Aligning Marketing and HR to Support Recruitment and Retention
Aligning Marketing and HR to Support Recruitment and Retention
The relationship between marketing and human resource teams is vital to the success of a company. With so many ways for the two teams to collaborate, the most recent TMA roundtable sought to answer the questions of where to start and what effective collaboration between the two teams would look like.
During the October TMA roundtable, TMA board member and Chief Marketing Officer of LogRhythm, Cindy Zhou, presented on the relationship between marketing and HR alongside her LogRhythm colleagues, Melissa Garza, Chief People Officer, and Mandy Schnirel, Senior Director of Growth Marketing.
“The relationship between marketing and HR doesn’t just happen,” stated Garza ”there has to be intentionality there on both sides. I think that if you are going to try and bolster that relationship, both parties need to come to the table and understand their expectations for one another and how they want the relationship to work.”
Recruitment
Recruitment is much more successful as a team effort from the whole company. Working together, marketing and HR can make recruitment easy by leveraging social media and shareable posts. LogRhythm points to their use of the social advocacy platform Bambu as a way to get the whole company engaged in recruitment. Through Bambu, the marketing team is able to create social media posts for open job postings that employees can personalize, helping to engage the whole company. Internal referrals are another great way to recruit, offering a monetary bonus as an incentive. Zhou explained how “making it super easy and simple for people to engage will up your chances of getting an internal referral.” Through these tactics, the marketing team is able to give increased visibility to positions that have been hard to fill and promote referrals in the process.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I) initiatives are vital to an inclusive workplace.. While the focus on DE&I should be internal, it is important for companies to demonstrate transparency, allowing prospects to understand how it fits into the company culture. At LogRhythm, Garza writes a quarterly blog for the company’s website and social media discussing how LogRhythm works in line with its DE&I values. LogRhythm also promotes its values in a monthly email written by an executive member of the DE&I team. The email features messaging supporting cultural awareness, celebration, and broader DE&I topics.
To include DE&I in the hiring process, LogRhythm ensures that the language of the job posting is inclusive. Coming up with the right language for the post can be challenging, but Garza suggests that organizations “be intentional about the language and make sure that you’re mindful and paying attention to what you are doing.”
LogRhythm also promotes DE&I values through their intern program. The program focuses on employing underrepresented groups, giving them experience in the security industry. During the internship program, interns are matched with selected mentors from other departments and receive face time with LogRhythm executives.
Conferences and Speaking Engagements
Including HR in conferences and speaking engagements is a great way to get others to understand what goes into finding talent and supporting employee retention. Zhou suggests that “for all of the conferences in your industry, think about if there is an end goal here that you can use to engage your HR team to help you.” Analyzing the industry and seeing where HR can fit into the picture to help the most is a great strategy that benefits all involved. For example, Garza was able to speak about recruitment and retention within the security industry at LogRhythm’s Rhythm World 2021 conference.
Awards and Review Responses
Collaborating with HR on the response to Glassdoor reviews and workplace awards can also help to promote a positive perception of the company. Together, marketing and HR departments can strategically respond to both positive and negative reviews on Glassdoor or similar platforms to create responses that best reflect the company. Zhou explained part of LogRhythm’s approach to company reviews, saying “we partner very closely with the HR team to kinda say ‘these are what we want to respond to, how do we respond?’”
Prestigious workplace awards are another great way to get people interested in a company when looking for jobs. Together, marketing and HR can apply for the awards and advertise their success.
Overall, the relationship between marketing and HR teams must be nurtured and grown over time. Together, the two teams can become a vital tool for the company, working together to create a more talented and accomplished organization.