You should start with who the HRs are and why do we need them. An HR manager is an employee responsible for recruiting staff for the company. That is, the professionalism of the selected staff and, as a result, the productivity and competitiveness of the company depend on the HR.
The main indicator of a good personnel manager is a constant, qualified staff of employees who have been working in the same company for years and consider it the best in the market.
Therefore, the perfect variant of the work of an HR is when he carries out an inconspicuous scheduled preventive work among the staff, and does not participate in a farce called staff turnover. This is one of those working areas of the enterprise where, the less fuss is there, the better the results are.
The interaction of the three whales of the company: personnel service, sales, and marketing
While the business is still small, all three functions are often performed by the entrepreneur himself. When the owner establishes some kind of production with his sweat and blood, often it is the sales department, that becomes the first independent one. It is these people who bring money to the company, although the marketing and recruitment departments are no less important in the future for the growth and capitalization of the company. I’ll clarify right away that in this case, we are talking about an ordinary entrepreneur who does not attract a third qualified party for the development of the company (marketers, PR specialists, etc.).
Personnel Service VS Marketing Department
If your company has a confrontation between HR and the marketing department, it means that:
- Spheres of influence and responsibility are not distributed between departments
Often, with the company’s dynamic growth, it is difficult to identify the boundaries of the responsibilities of the new staff right away. It leads to the fact that the spheres of influence of individual services begin to intersect. I believe that in this case, the HR service is reaping the benefits because of a lack of professionalism. After all, they have to distribute the areas of responsibility on time, clearly, and most importantly – very tactfully. It is in their power to propose a variant of cooperation between departments (and individuals) so that there are no conflicts.
- Someone’s ambitions are affected
Most often, the human resources department and the marketing department do not arise simultaneously. And sometimes they are headed by the so-called company’s “old-timers”, who work in it for the longest time and are familiar with the specifics of running this business. I know examples when, due to their incompetence in the rules of business development, HRs considered the work of a marketer to be unnecessary and inappropriate (after all, it is not visible!). So, the HR manager in the company I knew was entrusting the marketer with a “bring-give” job, which, naturally, the young specialist did not like. He did his job, which was incomprehensible to an incompetent HR, and he did his best to load the marketer with unnecessary work, which was contrary to the duties and position of an employee of the marketing department.
- One of the experts is misplaced
It happens that marketers blame the human resources department for hiring unskilled employees who “kill” their ideas at different stages of implementation. It happens that sales staff argue with marketers about the correctness of an advertising campaign for a new line of products or services. HRs may not like the fact that other departments stick their noses in the balance of power within the company and are engaged in “not their business.”
Any idea requires human resources for its implementation. Sometimes, departments complain about each other because they don’t want to process it, embodying someone’s idea, and sometimes they simply don’t agree.
The main thing here is to understand that you are one company, and you have common goals – the development of this company. If HR sees himself in the marketing department and can offer a competent case for promoting a new product – why not listen to him. If a sales manager is sure that he can improve the ergonomics of the office – why not give him such an opportunity, etc.
That is why, instead of facing death against each other, isn’t it better to put these efforts to the benefit of the enterprise?
Marketing Department VS Sales Department
The results of the sales department are always clear. But you see, how difficult it is to sell a product or service if they do not meet the client’s requirements. Or, when a product exactly copies the goods or services of competitors, and to offer the customer the best product, the sales manager has to analyze the products of competitors on his own.
These are the issues the marketing department should deal with. But it will also be difficult for marketers to help “salespeople” if they do not provide data on customer reviews and don’t tell how direct communication with consumers takes place. The sales department is the eyes and ears of the company, including the marketing department!
Marketers should also remember it. Without those senses, they are similar to those blind men who, feeling the elephant, gave it various definitions, very far from reality. You can, of course, contemptuously looking at the sales department, order customer research only aside. But I do not think that this is an economically viable solution. And how are marketers going to turn their ideas into money without a sales department?
HR Department VS Sales Department
It would seem what can sales and personnel departments divide among each other? But no. This problem occurs and occurs quite often if there is staff turnover.
Finding the right motivation and effective training is HR’s task. And to put these findings into practice is the task of the head of the sales department. And you must admit, selling a product of a well-known (with the right image) company is much more productive than of a little-known one. It is also the job of HR managers to find ways to create the right company image. It is to find the way. And then … alas, the long-suffering sales department must make an effort not to roll along the track, thinking that “the best is the enemy of the good.”
The best may be the enemy of the good, but HRs must remember that if the results of their work are visible after a while, then the results of the sales department are here and today. Therefore, every day is a battle for them. And each warrior counts. And the payment for their work very often depends on the sold today, and not tomorrow or a year later. This, of course, is a simplified view, but close to the truth. And to feel this, you need to be there, with them on the front line.
Therefore, to summarize all the above, then in one company there is no place for enmity. Each of the departments is equally necessary and important, and most importantly – all of you go under the same flag, under the flag of your company, and must cooperate and interact, doing everything possible for its prosperity!