There is a growing trend in business to combine marketing and HR into one department. The two business sections seem totally unrelated. However, lately, I have run into two HR professionals from two entirely different industries that have recently been given the extra responsibility of overseeing marketing for their companies. This is interesting to me because, in helping our clients market their brand, we have found ourselves helping out human resources in their attempt to hire new employees. There are areas where the two disciplines seem like a very odd match. I would not want a creative director parsing through and implementing labor laws as they pertain to benefits. Neither would I want the payroll clerk designing the corporate logo. However, there are some areas where I think it makes sense for the two to be moving ahead together. From my marketing perch, here is where I see synchronized collaboration happening.

The Corporate Brand

For a very long time, I have told our clients that branding is more than your logo printed on everything you own. It is about a culture – a way of doing business – that defines who you are as a business. Your logo is just the visual that represents that culture to the customer. When you are talking about corporate culture, you are talking the language of HR experts. You want to hire people who fit into the culture – or brand – that your leadership has established and is expressed in your marketing efforts.

This gets pushed particularly whenever there is a hiring fair or a trade show. HR is tasked with making contact with potential employees at hiring fairs or other types of meet and greet events. Marketing should be involved in this process to help keep this brand/corporate culture seamlessly connected at these events. Likewise, I don’t think I have ever been to a trade show, with a booth full of marketing and sales professionals, where someone has not enquired about a job (many times this comes from other vendors at these events.) HR needs to direct what happens at these moments.

Social media

Another way that HR and marketing are crossing each other is on social media. Marketing is typically tasked with updating social media sites. They are great for gathering followers wanting to know what is happening in your business. For most social media sites, that includes a fair amount of followers who are looking for a job. Some social media sites, like LinkedIn, were built for job seekers. The listing of open jobs, new hires, promotions, expansions, etc. – all are functions of both HR and marketing.

Charitable and social action

Many companies are getting past just giving charitable funds to a cause. They are challenging their employees to reach beyond business to help tangibly make a difference in great causes. Some are even giving paid time off for their employees to take on a cause that will help the community in which they live and operate. These are opportunities for both HR and marketing. A key to hiring young professionals is corporate social action. They are looking for a place to work that gives them opportunities to make a difference outside of business. Likewise, many customers are looking beyond products and services when making a purchase. There is market share to be gained when a cause is properly marketed. In most organizations, charity outings get tossed to either marketing or HR to implement. The two departments working together can accomplish both employee hiring/retention and customer confidence goals with the same events.

As time goes by, we will see if merging HR and marketing is the new trend for business or just a short-lived experiment. In either case, I think you can make a strong case that the two need to collaborate on the places where they are intersecting each other.