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A question that seems to be popping up more and more in the minds of recruiters and general HR leadership is, "Why should branding be important to HR manager? I work in HR, not marketing."

In proposing answer to this question, one must admit that just a few short years ago, answer would have been significantly more limited than it is today, in that branding in HR has traditionally been limited to the employment function. But while employment branding has always been a topic of great interest to many leading recruiting professionals, the importance of mastering the concepts and skills behind branding have much greater implications for HR professionals in the "new economy".

A Shared Responsibility is Arising

It is no secret that success in business relies upon excellence in execution. While corporate leaders have historically looked to other functions, such as product development, marketing and sales, to drive corporate success, today more and more eyes are looking to HUMAN RESOURCE for help.

The reason for this new-found reliance on HR stems from a decrease in the effectiveness of the traditional levels marketing organizations used to differentiate a firm and their products. Marketers have traditionally used "the 4 P's" (product, price, position and promotion) to set the products of their firm apart from those of the competitors in the market place. However, in the new economy, product features, pricing and positioning become almost irrelevant as competitors can now mimic and upstage your efforts in very short periods of time.

While this development forces marketing to become more and more branding oriented, it also forces corporate attention on other avenues that can be used to establish and maintain a corporate brand in the marketplace.

Most corporate leaders and professional marketers now admit that one of the few (if not the only) channels left to communicate the corporate brand to customers is the employee, and the customer experience they are capable of providing. Customer service is a factor that is largely influenced by the quality of the workforce, which in turn is largely influenced by the quality of recruiting and workforce management systems developed and maintained by HR.

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* Contributed by: -
Lalith Kumar Vemali,
B.E. (Electrical & Electronics) from St. Theressa Institute of Engineering & Technology, Vizianagaram, A.P.,
Currently pursuing PGDBA Programme from ICFAI Business School, Bangalore.