How technology is bridging the gap between HR and marketing

Traditionally, marketing and HR had little in common. Marketers cared most about budgets, products, and consumers (in that order). HR practitioners were interested in future and current employees. But technology and data have bridged the gap between the two worlds. Despite apparent differences between the functions of HR and marketing, the digital world has brought them closer than ever by eliminating differences between employees and consumers. So much so, that businesses should seriously consider hiring their best customers. Here are the reasons:

First, your customers will fit your culture well. Brands reflect a company's reputation, embodying its values and DNA. When consumers are attracted to a company's brand, they will probably identify with its culture too. And cultural fit drives employee engagement, and productivity. When employees share the values of the organisation, work fulfils important psychological needs and motives; and consumers achieve the same when they buy products that align with their idealised self and identity.

Furthermore, since employees are also brand ambassadors – they share both good and bad experiences of the job and the organisations via Glassdoor, LinkedIn and Facebook – engaged employees are an important asset, not only to marketing but the whole organisation. Conversely, if you hire people who have trouble fitting in they will sooner or later be tempted to harm your brand or work for your competitors. And in an age in which brand loyalty is easier to pursue than employee loyalty, marketing is well placed to teach HR about loyalty.

Second, the two keys to successful recruitment are (a) attracting good candidates and (b) assessing their potential. Thanks to technology and digital advertising, marketing departments are now better placed to accomplish these two goals than HR departments. Indeed, most businesses have a strong online presence with consumers, and with it comes the capacity to mine behavioural data that can be translated into valid profiles.

Importantly, these profiles can be used not only to predict consumer behaviours, but also employee performance.

For example, knowing that a person has unconventional preferences and is an early adopter can predict not only their likelihood of buying innovative products, but also their ability to innovate, which would make them suitable for a creative role. Likewise, if companies want to hire emotionally intelligent employees, they could mine consumer transactions that reflect cool-headed and smart purchasing decisions, and refrain from hiring customers who spend a lot of time complaining. However, there is an important caveat: although the same data point may represent an employee and a consumer, the segments and typologies traditionally used in marketing are not always relevant to HR. Marketing can borrow from HR to assess more relevant aspects of human behaviour (eg, the bright and dark side of personality, competencies, and values).

Third, it is clear now that employees want consumer-like experiences. They don't want a job; they want a meaningful career. Money matters less than fun, purpose and work-life balance. Regular climate surveys are conducted to monitor employees' involvement and engagement levels at work – just like sentiment analyses, but of employees rather than brands. And the very future of employees depends not on their qualifications and skills, but their capacity to self-brand.

It seems, then, that marketing departments can play a central role in engaging, managing and developing employees. The businesses revered by consumers will be the best places to work, and being employed by those businesses will strengthen employees' personal brand, which in turn will strengthen the business. Ultimately, marketing is about storytelling, influence and differentiation. But the story of brands is the psychological journey of organisations, and each organisation is its people: their values, ideas, and reputation.

Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is a professor of business psychology at University College London and vice-president of research and innovation at Hogan Assessment Systems. He is co-founder of metaprofiling.com and author of Confidence: Overcoming Low Self-Esteem, Insecurity, and Self-Doubt.

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