Suzanne Elshult sponsors live round tables for senior marketing and human resources executives and offers executive / professional coaching and virtual learning opportunities for leaders, business owners, consultants and coaches committed to growth and high performance.

It is not always easy to know where marketing ends and where HR starts and vice versa. For HR and marketing executives to not run into each other takes a commitment to coordinate, communicate and collaborate. The bottomline question is: what is good for the company, not what is good for HR or Marketing. The main focus for executives should be on representing the company, not their own functional goals and interests. Here are some ideas for how HR can help Marketing brainstormed in my joint Marketing/HR Executive Roundtable a few weeks ago:

• Help recruit employees that reflect the community that Marketing is trying to target (for example Spanish customer service reps needed before marketing to the Latino community)
• Partner to help communicate marketing initiatives to employees in advance of launch
• Connect and work together regularly; reporting to the same executive helps
• Work together to collect survey data from employees
• Find ways to make sure the customer story and brand is reflected in human resources training/communication/orientation
• Make sure new recruits are a cultural fit to the brand
• Help with the details of the big picture; fill in the blanks
• Combat turfism together; sit at the same table on strategic initiatives
• Have employees help with tradeshow booth, to learn about the event/tradeshow and the products featured
• Bring customers to employee meetings to help convey brand positioning and customer perspective
• Help with consistency in communications – inconsistency is the enemy of authenticity
• Use employees to evangelize the brand in whatever ways you can think of

In my next post, we will explore how Marketing can help HR.

Question: What kind of leader are you? As a member of the executive team, do you represent your own functional interests or those of the overall organization? Or both?

For more information on Executive Coaching please visit http://www.hrnow.net/coach.htm. Suzanne has two blogs: http://hrnow.net and http://hrundercover.com/ (we want your workplace stories).