I read the other day that HR and marketing have become “the new power couple” of today.
I found myself asking aloud, “How can HR and marketing be considered the new power couple in 2019?”
It seemed strange to me that this idea was being promoted as something new, as HR and marketing have been collaborating for decades to drive business success.
In fact, professor Dave Ulrich stated back in 1988 that “HR is not about HR, but about helping a company win in the marketplace.”
While the concept of HR and marketing working together has been around since the 80s, it’s still incredibly relevant today, as the two functions are crucial in attracting and retaining top talent, building brand reputation, and driving business growth.
I have been integrating HR and marketing since 1994 when I began my career as an HR consultant working on restructuring and transforming loss-making companies operating in highly unionised environments.
Feeding HR with the Wrong Food
It’s hard to believe that someone would try to “reinvent the wheel” when the best HR concepts, books, and studies from world-class scholars have been available for the past 30 years.
It seems that many HR professionals have not taken the time to explore and understand this concept of integration between HR and marketing, which continues to hinder business success today.
The HR Transformation Challenge – Rethinking HR from Basic Functions to Strategic Visionary
For too long, HR has been limited to basic functions such as personnel, recruitment, and employee relations. But to truly drive business growth and success, HR needs to transform into a more strategic and visionary role. Unfortunately, as long as expectations remain low, HR will continue to remain closed and inwardly-focused, neglecting key interactions with other functions like marketing, sales, quality assurance, and more.
No wonder many companies struggle with employee engagement and performance when their HR departments lack adequate business acumen. It’s critical for HR to step up and become more agile and responsive to the challenges of today’s business environment.
The role of HR needs to evolve from its traditional focus on basic functions to a more strategic and visionary role in order to drive business growth and success. This includes integrating and engaging knowledge, skills, and efforts across all business functions to deliver higher performance and growth.
HR professionals with strong business acumen are essential for companies to cultivate an agile and responsive HR function that can effectively engage employees and meet business goals.
Today, HR must play a strategic role in driving growth by identifying and supporting emerging opportunities to keep the organisation competitive.
HR must be proactive in enabling employees to catch those opportunities and deliver maximum value to the business, staying ahead of the competition.