Deliver your promises.
Supposing, based on your customer input, the HR department needs to improve its customer service and supportiveness. This might require hiring more employees, empowering the receptionist to make decisions, or conducting team-building sessions. Customers want you to be more responsive.Caudron recommends that since forging your new identity means delivering a promise, you must ensure that the staff, practices and systems in your department all work to support the goal of customer service. Staff your department with people who are easy to work with and who who are willing go the extra mile for line managers. Deliver what you promise in your mission statement.
Update your image.
Few consumer products are packaged without a distinctive logo and type of packaging. Can you imagine mistaking a can of Pepsi for a can of Coca-Cola? A bottle of Coors for a Bud Light? These companies understand that the look of their products communicates powerful messages to consumers.The same applies to HR. If your HR department has made substantial improvements and changes, then you can use the packaging as a means of communicating those improvements to others. Develop a separate logo for your HR department, if you’d like, that expresses your mission, your commitment to customers, and your goals. The most important packaging piece, however, is the HR department itself.
If you want your HR brand to deliver the message of quality service, ensure that visitors to the department get what they need, with no hassle, friction, or needless hoops to navigate. You can spend millions of dollars redesigning your department and developing a logo, but if the people in HR are impossible to deal with, you have accomplished nothing in the eyes of your organization.
Spread the word.
After you have determined your identity, created a system in which you can consistently deliver on your promises, and packaged the HR department in a manner that conveys improvements, Caudron suggests it is time to "toot your horn."For example, if you want human resources perceived as a strategic partner, take the time to quantify the strategic impact of a recent HR program or decision. Communicate this impact in board meetings, through your organization's newsletter, your web site or Intranet, or by developing special HR performance reports. The key objective, for positive notoriety, is to back up the overall message with hard data and specific success stories.
Enhance your visibility.
Another good marketing technique for HR, not only inside your organization, but also to the human resources world at large, is to publish articles in magazines and speak at HR seminars or conferences. This validates the internal changes you have made and may capture the attention and interest of your management group.You can heighten this visibility within your organization by including the program-specific managers and employees in the article or at the conference podium with you. Professionals love hearing from "real people" and they will spread the good word for you in your organization.
Continuously improve. Keep on keeping on.
Just as in the business world, where companies have to continuously review, revisit, and update their brands to meet customers' changing needs, so this advice applies to HR.In the rapidly changing world of business, the HR profession must regularly be willing to make tough decisions about what it will and will not stand for. Every HR professional can craft initiatives using the same toolbox. The best will try new things, challenge conventional wisdom, and ask more questions more often.
With careful attention to forging an identity, your HR department can learn to provide what your internal and external customers expect. Your organization will love you and your HR staff members will take their place as "players," making a difference in the real world of your organization. Your positive HR department brand and reputation will support all you want to achieve.
