What is the first thing job seekers see when looking for a job? Employer brand and work culture.
What is the first thing customers see when signing a contract or buying a product? Company brand and user review.
What is the most important and influential strategy to drive sales and engage people? To prioritise customers and focus on one’s brand.
No matter who you want to try to reach out to – consumers, clients, or candidates – company brand always plays a vital role. Workplace futurist Jeanne Meister described that employer brand is not only about touching the heart of the internal team, but also influence the marketing department. The objective here is to create one employer brand which provides a seamless experience for current employees, potential employees, and eventually, consumers. This concept is what Meister called “Consumerisation of HR”.
See also: Key Questions to Measure Employer Branding KPI
Consumerisation of HR requires companies to think holistically about choices they make, for both customers and employees, as well as creating a consistent and immersive experience with the company. By implementing and focusing your business to consumerisation, companies can remain competitive in attracting, recruiting, and retaining top talents and loyal consumers.
In Reimagining Talent Acquisition study, researchers found that collaboration between HR and marketing in reviewing employer brand strategy happened in fewer than one-third (27 percent) of companies, with high-performance organisations are six-times more likely to have this partnership in place. These companies implementing the partnership see a constant benefit for employees, consumers, and potential employees.
In marketing, the department could share the brand message more efficiently and effectively to employees through training sessions, evaluations, and employee orientations. This collaboration helps spread and communicate a brand message through internal communication, thus, helping internal staff to actually understand and have one mission regarding the brand. Hence, employees can be better brand advocates and brand ambassadors which will strengthen the marketing department’s mission of spreading a brand message to consumers.
On the other hand, the HR department in this collaboration can benefit from helping promote values and mission of the company. Through this promotion, HR can attract potential employees and hire the best talents possible. HR departments can also count internal employees to communicate with potential talents as internal workers already understand and know how to communicate employer brand in the most understandable way.
Read also: The Importance of Employee Advocacy & How to Win It
