HR’s role as tomorrow’s marketers
If I can mix my metaphors, that old chestnut, ‘HR on the Board’ has bubbled to the surface once again. The argument from various commentators is that, as we begin to exit the recession, HR stands front & centre as the professional discipline best placed to advise the Board on how to make the most of existing ‘Human Capital’, and where to make the cuts. No argument there, but is that a reason in itself for HR to have a seat reserved at the top-table long-term? I think not.
Dona Roche-Tarry’s article at the Management Issues blog makes the point that part of HR’s role is to “take the pulse of the organisation”. This too is fine, but to what end? Management information on human resourcing is of course crucial, particularly for people-based services businesses. However, some of that information also has the potential to be deployed in the marketplace, to shift market opinion and to tell the market more about the organisation. It’s all a question of HR strengthening its market-orientation, and this is the point I am making in my response to Dona’s article:
HR has been fighting for top-table recognition for years, and it is happening, albeit very slowly. Whilst I accept to a certain extent the argument that, post-recession, the spotlight may fall upon HR as the owners of human capital, Dona touches upon something of even greater importance – the increasingly crucial interconnection between the Marketing and HR disciplines, – but doesn’t quite get the point across.
The point is that, as advanced economies become increasingly service-oriented, people ARE the product. Businesses rely increasingly for success upon selling competence, professionalism, capability, intellect, confidence, trust, etc. In hyper-competitive global markets where traditional product or service differentiation has very limited shelf-life and few products or services remain unique for any length of time, people, with their inherent personalities, traits, characteristics, values and operating ethos make the difference between ‘me too’ and ‘unique’ in the marketplace. (see www.connoptix.com/thefourthgimbal) The question is how to understand, then shape, then articulate these potential differentiators.
In the future, I believe HR reps will only be taken seriously at the top-table if they can speak the language of the marketplace and work with marketers and brand managers to get the ‘Human Capital’ message across to the marketplace. This means deploying tools and techniques which support the translation of the important ‘touchy feely’ stuff into hard & fast marketable attributes, rather than hiding behind the lame and well-worn excuse that executives don’t take softer attributes of human capital management seriously enough. Show the executives genuine, people-based differentiating attributes and they’ll sit up and listen!
Some of the best businesses already embrace the HR discipline at executive level, and welcome its input in good times and in bad. Why? Because those HR professionals have taken the time to understand more about the dynamics of the business, and the business-wide impact of their staffing/training/rewards recommendations, rather than focusing purely on the operational imperatives of the HR silo.
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