Human resources (HR) is a vital department of every business, but it can have some surprising roles outside of managing employee relations, hiring and onboarding, managing benefits and training employees. One of these is supporting public relations efforts. Here are five ways collaboration with HR can improve your company’s PR.
1. Better support for internal and external communication
Whether you have an internal HR department or outsource HR work to another company, such as a PEO solution organization, that team can facilitate better support for communication within your company and with external groups or individuals. This is because HR and PR both rely heavily on good communication. HR and PR teams that collaborate well can ensure that all internal and external communication is aligned in style and branding while being suitable for its intended audience.
2. Company culture development
While PR teams are responsible for promoting company culture and product or service launches, HR teams are the ones responsible for developing that culture and ensuring the right people are in the right roles to successfully develop those products and services and make them available to customers. Your PR and HR teams can collaborate to create and market a compelling, healthy, inclusive company culture and to show employees that your company is committed to growth, work-life balance and supporting your employees.
3. Improved core value promotion
HR is the home of information about your company’s core values. By collaborating with your PR team, your HR team can promote those core values more easily. A company’s core values are often left at the beginning of that company’s code of conduct or employee handbook and can easily fall by the wayside. When your HR team works with your PR team to promote them, core values become more visible in your company culture and more present in the minds of your employees, customers and prospective employees and customers. This, in turn, strengthens your company’s commitment to those values and your customers’ faith in your company to uphold them.
4. Stronger, more cohesive branding
Nowhere is PR more important than when you’re promoting your company branding to the world at large. Your brand provides the basis for people’s perception of your company and is, therefore, one of the most important building blocks of your reputation. Your PR team should rely on your HR team to build and maintain a strong community and workplace culture within your company. Your HR team can also provide your PR team with important information about the best avenues to use to reach customers and what types of tools and messaging are best suited for which audiences.
5. Improved recruitment and retainment
Part of the importance of PR is to generate interest in working for your company. PR employees are focused on making sure your reputation is positive not only in your customers’ and prospects’ minds but also in the minds of prospective employees. Because HR is focused on employee hiring, onboarding and relations, your HR team will have many resources available to help your PR team make sure that you have a good reputation with that audience. HR can make sure your PR team has the most up-to-date information on compensation, benefits, open positions and company culture. The HR team can also ensure that interested applicants can be matched to the jobs they’re best suited for or most interested in, further strengthening your good reputation with potential employees.
Final thoughts
Your HR team should have an awareness of every other department at your company and how those departments work together in order to successfully manage each department and employee’s relations with the rest of the company. This knowledge means HR teams are an important support for PR.
