Marketing for HR / HR for Marketing: techniques for driving success

FWB Park Brown recently co-hosted an evening seminar with Standard Life plc and CBI Scotland for an audience of over 80 senior HR and Business Leaders.

Chaired by Scott Black (FWB Park Brown and President, Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce), with panellists Stephen Ingledew (Managing Director Marketing, Standard Life Plc), Dawnne Mahmoud (People Director Pensions & Savings, Standard Life Plc) and Professor Susan Murphy (Chair in Leadership Development, University of Edinburgh Business School), the discussion focussed on the shared learning between Marketing and Human Resources in driving commercial success through both customer and employee engagement.

Standard Life Plc, one of the UK’s leading FTSE100 companies, and one of the largest financial services companies in Europe, opened their doors and shared their experiences of their own journey of increasing collaboration between Marketing and Human Resources, which they believe fundamentally underpins business success. There’s often a perceived conflict between the two, particularly around which has primacy: customers or employees. Yet both have a complimentary focus which is crucial to the bottom line – the acquisition and retention of customers, and the acquisition and retention of employees.

Standard Life have recognised that the tenets that drive modern marketing strategy are by no means exclusive, and in fact are equally applicable to achieving a more engaged workforce: “Marketing is not solely for Marketeers”. Stephen and Dawnne outlined what they termed their ‘Seven Steps to Heaven’, based around shared themes of data, proposition, communication, skills, ways of working, technology and measurement.

Professor Susan Murphy of the University of Edinburgh wound up the discussion and provided some extremely useful insights around the impact on HR and the wider workforce of a new generation of employees (‘Generation Z’) entering the workplace.