HR evaluation in marketing and advertising business



Some business owners are wondering why the need to spend money to manage personnel?  Their business has everything required for success: production facilities, offices, investments etc.  But those business owners usually forget that all this will not work without competent personnel.

It often happens that a company hires competent professionals with a solid education and necessary experience, but the work is still not done properly.  What is the reason?  Well, one of the possible in answers is “The work is not organized in the proper way.” Even the best professionals may not show their top performance if they are not satisfied with working conditions, organization climate, training and coaching sessions etc.

So, human resource management should be given due attention.  At the same time, as any business unit, human resource department should be evaluated in order to track its progress to implementation of strategic goals.  Many successful companies are using balanced scorecard system to measure performance and link operational in strategic management.  One of the biggest mistakes is that human resource measures and goals conflict with the general strategy of the company, its mission and values.

In advertising and marketing human resource management plays an important role.  For this reason evaluation of HR performance in this business area is imperative.  As known, balanced scorecard measures business performance through evaluation of key performance indicators.  In case of HR in advertising and marketing we can talk about such indicators as:

  1. Staff turnover costs.  It is not a secret that a talented marketing specialist or an advertising agent made earn good money for the company, even millions of dollars.  Marketing is about correct positioning and promotional product in the market, and marketing specialists need to understand demands and desires of customers.  Thus, in case of a high turnover staff rate of the company will spend too much to hire new specialists.  These costs would include recruitment costs, advertising expenses, costs related to interviews.  High staff turnover rate is a negative indicator for any business.  But unlike other business areas, as already said above, it is not easy to find a good advertising and marketing specialist.  By keeping this indicator as low as possible HR department makes sure that employees are satisfied with working conditions, their compensation and bonuses, and that’s why they are not leaving the company.  In such a way both company and personnel benefit.
  2. Recruitment without advertising or outsourcing.  Advertising and marketing company should create such a positive image of an excellent employer so that the best specialists and professionals will look for employment was such a company by themselves.  This is an indicator of an excellent HR performance.  In such a way, HR department does not spend anything to hire an employee.  Savings costs may be used to educate such an employee and help him integrate into the company.  Besides, if potential employees are seeking employment with the advertising company it signals about positive organization climate and excellent public image of such an employer.
  3. Travel costs per employee. Advertising and marketing specialists are often visiting various exhibitions, meetings, forums, fares and other places where they can set contacts with existing and potential customers.  The value of this indicator needs to be optimized and kept as low as possible.