching the HR team on how to sell what they do. An outcome was a very strong employment brand.....
Posted by: Anna Farmery at July 23, 2006 07:31 AM
Those are great points that you make, Anna.
I think it would do a world of good if HR people went through sales training much the way third party recruiters do.
Posted by: B. N. Carvin at July 24, 2006 05:19 PM